How often should you workout?

We all go into workouts with our own set of goals and expectations. That can often bring up the question: how often should you work out and which workouts are best?

As you can imagine, there's no simple formula that's right for everyone. The ideal breakdown between strength training, cardio, and rest days will vary from individual to individual. If you are reading this post, I am going to assume you are not a high level athlete and simply want to become stronger, lose some unwanted body fat and generally feel like you have enough energy and confidence to take on anything your day has in store! 

If you want to work out 4-5 days per week, and are working on both strength and cardiovascular fitness, try 2-3 days of strength training along with 2 days of complimentary movement (more on that below). If you only want to work out 2-3 days a week, think about your goals. If you want to add muscle, cut a cardio day. If you want to improve endurance, skip a strength day.

General recommendations 

First, no matter what the goal is you should focus on doing that activity a few days a week consistently with some form of progression. 

With the idea of needing to repeat a type of structured exercise at least 2 days a week to see progress, lets look at what a common example week of workouts resemble for people:

Monday: Yoga 

Tuesday: Weights done with no focus 

Wednesday: Run 

Thursday: Peloton 

Friday: Group Classes 

1x/ week of any of these things isn’t enough to actually get better and see progress. You are moving your body each day, which is important, but if you want to see progress you need some repetition of days. 

Instead we could redesign your week: 

Monday: Group Class/Semi Private

Tuesday: Run (aerobic exercise) 

Wednesday: Group Class/Semi Private

Thursday: Peloton (aerobic exercise) 

Friday: Group Class/Semi Private

Working hard in any one given workout is a good thing, however it is not what the focus should always be. Focused improvement over time, on a few specific activities, is where you will find the long term results. 

There are endless options of workout programs in today’s world and you could pick something new everyday to just move.

However, you get fit by doing the same thing over and over and getting just a little better at it each time.

For example: when learning an instrument, you wouldn't practice trumpet one day, flute the next and hop into percussion on the weekend.  Even if you did that week after week, you would get just sorta good over a LONG time. But what if you put focus into one or two instruments? 

We believe strongly in the benefit of resistance training. All of our programs at RF have a focus on strength training with progression over time being the goal. 

How do you compliment your Strength Training?

With the previously mentioned week example as your outline, 2-3 days a week are set aside for your strength training. What should you do the other days? Fill the other days with 2-3 of the following complementary movements:

Complementary Movement:

Passion Driven Workouts = Yoga, Running , Barre, Pilates, Peloton etc 

Active Rest Day = Easy Movement with No Agenda (Ex. Golf, Hiking)

Day Off = Complete Rest

What’s your training week look like? 

If you currently come to sessions 3-5 days a week at RF, you are pretty set!

All of our programs include a fusion of both strength training + cardio elements.

If you are having trouble seeing progress try reducing your activities down to just a few focused options. Get better at those for a few months and then adjust/change as needed. 

Coach Chris