Training frequency for lifters over 40: what the research says about 2 versus 3 sessions a week

Men over 40 who return to resistance training commonly ask whether two or three sessions a week is the better choice, and whether recovery between sessions changes with age. This narrative review summarises what the published literature says on both questions. Two systematic reviews with meta-analysis on training frequency and muscle hypertrophy (Schoenfeld et al. 2016; Schoenfeld et al. 2019) and two reviews on recovery from resistance exercise in older adults (Hayes et al. 2023; Li et al. 2024) were read and summarised. The frequency evidence indicates that, once weekly training volume is held equal, frequency does not meaningfully change hypertrophy; training a muscle twice a week was superior to once a week in the earlier analysis, and the later and larger analysis found no significant difference between frequencies when volume was equated. The recovery evidence in adults aged 65 and over is heterogeneous: a scoping review of 27 studies found the data too inconsistent to support clear prescriptions, and a narrative review describes delayed and prolonged recovery in aged muscle on mechanistic grounds. No study in this set enrolled a sample of men aged 40 to 60 specifically. The practical reading is that weekly volume is the variable to plan, and that two or three sessions are both defensible ways to distribute it; the choice is a scheduling and recovery decision rather than a growth decision. This is not medical advice. Type: narrative evidence review, not a systematic review. Disclosure: the author is not a researcher, clinician or coach; he runs FitnessForties (fitness-forties.com), which sells a strength-training app for men over 40. Written without funding. Not medical advice. Expands the evidence section of the related blog post: https://fitness-forties.com/2026/08/26/best-workout-split-for-men-over-40/