How many times a week do I need to train?
How do I know if I am training enough to see results? I have always wondered this, ever since I was an 18-year-old kid eating a bucket load of pasta watching Fitness YouTubers lift weights. People say 3 times a week training is enough, others say you shouldn’t have a day off from training. But what is the truth? How many times a week do you need to train?
The factor most people don’t think about, which I think is most important, is your commitments outside of the gym. What is your work schedule like? What are your family commitments? What is your social life like? All of these things play a big factor in whether or not you have the time and energy to train.
If you are just about to start training and you ask yourself “how many days can I commit to training?” Whatever that answer is, remove a day. Most people overshoot and are overconfident in the time they have available. It’s really hard to get to the gym, and it's even harder to make it part of your routine. Life get’s busy and then the new habit of going to the gym will fall off. So I think the question should be “On the busiest week of work, social and family commitments, how many times could I go to the gym?” Because that would be a better and more realistic start. And don’t panic! You can still make progress, with whatever your goal is, if you can only train 2x per week.
If you are already training and you are wondering what is the optimal amount, it really depends but I have found that 4 - 5 days a week deliver the best results. Mainly because of a few things.
It keeps you in a good routine
When trying to implement a habit into your life you need repetition repetition repetition. You need to do the same thing over and over again to get used to it.
10,000 hours to become a master right?
If training and exercises are skills to be learnt, then the more time we spend practising the skills, the better we will get at them. This is another reason why I like 4 - 5 days a week
Enough rest
If 80% of your training is strength training, you probably won’t be overdoing it training-wise, unless your sleep and nutrition are god awful. The reality is most people aren’t overtraining and there is no way they would-be unless they were spending 2-3 hours a night in the gym. Being able to recover from workouts is so important and having 2 - 3 rest days a week, will normally give you a good amount of recovery.
I’ve witnessed with myself, with clients and with friends that 4 - 5 day’s done consistently for a year or 2 without many weeks off, creates outstanding results. People who can only train 3 day’s a week however don’t lose out on gains. This could be even more beneficial for people depending on their lifestyle and how their body responds. It’s all individual and I would do what you enjoy and what keeps you consistent.
You see there was a craze not too long ago where everyone in fitness was telling you to train full body sessions 3x per week. Now the reason for this wasn’t because this is superior when comparing people who are consistent, apples to apples. It was because it was superior because of consistency. More of that here.
The other major thing that goes into the number of days you should train is the total volume. So to build muscle or gain strength, you ultimately have to do more this week than you did last week. This means that when you start training, you can train 1x per week and this would start to produce results compared to the 0 times you were going before. But as you start to get more advanced you’ll find your sessions either have to be extremely long, or you need to add extra days to spread the volume out across these days. Meaning when you start, monitor your strength and performance. Are you getting stronger and better at lifting? Are you losing weight? Are you building muscle? When progress starts to stall, it may be because you need to increase the number of days you need to train, to drive more volume into the muscles.
I hope this makes sense and helps you to figure out how many days you should train.
