How often should you workout?

One of the age old questions, that has been asked throughout gyms for as long as anyone can remember has been, how many days a week should I workout? Too complicate things further comes the follow up question, how should I split my workouts? In either case, what essentially is coming into question is an individual’s training frequency. As it pertains to exercise, frequency is the rate at which workout sessions are occurring.

In my opinion this is the most overrated and over exaggerated fundamental principle of exercise. By that I mean this is the variable that people most heavily focus their attention on. It’s amazing how many individuals are caught up in having to be at the gym on a daily basis. As if missing a workout or even two or three is going to result in losing everything they have gained. This mind set often has negative consequences and can severely hinder your development. There are of course those at the other end of the spectrum who do not exercise nearly enough which as we know also has negative consequences. However much of our discussion here will focus on those individuals we first mentioned–the exercise addicts.

The reason why we go to the gym is to help us get in shape and look better, right? Wrong! The real reason for going to the gym or, working out in general, is to start a chain of events that will eventually result in us improving our level of health and fitness as well as looking better. Take a moment to read that statement again or as many times as is needed for it to completely sink in. The reason why it is so important to see exercise this way is because many people have a distorted view of exercise and how it works to make us more fit.

Many trainees believe that if they simply show up at the gym and perform the workouts, they will accomplish all they’ve set out to achieve. More often than not any results that are achieved through this mechanism are usually very small and/or short lived and the individual never fully realizes his/her potential. Very often people fail to change the way their bodies look even though they frequent the gym 5, 6 sometimes 7 times a week! Despite not achieving the physical changes they desire or further improving their level of fitness they not only continue to train frequently but may also increase the amount of exercise they perform in those workouts, ala the more is better mentality. Predictably this does not work either and their level of frustration grows with each passing week. But do not assume that based on these statements that anyone who has the same or similar profile to the one I described, can in no way see results. Some people achieve fitness success despite a ‘less than ideal’ training regimen. This however is usually because the person possesses superior genetic ability which will always be the ultimate determinant of one’s success.

For some trainees this amount of exercise may not be much of a detriment because their lack of activity outside of the gym (i.e. sedentary job) or because the demands of their daily workouts are so insignificant (in which case they will not see results no matter how many days a week they workout). But for the majority-the genetically average-an excessive amount of exercise can and will have negative consequences.

There exists a special relationship among all the components of exercise, but the success of your training program depends primarily on the relationship between 3 components in particular. They are intensity, volume, and of course frequency. When these three components are applied and balanced properly though training, performance and physical development will improve dramatically. When frequency is not properly balanced in conjunction with intensity and volume the demands of the training program will exceed what you can tolerate, resulting in a decrease in exercise performance, muscle loss, slowing of fat loss, decreased strength and endurance, and overall physical regression.

Ideally you should strive to exercise frequently enough to ensure that you are not overtraining (or undertraining), the consequences of which are mentioned above.

The overall goal of any exercise program should be to perform the least amount of exercise necessary to produce an optimum response.

Exercise should be intense, brief and infrequent. As stated in The Nautilus Book, by Ellington Darden, “You can perform brief and infrequent high intensity exercise or long and frequent low intensity workouts. But you cannot perform long and frequent exercise involving a high intensity of work. That will result only in total exhaustion.” (p. 76) As we’ve already covered, anything above what is necessary is superfluous and will ultimately result in diminishing returns. In layman’s terms this would translate to working out harder, working out longer, working out more, and having little or nothing to show for it. Training frequency should be reflective of what is an ideal period of rest following a bout of exercise, as per your individual needs.

For some this may be training 3 times a week, every other day, for others it may be training once every 46 days, for others it might mean keeping to their current schedule but lowering the overall demands. The options and combinations are infinite, but it is up to you to discover the appropriate training frequency based upon your training intensity and volume, goals, needs, rate of recovery, and preferences. Never forget, exercise is a means of starting a chain of events that will eventually result in you improving your health and fitness as well as looking better, so make smart choices about what you do and how often you do it.