How often to exercise to get results as quickly as possible?
This question is undoubtedly asked by every beginner. An important criterion for the right answer is your goal and your current training. It is clear that if you want to lose a few kilograms, you will have to work much harder than someone who wants to keep the weight off.
If you want to look like a professional bodybuilder, you will have to work much harder than someone who just wants to look decent in the summer at the seaside. So let's break down the number of workouts based on your goals.
How often to work out for weight loss/diet
If you've decided to lose excess pounds, it's important to remember that diet plays a major role in this. Unless you have it absolutely strictly sorted out, you will never achieve proper results.
Now, let's focus on the actual number of workouts.
It all depends on how many times a week you engage in some active activity. If you are not used to any physical activity, training twice a week as an initial boost will be plenty sufficient. After strength training, it is definitely not a bad idea to include cardio, which will boost fat burning even more. Try to use a lot of complex exercises, use heavy weights and gradually increase the intensity of your workouts.
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What to stick to in your diet:
- Follow the diet
- Use complex exercises
- Incorporate post-workout cardio
If you would like to learn more about the topic of dieting and diet workouts, we can recommendThis is a very good video by Filip Grznar, where he explains the most common questions about weight loss.
How often to exercise to gain muscle mass
The answer to this question is not nearly as simple as it might seem at first glance. While some athletes are satisfied with a two-hour workout two to three times a week, others exercise for two hours every day. The number of workouts when gaining muscle mass should be based on, among other things, how effectively you can exercise your muscles.
For example, Dorian Yates, one of bodybuilding's greats, worked out his legs in 40 minutes and was able to benefit from it for several days afterwards.
If you can damage your muscles as brutally as he did, you'll probably needless training than someone with lower volume and intensity.
What to stick to in volume:
- Train hard
- Eat well
- Keep your protein intake optimal
- Adequately recover
How often to exercise each area
The number of times you train a particular part should depend on three basic things:
- the size of the muscle
- the volume/intensity of the workout
- the extent to which you are able to effectively "damage" the muscle (by training you tear the muscle microfibers, they recover and so the muscle grows)
How often to train the legs
Legs are a big muscle that can be trained very well and the next day after the training you will have a problem even with ordinary walking.
It is therefore generally recommended to train it only once a week.
However, if you are looking to increase your strength and only do different variations of the dumbbell in your trainingit is of course possible to include such training several times a week. If you're interested in more on the topic of leg training, be sure to read our article How to Build Powerful Legs.
How often to train your arms
The biceps and triceps are very small muscles that most athletes train twice, some even three times a week.
But it's important to remember that large muscle groups and complex exercises give youthe body several times more hormonal response than pulling the pulley on the triceps. Therefore, from our own experience, we recommend focusing more on the large muscle groups and only exercising the arms once or twice a week at most.
How long should the workout be
Training length is such an eternal topic. It depends on the length of the breaks, the intensity and volume of the workout and many other factors. So a leg workout can easily take two hours, while a biceps and triceps workout can easily be done in an hour.
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How to shorten your workout
If your workout lasts more than two hours, you should definitely spend less time taking breaks and focus more on the workout. We also address this issue in the article 3 tips to shorten your workout but not get lean, soIf you have problems with training for too long, it will definitely help you.
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How to extend your workouts
If, on the other hand, you train for less than 30 minutes, you should increase the overall volume of your workout, focusFocus on performing all the exercises, keep the muscle in tension for longer, or increase the breaks.
A timer, which is easy to use and maintain, can be a useful aid in controlling your time. From our own experience we can recommend the GYMBOSS miniMAX, which is practical and at a good price.
How to get regular
Going for a workout once a week is probably not a problem for any of us. It's worse when the workouts start to multiply and you have to visit the gym three or four times a week. However, you shouldn't have to kick yourself for regularity, you have to go to the gym for the fact that you enjoy it and find it fulfilling.
If you don't enjoy working out, find another sport that you enjoy more.
This path is not for everyone. If you have to push yourself to get to the gym at all and leave every workout out of obligation, you better end your endeavor right away.
We hope we have provided you with information in this article that will help you or at least point you to it. If you have any other questions on this topic, feel free to ask them in the commentsch or read some of our other articles and educate yourself with us!
Why can you trust us?
Hey! Hey! I'm Mirek and I've been working at World Fitness almost since the beginning, except for a small break. But before that I lived only in the gym for a few years, doing deadlifts and power triathlon, going to competitions and winning a few medals.
Probably the one I value the most is the national record in the WUAP federation. But besides working out, I was also interested in food and supplements, I liked to enjoy my free timeI used to read different researches and professional books in my free time to know as much as possible.