Fitness is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but it can be difficult to find the time to fit in a workout. So how often should you workout to stay healthy?
The answer may surprise you. According to the American Heart Association, most adults should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week. That works out to about 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
However, the AHA also notes that more physical activity is better for health, so if you can manage more than 150 minutes a week, even better.
In addition to aerobic activity, the AHA recommends including strength training two or more days a week.
So if you’re looking to improve your fitness level, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week, and don’t forget to add in some strength training as well.
How Often Should You Workout?
Whether you exercise for fitness, to lose weight, or to build muscle mass, it needs to be routine and regular.
In fact, when your workouts becomes part of your life instead of a chore — you will see real changes, and you will be asking
How Often Should You Change Your Workout Routine?
4 areas to consider when it comes to how often to workout
1) Overall exercise frequency
This refers to the number of times total that you will work out in a week. It includes weight, cardio and muscle groups exercised.
When planning your workout frequency, keep this rule-of-thumb in mind:
Take one day off from all exercise each week to give your body time to recover and repair itself.
If not, you’ll significantly increase your risk of an injury, which could sideline you for weeks if not months.
For most people new to exercising, working out three times a week is a good place to start.
And don’t work the same muscle groups for two consecutive days. Most people start out by differentiating arm days, leg days, and maybe adding a cardio day in.
Once you are more experienced, you can increase your time to five days per week and eventually six. Experienced weight lifters often break workouts into things like bicep days, shoulder days, glute days, and so on.
Always remember to alternate muscle groups to avoid over training.
2) Weight training
The theory behind weight training is that it builds muscles. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn-even at rest.
If you’ve got serious bodybuilding on your mind, expect it to take time.
Not only will you need to learn to adjust your life around working out several times a week, but also the right diet.
Training for building muscle requires devotion to nutrition to increase muscle size as well as having the energy to pursue your goals.
If you are just starting out, keep your resistance training days to two per week. And never make your two days back-to-back.
Your body needs at least one day in between weight training sessions to rest.
As time goes on, if you feel you need more weight training time, bump up your workouts to three or four times per week.
By the time you have gradually worked your way up to 3 or 4 times a week, you should be well aware of how often to work out and how often to rest.
3) Cardio training
The purpose of cardio training is to burn calories and increase your breathing and heart rate. Your body can create energy faster by being able to take in more oxygen and get it to the cells more efficiently.
Check out these popular gadgets to keep up with heart rate, calories, and much more while you’re doing cardio or other exercise.
Personally, I like doing cardio on my off days from weight training. This gives me the opportunity to get back to the gym, not to mention that by the time I’m through with weights, I’m too beat for cardio.
So do yourself a favor and alternate cardio and resistance training. If you can’t, be sure to do resistance first, or you won’t have enough energy to get any value from cardio.
4) Muscle group frequency
Different exercises target different muscle groups. When first starting out, you’ll want to work each muscle group once a week.
For example, your workout for one week could be:
- Monday: Chest and triceps
- Tuesday: Back and biceps
- Wednesday: off
- Thursday: Shoulders and abs
- Friday: Legs
- Saturday: off
- Sunday: off
The next week your schedule could look like this:
- Monday: Chest, shoulders, and triceps
- Tuesday: off
- Wednesday: Legs and abs
- Thursday: off
- Friday: Back and biceps
- Saturday: off
- Sunday: off
In week three, you would go back to the week one schedule. Then keep rotating through the two schedules, alternating each week.
This is a good schedule to work with, whether you’re aiming for mass and definition, or just want to get fit and tone up.
Keep in mind that the muscle groups worked could be either from cardio or weight training.
For example, running or walking would work your legs, while swimming would also benefit your shoulders. Do a variety of both resistance training and cardio to work each major muscle group evenly.
Conclusion
Of course, if you are just starting out, your schedule will depend a lot on how active you’ve been up until now. It’s easy for most of us to start out with zeal and create problems for ourselves. However, doing too much too soon can lead to injury! But, no matter what, the best results of any exercise program will be to workout 3 times a week.
The problem most beginners have is sore muscles that set them back at first. So doing too much, and sometimes too often, when you’re just starting can lead to not wanting to continue on with your workouts. You don’t want to do either.
You don’t want to be sore with muscles on fire from lactic acid any more than you want to get over that and decide exercising with weights is just not for you?
First of all, decide what you expect to gain from your workouts. Next, decide what you are willing to learn and what to give up to work during your training days. Once you know where you want to go with your exercise, you will know how often you intend to workout.
My best advice is to start slow, and finish strong!