Many professional or top amateur bodybuilders – with years of training experience and anabolic assistance – still find themselves with a weak or lagging body part they cannot seem to bring up to speed. They train with incredible intensity, they eat more than enough protein, and they use steroids to help with recovery and to utilize more of the protein that they consume. Yet due to genetics, or one of many other factors, they still suffer from that one weak body part, hurting them with judging and limiting them form advancing to the next level in bodybuilding.

It’s essential for most bodybuilders to use the common technique of “each body part once per week” due to the fact that bigger body parts require so many sets that recovery quickly becomes an issue. However, advanced bodybuilders – with their experience, chemical assistance, and superior genetics – often have the ability to train ONE body part twice a week. This of course excludes forearms, abs, and calves, which are small, high-endurance body parts or groups which recovery quickly enough to be trained several times a week by most bodybuilders.

High volume split-set routines can be used to break sticking points, or add mass to a body part which recovers quickly, yet doesn’t seem to grow despite intense workouts once per week. The rationale behind this is that the central nervous system does possess some unused resources that can be used for occasional “doubles”. Using this technique on EVERY body part would quickly lead to overtraining and an overall loss of muscle mass. Here is an example of how weak shoulders can be trained twice per week, while allowing for adequate recovery and no conflicts with other body parts.

• Monday = Chest, shoulders

• Tuesday = Legs

• Wednesday = Back

• Thursday = Shoulders

• Friday = Rest

• Saturday = Triceps & Biceps

• Sunday = Rest

As you can see, the shoulders receive a full day of rest following the Friday workout, and a full day of upper-body rest as the Monday workout is followed by the Tuesday leg day.

You can mix up this arrangement, and try it with any small body part. Chest is “iffy” – some bodybuilders can get away with hitting it twice per week with a reduced workload of overall set volume. Legs and back can only be trained once per week – but they can be split, for both back (upper back and lower back) and legs (hamstrings and calves). Remember to keep high volume twice-weekly split set routines to a minimum, as they can lead to overtraining when used consistently for a long period of time.

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