How Many Days Per Week Should I Actually Work Out?
One of the most common misconceptions about exercise is that more is better. The old “no pain, no gain” train is gone. The not-so-fun answer to “How many days per week should I work out?” is this:
However many days you can do consistently.
I have clients who train 2 days per week and, paired with 8k–10k steps per day and a high protein diet, make significant progress. I also have clients who train 5 days per week and, alongside 8k–10k steps and a high protein diet, make great progress in both strength and appearance.
If you were to start your fitness journey on a Monday and your thought was, “I need to make sure I’m working out 7 days per week, doing extra cardio, lifting more weight, and having no free meals,” I’ll give you until day 4 before you’re talking about starting again next Monday.
Make it easy for yourself.
Life is hard. If my full-time job was worrying about my own workouts and diet, I’d get pretty bored. You have work. You may have a spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend, kids, and a social life. If you try to put working out and dieting above all of those things, you’re fighting an uphill battle that you will not win.
Making fitness fit into whatever lifestyle you have will bring far more progress, and that progress will STAY.
No more 5 steps forward and 10 steps back.
If you have 30 minutes to work out every other day, you could make the same progress as someone who works out for an hour at a time 3–4 days per week.
The workout is about 20% of the recipe. The other 80% comes from your habits. What are you having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? How many steps are you taking? Are you spending meaningful time in your social life that helps you reduce stress? Are you sleeping well?
I always tell my clients that we want to do the least amount of work possible to elicit the greatest amount of change.
Make no mistake: I love working out. I love progressing and getting stronger. I love when I look in the mirror and see a small change. But in no way, shape, or form is it fun every day.
I could walk into a gym, do one exercise with purpose for 30 minutes, and elicit more change than I would by mindlessly walking into a gym with no plan, no rhyme or reason, and doing some comfortable sets of 10 on an exercise I really don’t care for.
Tailor your goals to your lifestyle.
That’s why I am here to help! Fill out my contact inquiry form, tell me your vision, and let’s make it a reality. I want to help you fit exercise into your life, not the other way around.
Let’s start your change TODAY!
—Luke Rosato
