How Many Days Should You Work Out?

After starting to work out, the million-dollar question that arises in almost everyone’s mind is, “How many days should you work out?”

There is no universal answer to this question. Many variables can affect the answer. In this case, no one size fits all.

Then what should you do? Should you focus on the quality of the training or the quantity? How can you understand how many days in a week you need to train?

Do not worry; we will not make you more confused. We will break down this question and cover every aspect so that you can understand and make choices based on your needs. We will also provide suggestions based on personal experience, which we have gained working out throughout the years. We will also answer some common questions that beginners usually have at the end of this article.

So, let us first discuss the major factors that usually dictate how many days you should exercise:

Age and Recovery:

You may wonder why age has anything to do with how many days you need to train. It does because your physical recovery system is greatly interrelated with your age. If you are a teenager, you can recover from your training relatively faster than a person in their forties.

Training more than 5 days a week is likely not ideal for an older person. We suggest that as a maximum value for most cases. The perfect number would be between 3 and 5 days a week. An older person’s training should incorporate strength training and cardio.

However, if age is not a factor, you can train up to 6 days a week. It may depend on your personal choice. Should you focus on more quantity in a workout session and work out more than 3 days a week, or on quality and training less than 3 days a week?

The right answer lies in between. While you must focus on quality, quantity is equally important; otherwise, you will undertrain.

Daily Fitnest Recommendation: You should train 3-5 days a week, despite your age. Your training should incorporate both weight training and cardio. If you are over 40, your cardio session should be zone 2 (walking, easy jogging, cycling at a moderate pace). Zone 2 cardio is joint-friendly in most cases. If you are a teenager, the advice would be the same: You can do high-intensity cardio training like running, fast-paced swimming, etc. Make sure you hit 150 minutes of cardio a week. Research suggests that it is optimal for everyone to hit the weekly milestone of 150 minutes of cardiovascular exercise.

Time Availability:

We may give you many suggestions, but how will you manage it if you do not have enough time to train?

In this case, one of the most popular phrases comes into play: “If there is a will, there is a way.”

Let me share my personal experience. I had almost no time to hit the gym when I started my job. After work, I felt exhausted and forced myself into the gym, but I slowly realized that I would not be able to sustain it. Then, I decided that after work, I would not do any exercise and would rather go to bed early and hit the gym in the morning when I am fresh. I am not telling you to do the same thing; I am just telling you that there is always a fix for a problem.

Returning to the topic, if you lack time, you should design your workout accordingly. Remember, doing something is better than doing nothing. Even working out for 20 minutes is far better than slacking off.

If you lack time, then hit the gym for 2 days. There is no shame in becoming a weekend warrior if you seriously cannot manage time for working out. In that case, you should focus mostly on strength training and do full-body workouts. Also, you can do compound exercises to maintain time efficiently. Compound exercises that you should focus on are:

- Pushups
- Pull-ups/Assisted Pull-ups
- Squats
- Deadlift

You can incorporate cardio in different ways in that case. Like, go to work by walking or cycling. Take a 10–20 minute walk during the break time.

If time is not a limiting factor, then you need to design your workout schedule based on your convenience. By exploring different options, you will eventually understand what works best for you. Remember, fitness is a lifestyle, and it is flexible, so you can adjust it according to your needs.

Fitness Goal:

The number of days you need to work out can be heavily dictated by your end goal. What do you want to achieve?

Do you want to lose your weight? Want to gain muscle? Do you want to be better at a specific sport or do it to maintain good health?

If you want to lose weight, 3 days of moderate-intensity weight training for 45 minutes and 150 minutes of weekly cardio is enough for a beginner. You can slowly increase the intensity over time. However, you also need to focus on your nutrition.

For muscle building, you can do 3 days of a full-body workout or follow any 5 days of split training focusing on different muscles in different training sessions. One of the most popular split training routines is PPL (Push/Pull/Legs); you can customize your split according to your requirements. Moderate-pace cardio would be ideal in that case. The following table will give a general idea of what the split looks like. Usually, it is done in 6 days, but we customized it slightly so that it can be done in 5 days.

Day	Split	Exercises
Sunday	Push Day	Pushups, Cable Fly/Peck deck Fly, Bench Press, Triceps Pushdown, Cable or dumbbell Kickback, Lateral Raise, Rear Delt fly
Monday	Pull Day	Inclined Dumbbell Press, Decline Cable Fly, Lat Pulldown, Triceps Extension, Forearm Curl, Glute Bridge, or Bulgarian Squats
Tuesday	Leg Day	Squat, Leg Extension, Hamstring Curl, Seated Calf Raise, Stiff Legged Deadlift
Wednesday	Rest Day
Thursday	Hybrid Workout	Inclined Dumbbell Press, Decline Cable Fly, Lat Pulldown, Triceps Extension, Forearm Curl, Glute Bridge or Bulgarian Squats
Friday	Hybrid Workout	Leg Press, Bayesian Cable Curl, Cable Y-raise, Overhead Shoulder Press, Assisted Chin-ups, Skull Crushers, Leg Raise
Saturday	Rest Day

This is an example; you can follow it or customize the split to your requirements and convenience.

A coach can best advise training for specific sports of that particular sport. If you have a coach, then ask your coach about your training frequency and what type of training you need to do.

If you are working out to maintain a healthy body, you should train based on your recovery. If you recover very quickly from a moderate-intensity workout, you can even work out for 6 days. Otherwise, weight training for 45/60 minutes 3-4 days weekly and 150-minute zone 2 cardio is good enough in most cases.

Health Condition:

Your workout frequency can also vary based on your health condition. If you have a serious health condition or a major injury, the best thing you can do is to consult a professional physician or physiotherapist. Health is wealth, and you should not be careless about it.

If you do not have anything serious or have a minor injury, it is best to give it some time to heal and then start slowly.

Do not work out for more than 3 days if you are in a recovery stage. At that time, if you train, it should be done using light weights. Deloading will be the best thing you can do at that time. Listen to your body, and you will get your answers.

Summary:

The whole summary of the overall discussion about how many days you should train is:

1. The answer varies for each individual based on different factors.
2. It would help greatly if you took at least a day off from your training for optimum recovery.
3. Both teenagers and older people can train for 3-5 days a week, but their training should vary based on their fitness level and recovery.
4. You should decide how many days you need to train based on your fitness goal. If you are training different muscles in different sessions, follow a training split.
5. Do not neglect injuries. Take recommendations from professionals about training frequency and intensity for a sustainable health and fitness journey.

Common Questions Beginners Have:

Beginners often search for answers to some common questions. The questions are:

Can I lose more weight if I train 7 days a week?

Overdoing anything is bad. Just imagine if you worked 7 days a week at your job. Will your permanence increase? It will decrease in most cases.

The same thing applies to training; your body needs to recover from the training as well. Overtraining can put your progress backward.

Remember that training for seven days will not help you lose weight quickly. Your body will need more time to recover, and eventually, you will face burnout. Your hormones will not be happy, and many beginners start overeating without even realizing it. Consistency is the key in this case.

There is a concept called NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). To simply put it, NEAT is the energy expense your body incurs when you are not exercising or sleeping. Like moving your legs while sitting down, this also burns some calories. When you overtrain, your body stops this NEAT without you even realizing it.

You can simply justify that by asking yourself: Can you train for seven days with full motivation for the rest of your life? The answer will mostly be no.

As discussed in the article, the best approach for beginners is to train for 3-5 days for weight loss or any other purposes mentioned previously.

How many days should you do cardio exercises?

Many beginners need help understanding how to incorporate cardio or how much they should do weekly.

As per research, the ideal frequency is 150 minutes of moderate cardio exercise per week, as discussed previously. Then, should you do only one kind of cardio exercise or a mix of cardio exercises?

To answer that, you need to know what cardio exercises do. Cardio or cardiovascular exercises increase our heart rate. To put it simply, you can consider them exercises for our heart health, though they benefit our whole body as a whole.

Returning to the question, should you do one type of cardio or several types? There is no wrong answer; you can do whatever cardio exercise you want unless you experience joint pain or soreness that lasts more than three days.

Remember, 150 minutes is an ideal estimate; you can do more. Walking your dog can be considered cardio exercise, and playing physical sports is also cardio.

Depending on your fitness goal, you should decide how many days of moderate cardio will be optimal. Usually, 5 days of moderate cardio is enough, or you can do 3 highly intense cardio sessions, which we do not recommend for everyone.

I usually walk 10,000 steps a day, which burns roughly 500 calories. For beginners, this may seem like a lot. Just start walking 4,000–5,000 steps a day and increase over time. It is not as hard as it seems. There are different apps and fitness bands available to track your daily steps.

Various options are available for tracking your weekly cardio progress. The most popular are fitness watches. Though they are not completely accurate, they can give you a good, educated guess.

Spending on a smartwatch will be a good investment. The most popular are the Apple Watch and Fitbit, but there are also some good, cheaper options, like the MI Band.