My back was injured in a car accident a year ago, and I've just gotten clearance from my PT that I can do these 3 exercises starting now:

Bench Press
Lat Pulldowns
Curls

If I do well with those, I will be ok'd to do more. Back in the 70's, we used to do the same muscle groups 3X per week. So Mon, Wed, and Friday would be arms and torso, and Tues, THurs and Sat would be legs. So that makes 3X per week for each group.

From what I can see, these days that is considered overtraining. Is that correct?

Since I can only do those three, what should be the frequency each week? Is doing curls 3X per week too much, or is 2X better?

Thanks.

Three times a week is fine, I work out three x strength and only overtrained once. Which was following stupid, probably underqualified advice, or maybe just advice that didn't suit me.
But yeah, most people don't reeeeeaaaally overtrain, they just over reach a bit, so the risk is pretty low. To minimize it more, keep the weights the same for two weeks at a time, or deload every third week and always stop working out for about a week if you feel tendon pain.

Coming back from an injury, I wouldn't recommend any more than once a week for direct stimulation of a muscle group, and see how you go from there.

No more than 3 workouts a week total.

Considering the layoff, it's probably better to start off slow and work your way up over time, rather than jump back in at 3 times a week for each muscle group and injure yourself again.

Thanks guys. Actually, I have been doing the workouts for a few weeks now so I am completely used to it.

But I really was wondering if 3x a week is too much workout with not enough rest in between. So when I say "overtrain", I mean not allowing enough rest between workouts.

So the consensus seems to be that 3x per week is the optimal frequency for a given muscle group? Two times per week is too little?

Atom Smasher said:

Thanks guys. Actually, I have been doing the workouts for a few weeks now so I am completely used to it.

But I really was wondering if 3x a week is too much workout with not enough rest in between. So when I say "overtrain", I mean not allowing enough rest between workouts.

So the consensus seems to be that 3x per week is the optimal frequency for a given muscle group? Two times per week is too little?

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It depends on the person(read as recovery ability) and their conditioning. I do strength training 3x a week and conditioning 2x a week with one day of conditioning after training.

I heard some advice that resistance bands instead of weights for a bit is safer after injury. I was never really injured myself so I don't know.

To Atom Smasher,

Don't forget to take a week break after about 7 to 8 weeks of work out to give your body a enough time to fully recover.

Also, if you back still hurt, you may want to consider trying out yoga.

Good luck!