How often should I
workout each week?

Austyn here, with Affronti Fitness. One of the most common questions I get is how many times per week should I workout.

 

Now, like all my answers, this answer is dependent on each person, their circumstances, or situations. But there's a couple of things that you want to take into consideration. Number 1, what is your recovery? A lot of people don't know this but when you workout you're simply priming your body to get good results, you’re priming your body to get in shape but you're not actually getting most of your results in the gym. You’re getting most of your results when you’re recovering in the next two or three days by the food you eat, the water you drink, and the sleep you get.

 

So if your recovery is not in line with your workouts and your goals, it's like working a 40-hour workweek and getting a 10-hour paycheck. You’re putting the work, you’re just not getting compensated for it.

 

You want to make sure you're getting enough sleep. You want to make sure that you're trying to mitigate your stress. If your stress is all out of whack it can knock your hormones out of whack. Which, you can do everything right and it'll prevent you from getting results.

 

There's a couple things you want to take into consideration, unless you say for the average person, you're going anywhere from six to eight hours of sleep a night, you're working anywhere from 30 to 50 hours a week, you had time to rest and recover, I would say the sweet spot with weights is three days a week and then you add in another day of cardio. 

 

Now, let me explain this. You want to take your Fitness in phases. Your body is simply adapting to what you're doing, that's why you get in better shape. So if you're going in full-steam, working out seven days a week right from the jump, eventually your body is going to adapt to that and your progress is going to drastically slow down, and you're going to have to do a lot more work to get results. 

 

When you're starting out with seven days a week, it’s going to be hard to top that. When you start out with three days a week, and one day a week of cardio, leaves a lot of room to add and more cardio, add in more workouts when you start to hit plateaus. 

 

Another reason I like three days a week with one day of cardio is because you want to be active more days than you’re not. So, what I mean by that is if you're just working out two days a week and you chilling for five you're going to dread those two days every time they come up.

 

But, if you're working out three days a week doing cardio one day a week, now you’re active four days a week, you’re only restiing for three, you’re getting more acclimated to the lifestyle it’s becoming more of a part of who you are; part of your daily routine. It's not as dreadful when you go into it, you’ll actually start to miss it. You’ll start to crave it. So you want to be active more days and you're not. Working out for four days, resting for three is a great mix. And then like I said when you hit a plateau you can start adding more days in. Simple considerations, make sure you’re gettinig enough sleep, make sure you’re getting enough food and water and make sure your recovery is on point. If it's not, you need to shorten your workout days and you just need to spend more time focusing on getting your recovery right, as that is where the majority of your results going to come in. Don't do all this work and not get paid for it - and again, if you have questions, if you want to figure out how do I structure my workout routine, how do I make it so that my recovery is in line with my goals. That's what here for at Affronti Fitness. 

 

Alright, have a great day!