Can I see any gains lifting one day a week?

[Lovesong]

First of all, I looked over the stickies and didn't see any mention of lifting just one day a week.

I train bjj 5-6 times a week. To lift more than one day a week I'd have to give up a bjj class. Even if I did give up a class to lift more, I'm pretty sure I'd be begging for overtraining, because I'm already pushing it as it is.

I'm very new to compound lifts, as I've never seriously lifted before in my life. My more knowledgeable training partner has me doing 5 sets of 5 reps on squats, then deadlifts, and then bench on my workout day.

So basically I'm only doing 3 excersises once a week. Granted I can defintely tell I worked out for the next couple days, can I realistically expect to see some sort of results from such sparse training? Or am I just wasting my time?

 

[Feature boy]

Yes, you can make gains training only once a week.

 

[Ian Coe]

I only do one motion a week (1 day squats and/or pulling, other day pushing and DE pulling) and do fine

 

[feezy]

Yep, one day a week of compounds is still a good program.

 

[Henry Swanson]

If I could only train once a week I'd probably end up overdoing it.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Try fitting in a workout 2X per week and you'll see much better results.

 

[PhxJudoJujitsu]

Once a week is better than 0 times a week.

 

[Henry Swanson]

I have trained once per week in the past and I found I got into that mindset that I had to destroy myself in the gym in order to make any sort of gains.

Be careful not to fall into that trap. Train hard but don't try to overcompensate too much.

 

[JoeU1741]

You can make good gains only training one day a week, but when you're starting out, it is actually beneficial to train more often on basic lifts, as your body becomes more effecient at doing them (similar to learning techniques in BJJ I guess).

 

[PussInBoots]

you'll see some gains, but 2x a week is` definately better.

 

[DEVILsSON]

Yes yes you can...I did it for years. Point to focus on is heavy compound exercises.

I figured out the following as it applied to me:

I can make gains or keep stable in strength if I do squats once every 2 weeks, deadlift eveyr 3 weeks, and ohp/bench/chin every week....i did 1-3rm most of the time....in those lifts....worked fine....also did a couple sets of higher RE sets....

 

[zerom13]

I remember reading this article in men's health bout 7 yrs back..anyway it said that the diff between training 1 day a week as opposed to a normal 3 day program was much less than expected.

So training 1 day, as long as its of decent intensity is ok.

 

[Brad Morris]

Yes you can make gains and I agree with DEVILsSON,

Point to focus on is heavy compound exercises

I changed my heavy squats and heavy deads around each week and don't forget about exercises like the clean and press a great full body workout!

 

[SmashiusClay]

Once a week is better than 0 times a week.

PhxJudoJujitsu drops science once again on these poor fools.

 

[Mark Limbaga]

You need to consider that you might make more progress overall if you balance s&c with skill as well and not put too much focus on skill alone