Is working out three days a week enough? As cliched as it sounds, consistency really is the key; an adequate amount of it.
To build muscle, strength, and general fitness, you’ve got to do two things: Train enough and recover enough. Get that balance wrong, and your goals whether it is to lift more weight, shed fat, run a 10k, or age more comfortably, will remain out of reach.
If you don’t train frequently enough, you simply won’t produce repeated stimulation. On the flip side, training too hard, too often can be too much.
Your body builds muscle and strength when you recover from your workouts, not when you do them. Without adequate nutrition and recovery time, your body can’t make those changes.
But there’s an even more important question that can help guide your training frequency; what’s realistic for you? Whatever it is, consistency matters.
Exercising for three days per week is the minimum standard for the everyday person. But, it’s encouraged that we all do some kind of activity every day. This can be walking, or riding – whatever is most suitable for you at any given time. Most people find walking the best solution for extra activity.
Just getting up and moving throughout the day is considered being active. Most of us work at sedentary jobs, so it’s more important than ever to get up and be active during the day.
Studies show that even if you work out for an hour a day, once you sit for long stretches of time, the health consequences are detrimental because more time is spent sitting than being active. So, we all really need to think of moving around as much as we can during the day.
Working out for three days per week will allow you to make considerable changes to your body early on – but you will need to allocate more days to exercise. At two days per week, you don’t get that many physique changes at all.
Positive health outcomes are gained when you exercise three to four days per week for one hour, and then spend as much time as you can being active in a less intensive way.
We all have to start somewhere, right? So if you are new to exercise or just restarting, it’s perfectly okay to begin with a two-day per week schedule. Eventually, you will find that your progression stalls somewhat. That’s when it’s time to increase your workout frequency upwards.
Do remember that too much of a good thing can be detrimental to the body. It’s advised that you keep active daily, but smashing yourself seven days per week will have ill effects on your nervous system. The best way to judge is to pay attention to your body and adjust accordingly. We are all more capable of doing more, but let your body give you the necessary feedback – and listen.
