How many times did they train a week in Old Time Physical Culture?

I have asked just that question many times and I know many  others have  echoed it as well.

I now some of today athuorities who I respect will say they trained  two days a week back in the old days,some will say they trains  three times a week  some will say  six days a week,every other day etc etc on how many times a week the Old Timers of Physical Culture trained..I believe these are honest men who are promoting a part of the training methods that worked for them,but at the same time they are promoting only part  of the picture on how many days people  trained back in the Olden Days of Iron Yore.

Taken from THE SAXON TRIO: What they ate & how they trained.:They insisted on plenty of light while exercising and trained 6 days a week, and at least four hours at every training session. During some training periods they would lose as much as seven pounds.


Fron The Henry Higgins Stength and Muscle Course(1915)
page1

Dail;y Practice in lifting dumbells and weights is all that is necessary in order to become a very great strong man..

page 5

The secret of great strength,then,is seen to be a matter of daily traing with heavy weights and dumbells.The man who practices with care and judgement and keeps it up for a number of years,he can become a lifter of the first rank.


page 18

The best pupils i ever had worked some part of every day,some of them including Sundays and holidays.In regard to Sunday,however,I have always felt a rest and lay off was good for every body.



From The Truth about weightlifting:(1911)

page 117( about an unnamed individual)

Three or four times a week he would practice the standard lifts abd the bentpress and after a year or two of this kind of work he developed a wondeful figure and tremendous strength



page 141

The average weightlifter trains from 15 to 30 minutes everyday.

page 156

Many professional weightlifters train only a short time every day.some lifters only train three or four times a wee.atotal of two hours a week is enough to keep a man in the highest possible condition,and it is enough to develop a novice from a totally undeveloped condition into a perfect Hercules.


The Milo barbell course(1924)



you would train on these days monday,wednesday,friday,sunday,tuesday,thursday,saturday,starting back over at monday.

Progressive barbell training by George F.Jowett(date un known)

same traing schedule as the milo course.


How to use a barbell(1925)

Relative to the question of how often a man should practice,there is no hard and fast rule,some finding a regular daily programme produces the best results,,others discovering they do better by missing a practice now and then.And later,as work becomes more exacting,it may pay to observe this rest interval even more frequently.


and last but most certainly not least

The Way to Live(1908)

page 46

I reccomend my reader to map out a certian plan,according to which they exercise all the muscle groups twice on three or four days every week,or on six days,if time allows.

page 51

I would suggest at least 15 minutes be daily devoted to the system of exercises adopted.


page 97

It might be said that no one can continue to perform these exercises every day without "Knocking oneself up"(his way of saying go stale).To these  would reply,try it,and you will probably decide diffrently afterwards.

page 105

Yet the doctor was always well,active and vigorous in mind and body ,and ascribed his perpetual fitness solely to his  daily physical exercise.

(The Doctor mentioned here is non other then DR. von Krajewski The Father of Athletics)

 I hope in my own humble way I have cleared up the views of the old timers on how many days one can  train.

Next Post will detail information on why they where able to train  the way they did and not burn out as much as followers of modern systems do.