[This article was originally published in 2017.]
Staying active is crucial to staying healthy, and considering that 27 per cent of Britons don’t exercise at least once a week, according to a YouGov Survey 2020you may feel inclined to increase your activity levels.
But it’s hard to know how much exercise you should be doing to reach your physical aptitude goals, be it weight loss or volume gain.
“The kind of exercise what you do ultimately depends on your ability, goals, likes and dislikes, equipment available, what injuries you have and how much time you have available,” personal trainer Tom Mans explained to the independent.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are are Principles and guidelines that you can follow and apply to your training to ensure you have a balanced, effective, safe and enjoyable training regimen.
How many days a week should you train?
Unless you’re a fitness enthusiast, you probably want to spend as little time in the gym as possible to achieve your health and fitness goals. But Mans says training just once or twice a week won’t get you more than a low level of fitness.
“You should train at least three times a week if you want to achieve your health and fitness goals in a reasonable amount of time and stay fit and healthy,” explains Mans.
Training four or five times a week is ideal, but most people find that unattainable due to time constraints, so Mans says it’s best to aim for three: “This exposes your body to a training stimulus big enough during the week, which allows the body to adapt, become stronger, leaner and fitter.”
How long should your workouts last?
Some people argue that you can get an effective and efficient workout in half an hour if you use your time wisely, but Mans believes that if you want to make real progress, you should exercise for 45 minutes to an hour.
He recommends spending 10 minutes warming up and moving your body, 30 to 40 minutes of weight training, and 5 to 10 minutes to cool down and stretch.
That said, half-hour workouts can be useful for interval training or conditioning sessions.
Can you train with weights two or three days in a row?
Mans recommends resting a day between sessions if you lift weights regularly. “You can train two days in a row, but definitely try to avoid doing three days in a row unless you’re an advanced lifter.”
If you don’t give your muscles time to recover, you’ll overload your joints and tendons, which could lead to pain or worse, injury such as tendinitis.
Anyway, that is It’s okay to weight train on consecutive days if you’re training different body parts each time. However, Mans believes full-body workouts are better for the general population who want to lose fat and improve their fitness.
A well-balanced exercise regimen should include a mix of weight training and cardiovascular (aerobic and anaerobic) work, but Mans says if you don’t have time for both, focus on doing two to three weight sessions a week.
How important is sleep?
In short: very.
“For everyone, and especially people who train regularly, it’s vitally important to get an average of seven to eight hours of sleep per night,” says Mans.
“After training during the day, the body becomes stronger, burning fat and rebuilding damaged muscle tissue while you sleep.”
So if you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll put yourself at a disadvantage, your workouts will suffer, and you won’t have enough energy to train.
