Something that every beginner at the gym struggles to figure out is how often they need to work out in order to achieve noticeable results. Is once a week enough? How about twice a week? Well, as much as I’d like to say that any routine is better than no routine, the reality is that you probably won’t make much progress that way. Many of you may also be wondering if you should exercise every day, and while that’s not necessarily required, it can be a bit more nuanced than that.
To answer this, let’s break down how often you should work out, and how you should work out when you do go to the gym, depending on what your goals are.
Working Out to Get Fit
Not everyone goes to the gym to become a bodybuilder; many people simply want to be a bit healthier and more fit. To do so, the important thing is to raise your overall activity levels by working out at least 3-4 times a week.
Technically, you have flexibility with how often you should exercise, because the general recommendation for most people is simply to achieve at least 150 minutes of moderately intense activity per week. This means you could exercise for 20 minutes every day or have three 50-minute exercise sessions throughout the week.
However, I would advise against exercising less than three days a week. The key is not only to be more active, but also to do so with consistency. If you only work out once or twice a week, your body won’t receive enough constant stimuli and build the necessary momentum to steadily become more robust.
Therefore, it’s best that you have several workouts spaced evenly throughout the week. Your body will perceive this as a much more consistent rise in activity levels, and you’ll see progress much more quickly.
Working Out to Bulk Up
For those of you looking to target muscle growth, the guidelines for how often you need to work out are slightly varied. In this case, workout frequency is based more around the optimal recovery period for muscle growth. Generally speaking, it takes 2-3 days for a muscle to recover after a heavy workout. Therefore, have a routine that lets you work out each muscle group twice a week.
Exerting a muscle too frequently, such as every day, actually isn’t ideal for building strength. If a muscle doesn’t have time to fully repair and get stronger, you could be interfering with your own progress, and it will take longer to see strength gains, not to mention the risk of overworking and injuring the muscle.
That being said, this doesn’t mean you can only work out twice a week. Follow a routine that allows you to target different muscle groups every day, so that each group of muscles can rest for a few days while you work out other areas, such as a push pull legs split. Essentially, you can and should work out as frequently as possible, as long as you give your muscles sufficient time to rest and repair.
Ease Yourself Into a Routine
Now, I realize that these guidelines may be hard to fully implement right away. You might still be figuring out how to incorporate gym sessions into your busy week. In addition, your body may still need some time to adapt to the new regimen. It’s important that you build up your workout routine gradually, especially if your body needs it.
If you’re still sore a couple days after your first workout, it’s fine to wait a little longer to get back in the gym. If you find yourself simply exhausted after a long day at the office, take an extra day of rest here and there. As long as you work your way to exercising an average of 3-4 times a week, you’ll be in a good position to make real progress.
However, it should be noted that this is just a baseline for beginners. Especially if you’re focused on building muscle, as you become more experienced and your body becomes more accustomed to an active lifestyle, you may need to further increase the number of days you work out to somewhere between 5-6 days a week in order to continue seeing improvement.
No Gym, No Time, No Problem
Even on days when you can’t go to the gym, or don’t have access to one, there are still a variety of ways to work towards your fitness goals. There are plenty of home workouts out there that do not involve any weights or special equipment for you to try.
If you don’t have time for that, just making a conscious effort to be more active in your everyday life can have a great impact on your body. If you find yourself sitting for hours at work, take a quick 15-minute walk around the office or outside every so often. When you’re at home, try to engage in more activities that require some physical movement, and spend less time sitting on the couch. Making these seemingly minor changes to your daily routine can actually have profound effects on your fitness.
When it comes to strength training, you’re also not out of luck if you can’t make it to the gym. Calisthenics exercises are exercises that rely mostly on a person’s own body weight, and use little to no other fitness equipment. They’re very beneficial for muscle growth; some people actually prefer calisthenics workouts for bodybuilding, and almost never use weights and other machines at all.
However, calisthenics exercises can also be used as substitutes when the gym isn’t an option. On occasions when I haven’t had access to a gym for some time, I do a few sets of calisthenics exercises, such as pull-ups and push-ups, just to activate and engage certain muscles so that they don’t remain completely at rest for too long. For many beginners, a brief calisthenics workout a few times a week will not only prevent muscle loss, but also help them build muscle on top of what they do at the gym.
Start Out Simple
In order to start getting real results at the gym, the key is a persistent routine. While the exercises you choose and how you perform them are indeed considerable factors in determining how effectively you’ll meet your goals down the line, for starters, just getting to the gym frequently enough and moving your body will go a long way.
When I first started working out, I went to the gym every single day for an entire month. I didn’t have a routine planned out; I simply went and tried whatever looked interesting. There was no consistency in which muscles I targeted, and no strategy in combining strength and cardio workouts; the only thing that was constant was the fact that I was there every day, exerting my body in some way.
By the end of my first month, I had already made visible progress. My arms looked bigger and more defined, and I could finally start to see some abs. I’m definitely not saying you must work out every day of the week, and even if you did, I can’t guarantee that you’ll see the same results. However, if you want to know how to maximize your rate of progression in the gym, I’ve written another post that goes over the main factors that determine how quickly you can build muscle.
