How often should I exercise?
A question that every gymgoer will ask themselves at some point. The reason it feels like there are so many answers to this question is that it's all relative to your goals and lifestyle. The issue is that it is not as simple as telling you how many hours you need to train each day, or how many days you need to train each week since no plan fits all people. There is however a way to make a clearer answer for you and hopefully, you can take this information and apply it to your training.
One is better than none!
Although it is probably not optimal to betraining 1 day a week, it's certainly better than not training at all. This 1 day could stretch from a 30-minute walk up to an hour and a half in the gym. Try and get that heart rate up at least once a week since it'll help you burn more calories and lower your cholesterol.
"What results will I see from doing this?"
Well, the short answer is not a lot. You'll be healthier than you were and if you were strength training then you may get stronger in your chosen lifts, but if you're planning on dropping 50 lbs of fat or building a significant amount of muscle then you're going to have to up the amount you do.
"How long should I stay in the gym?"
A very common misconception that people have about the gym is that they need to be in there for multiple hours a day, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The amount of time you spend in the gym is completely dependent on what you're planning on doing. You could be there for only 30 minutes for 6 days a week which adds up to only 3 hours a week. A full week consists of 168 hours, so dedicating 3 hours to exercise seems pretty reasonable. The amount of time you can spend exercising a day can of course increase to however much you wantbut be careful of overtraining because this can in fact stop you from making any progress at all. A good amount of time to spend in the gym is anywhere between 30 min - 2 hours with high-intensity training. This will ensure you're not under or overtraining.
"How do I see the results I want quicker?"
Okay, let's slow down. Do not enter your fitness journey with speed in mind. Getting to your goal will require patience, no matter what it is, because it will take time and a lot of it. You may conclude that just increasing the frequency of training will get you to your end goal quicker. This is true, depending on what that goal is.
Let's say you are weight training and your goal is to strictly build a lot of muscle, after every session your muscle will need to recover for a few days. If you go into the gym the next day and work the same muscle whilst it's still recovering, that muscle will never end up growing and you'll plateau. We would recommend working one muscle group twice a week with a minimum of 48 hours in between each session. For example, training legs on Monday & Thursday would be ideal but make sure to listen to your body. If you trained your legs on Monday but your muscles are still sore on Thursday, then push it back a day and do not hinder that recovery.
Now let's say you're trying to lose fat. Increasing your frequency of cardio would benefit you and will get you to your goal weight quicker, but if you’re trying to keep the muscle you’ve built then take the fat loss slowly. Don’t drop your calories tremendously and don’t try and lose fat in a very short period of time. Keep the cardio to maybe a couple of sessions a week and keep the weight training relatively challenging & heavy.
"How long until I see results?"
This variable will be vastly different depending on your goal but unfortunately, you will have to be patient as fitness is a slow journey. If you're doing weight training with high intensity, good form, a high protein diet, and consistently, you'll beable to see a difference in your physique in a few months! It could take longer oreven be quicker than this depending on your genetics. Genetics plays a big role in how fast you put on muscle and this is something that is not possible to change. The same goes for weight gain/loss.
You may have started your fitness journey with a friend and seen they're making more progress than you yet you're working just as hard or harder. It's important to not compare yourself to anyone else since everyone's journey is different and could just be down to genetics.
