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Let’s be honest: Setting fitness goals is exciting. You know what you want to achieve, but how will you get there? Succeeding is all about how you structure your exercise routine each week. Check out how many days a week you should work out, depending on your goals. You’ll feel confident whenever you step into the gym because you’ll know you’re staying on track.
Key Takeaways
- Working out for 30 minutes three to five days a week is a recommended routine to maintain good health.
- In other words, aim to get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate exercise per week.
- Make sure you take two rest days a week to prevent overtraining.
- 80% of Americans don’t get enough exercise, leaving only 20% who exercise regularly.
How Many Days Should You Work Out Per Week
Your new workout schedule will depend on multiple factors, which means everyone will create a routine that looks a little different. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends adults get at least 30 minutes of daily activity five days a week. (1)
That recommendation is standard, so it doesn’t consider any specific fitness goals. It also doesn’t account for your current fitness level, what’s sustainable for your mental health, your training intensity, or any other factors below.
However, aiming for five weekly workout days is a great place to start. Keep it in mind as you factor other influences into your new exercise plan, like your energy levels or fitness goals.
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The World Health Organization recommends that while adults should get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise weekly, two days of muscle-strengthening workouts are enough to gain health benefits. (2) It all depends on your endurance during cardio and strength training routines.
Whether you want to gain muscle, increase your endurance, or lose weight, you’ll continue over your finish line by starting with either of these recommendations. Remember, you can always adjust your routine along the way.
Factors That Impact Workout Frequency
As you build your workout routine, you’ve got to consider how many days of rest you want and need; whether you’re aiming to lift heavy weights, stimulate muscle growth, do more cardiovascular exercise, or improve your general health; and more.
Once you have an end goal, you’ll be better able to combine those goals with recommended activity guidelines to set yourself up for overall health with the types of exercise you like.
Consider meeting with a personal trainer if you have more questions regarding the best routine for your specific fitness goals.
Your Current Fitness Level
Your current fitness level is related to how much endurance you have. You can keep this assessment casual — how many full-body workouts have you managed to do lately? How long and intense were they? It’s OK to start from scratch. Prevent burnout from the jump by meeting yourself where you’re at.
If you’re more stats-oriented, you can do things like measure your resting heart rate and track your activity levels that way to assess your fitness. You could take a PACER exam to test your endurance at different tempos or identify the maximum weight you can lift. Choose a fitness exam based on the metric you’re aiming for, like testing your current endurance if you want to become an endurance athlete or your one-rep max if you’re chasing your next powerlifting meet.
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It’s also crucial to keep your expectations at a realistic level. Someone who can lift a maximum of 10 pounds shouldn’t expect to lift 100 pounds in two weeks. Give your body time to build muscle or lose weight over weeks or months.
You might prefer to identify your fitness level by checking in with yourself after a typical workout routine. Do you feel winded and ready for a rest day? Maybe your gym time left you energized and wanting more. Adjust your new workout plan’s intensity as necessary, depending on your current physical abilities.
How Much You Enjoy Your Routine
No one wants to do something that makes them miserable. No matter how badly you want to deadlift 170 pounds, you’ll struggle to stick to your new workout routine if you hate lifting weights.
Figuring out how many days a week you should work out starts with choosing exercises you look forward to—or at least don’t mind—doing multiple times per week. The best selection will be ones that motivate you, don’t immediately destroy your mental stamina, and don’t leave you feeling like you’ve got nothing left in your tank for the rest of the week.
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Environmental influences outside of your workouts might also make you enjoy your routine more. Listen to a playlist with your favorite songs or download episodes of a TV show to watch while you’re on the elliptical. Exercising with a friend might also make your gym time more enjoyable. Consider what’s affecting your mood during your next workout to strategize solutions that make exercise more manageable in the long term.
The Quality of Your Physical Recovery
Research shows a combination of total rest and low-intensity exercise leads to optimal recovery. (3) You’ll spring back faster by working on your recovery strategies as much as how many days you’re working out each week.
Make rest days a recurring part of your weekly routine. Even active recovery workouts might be too much if your new schedule utilizes mostly high-intensity movements. Balance your workouts with rest to support your physical recovery after trips to the gym.
Don’t fall for the tempting idea of skipping rest days, either. You won’t give your muscles the time they need to get stronger and help you reach your goals. Working out with constantly torn muscle fibers may also increase your odds of injury because your body will be too tired to perform efficiently.
If you’re not sleeping enough, for example, you can pretty much kiss those muscle gains goodbye no matter how often you work out. And biking to work suddenly gets a lot more dangerous when you don’t have the energy to support your ride. So, make sure your day off is really a day off, and that you’re eating and sleeping enough between weight training sessions.
In cases where you know you can’t optimize those recovery factors…scale back your training frequency and make a plan where you’re lifting less often or less intensely each week. That way, you’re still working toward your goals but giving your body the chance to bounce back.
Your Training Intensity
Determining how many days a week you should work out requires a specific focus on training intensity. You won’t be able to maintain workouts that require extreme intensity every time you exercise. Toasted your upper body on the bench press twice already this week? You may need another lower body session, not shoulder session, coming up next.
Changing the intensity variables in your workouts is the key to fitness success with long-term plans. You’ll stay motivated and continue to see progress because you’re not draining your energy every day.
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General rule of thumb: the more intensity you want in your workouts, the less often you should be doing them. More intensity requires more rest. Chew on that while you’re drawing up your plans.
Your Training Volume
Training volume is your weight, reps, and sets for each workout. While a higher volume doesn’t necessarily mean a higher intensity, the same general rule applies: the higher your volume per session, the lower your frequency might need to be over the week.
When you’re in the planning stages, think about how much weight you’re moving over the course of the entire week. If you want to get in 12 sets per muscle group, you could do those across two sessions with six sets per group per session. Or, you could split it into three or even four sessions (with respectively fewer sets each session).
By accounting for your overall volume when you plan out your training frequency, you’ll also get an idea of what types of strength training exercises are likely to keep coming up in your program and how they might impact your body week in and week out.
How Often to Work Out for Heart Health
Many people work out to improve their heart health. Researchers found patients with cardiovascular diseases doing moderate-to-vigorous and vigorous aerobic exercise three to four days per week for at least six to 12 weeks improved their cardiorespiratory fitness. (4)
Talk with a primary care physician to see if a similar workout routine could be good for you, considering your health history. You might see similar results by switching aerobic workout intensities, similar to the study’s participants. Opting for lower-intensity workouts might mean you could exercise five days per week without feeling fatigued.
Anyone who wants to train intensely might stick with vigorous aerobic exercises three to four days weekly to get better results. The key is understanding what feels vigorous to you. Your exercises should leave you a bit breathless without getting close to the point of passing out.
[Read More: Benefits of Cardio — Better Sleep, Mental Health, Bone Health & More]
Sleep will also affect how many days a week you should work out for any goal. It’s the primary force behind recovery because it activates human growth hormone (HGH) production that regulates your metabolism and builds muscle.
If you’re not getting at least the recommended seven hours of sleep each night, space your workout days out to four times each week or less. (5) Adding more rest days will give your body the time it needs to repair itself with your lower HGH levels.
While working out for heart health, stop by a primary care physician’s office for regular checkups if that’s accessible to you.
How Often to Work Out for Strength
The CDC’s recommendations also indicate adults should work out twice weekly while focusing on strength-building routines. That’s a standard recommendation just to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Anyone hoping to build muscle can go beyond that two-day guideline.
If you’re focusing on low-intensity strength training, you’re in luck. Research shows people gained muscle while doing one session per week over eight to 12 weeks. (6) The study also recommends increasing your weekly gym sessions if you hit a progress plateau around the 12-week mark.
Intense strength training sessions—also known as HIIT workouts, or high-intensity interval training—may be best when done three days per week for at least 12 weeks. (7) Your muscles will need time to recover from the high-intensity workouts. Pushing yourself too hard could make you feel sluggish and irritated due to overtraining syndrome.
Working out on minimal sleep is never a good idea. You’ll want your brain and body energized before hitting the gym. Researchers agree sleep loss negatively affects workout results and recommend exercising in the morning if you absolutely have to get moving after a night of limited sleep. (8)
How Often to Work Out for Muscle Mass
Low-intensity exercise builds muscle mass with just one gym session per week, according to the study referenced above. If you want to work out more often, exercise your targeted muscle groups two or three days per week to gain muscle without feeling trapped at the gym. (9)
Anyone doing high-intensity workouts should note that experts found greater muscle hypertrophy occurs after high-volume training. (10) You’ll benefit from higher intensities alongside higher-volume workouts.
You may want to avoid very intense workouts if you’re not getting full nights of sleep. The lack of energy and limited HGH production time while you dream will affect your workout results.
However, you’re in luck if you want to increase your muscle mass. Strength training makes sleeping easier by reducing inflammatory markers. (11) Once you get started, you may get more sleep and hit the gym more often without necessarily pushing yourself to go.
How Often to Work Out for Weight Loss
Weight loss is one of the more common workout goals, but you don’t have to push yourself too hard to achieve it. Low-intensity exercise is effective if you do it for around 60 minutes per day until you average 250–300 minutes of extra movement weekly. (12)
Depending on your initial or optimized exercise schedule, this could result in working out for an hour four to five days each week. Consider how long you want to spend exercising and how much free time you have to integrate your weight loss exercises with your lifestyle.
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High-intensity interval training is effective for weight loss as well. Participants in a recent study lost weight while doing three HIIT workouts weekly for 12 weeks without food restrictions. (13) Combining three days of higher-intensity workouts with four rest days is essential for maintaining the energy your body needs to burn calories and keep up with your more demanding exercise routine.
Sleep is one of the most important factors for people losing weight. If you have a poor sleep schedule, lower hormone production and metabolism breakdown will cause weight gain. (14) You’ll want to get the minimum seven hours of sleep recommended for adults to maintain long-term weight loss. (15)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is working out three days a week enough?
Working out three days per week is often enough to achieve goals like muscle mass gain, increased strength, and weight loss, per the studies cited above. The key is maintaining that workout schedule for a set number of weeks, like 12 weeks for a three-month program.
Is working out five days a week too much?
Working out five days a week may not be too much if you stick with lower-intensity exercises and/or dial in your recovery. Researchers discovered people doing low-intensity workouts five days per week experienced similar results to individuals doing maximum-effort exercises. (16) You’ll see long-term progress as long as you maintain your two rest days each week.
Should you take a rest day?
You should take a rest day so your muscles have time to recover. While you’re taking it easy, your body regulates its autonomic and hormonal production systems to prevent injuries during future workouts. (17) You’ll also gain more energy to tackle your next workout more effectively.
How many times should you work out a week to build muscle?
General recommendations include working out at least twice weekly to build muscle. Targeting the specific muscle groups you want to develop can help make them stronger and bigger.
However, remember to rest between workouts. Overworking your muscles may cause overtraining syndrome, which makes it much more challenging to stay on track with your exercise routine.
How often should you work out a week for weight loss?
You should work out four or five days a week for weight loss. If those workouts are each at least 60 minutes of low-intensity movement, you may see weight loss progress over multiple weeks. Getting enough sleep, eating enough, and maintaining your rest days will ensure you have enough energy to keep up with this routine until you reach your weight loss goal.
Editor’s Note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. When starting a new training regimen and/or diet, it is always a good idea to consult with a trusted medical professional. We are not a medical resource. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2023) Physical Activity for Adults: An Overivew.
- World Health Organization. (2022, October 5). Physical Activity Fact Sheet.
- Martínez-Gómez, R., Valenzuela, P. L., Lucia, A., & Barranco-Gil, D. (2022). ‘Comparison of different recovery strategies after high-intensity functional training: A crossover randomized controlled trial,’ Frontiers in Physiology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.819588.
- Gonçalves, C., Raimundo, A., Abreu, A., & Bravo, J. (2021). ‘Exercise intensity in patients with cardiovascular diseases: Systematic review with meta-analysis.’ International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(7), 3574.
- Ramar, K., Malhotra, R. K., Carden, K. A., Martin, J. L., Abbasi-Feinberg, F., Aurora, R. N., Kapur, V. K., Olson, E. J., Rosen, C. L., Rowley, J. A., Shelgikar, A. V., & Trotti, L. M. (2021). ‘Sleep is essential to health: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement.’ Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 17(10), 2115–2119.
- Behm, D. G., Urs Granacher, Warneke, K., José Carlos Aragão-Santos, Marzo, & Konrad, A. (2023). ‘Minimalist training: Is lower dosage or intensity resistance training effective to improve physical fitness? A narrative review.’ Sports Medicine.
- Cristián Caparrós-Manosalva, Nicolás Garrido-Muñoz, Bastián Alvear-Constanzo, Sofía Sanzana-Laurié, Macarena Artigas-Arias, Alegría-Molina, A., Nicolás Vidal-Seguel, Espinoza-Araneda, J., Huard, N., Aline, J Sapunar, Salazar, L. A., & Gabriel Nasri Marzuca‐Nassr. (2023). ‘Effects of high-intensity interval training on lean mass, strength, and power of the lower limbs in healthy old and young people.’ Frontiers in Physiology, 14.
- Craven, J., McCartney, D., Desbrow, B., Sabapathy, S., Bellinger, P., Roberts, L., & Irwin, C. (2022). ‘Effects of acute sleep loss on physical performance: A systematic and meta-analytical review.’ Sports Medicine, 52(11).
- Iversen, V. M., Norum, M., Schoenfeld, B. J., & Fimland, M. S. (2021). ‘No time to lift? Designing time-efficient training programs for strength and hypertrophy: A narrative review.’ Sports Medicine, 51(10), 2079–2095.
- Alves de Santana, D., Castro, A., & Cavaglieri, C. (2021, September 29). ‘Strength training volume to increase muscle mass responsiveness in older individuals: Weekly sets based approach.’ Frontiers; Frontiers in Physiology.
- de Sá Souza, H., de Melo, C. M., Piovezan, R. D., Miranda, R. E. E. P. C., Carneiro-Junior, M. A., Silva, B. M., Thomatieli-Santos, R. V., Tufik, S., Poyares, D., & D’Almeida, V. (2022). ‘Resistance training improves sleep and anti-inflammatory parameters in sarcopenic older adults: A randomized controlled trial.’ International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(23), 16322.
- Khanfir, M. A., Awicha, H. B., Masmoudi, L., Hmadou, F. B., Dardouri, W., Alardan, S., Nouira, S., & Zouch, M. (2022). ‘Effects of different low-intensity exercise types on duration, energy expenditure and perceived exertion in obese individuals.’ International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(8), 4893.
- D’Amuri, A., Sanz, J. M., Capatti, E., Di Vece, F., Vaccari, F., Lazzer, S., Zuliani, G., Dalla Nora, E., & Passaro, A. (2021). ‘Effectiveness of high-intensity interval training for weight loss in adults with obesity: a randomised controlled non-inferiority trial.’ BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 7(3), e001021.
- Papatriantafyllou, E., Efthymiou, D., Zoumbaneas, E., Popescu, C. A., & Vassilopoulou, E. (2022). ‘Sleep deprivation: Effects on weight loss and weight loss maintenance.’ Nutrients, 14(8), 1549.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2024, May 15). About Sleep.
- Riku Yoshida, Shigeru Sato, Kazuki Kasahara, Yuta Murakami, Fu Murakoshi, Kodai Aizawa, Ryoma Koizumi, Kazunori Nosaka, Masatoshi Nakamura. Greater effects by performing a small number of eccentric contractions daily than a larger number of them once a week. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 2022;
- Puga TB, Mazumder RM, Ruan T, Scigliano N, Thiel GE, Treffer K. ‘Sleep, nutrition, hydration and rest: The equal importance of external factors outside of training and practice for sports injury prevention.’ Scientific Journal of Sport and Performance. 2023;2(4):428-438.
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