When it comes to the question of how many days a week you should train, that really does depend on your goals. Anywhere from three to five days is a good number (as long as you are resting enough in between sessions—more on that later).
While you need at least one rest day a week, you can develop a smart plan to work out 6 days a week. Regardless of where you are in your fitness journey, you may have wondered how often you should be working out.
If your goal is build muscle…
Do not work the same muscles on consecutive days—allow them time to recover. Some people do well on a five to six day a week schedule, working only one muscle group each time. If you want to go the gym more often, you can...but don't work overwork tired muscles. They need the rest.
A weekly day of rest is often advised when structuring a workout program, but sometimes you may feel the desire to work out every day. As long as you're not pushing yourself too hard or getting obsessive about it, working out every day is fine.
Exercise alone often doesn't cause significant weight loss because it can increase appetite, causing you to eat back the calories you just burned. But new research found 300 minutes a week of exercise (40 minutes to an hour a day, six days a week) can burn fat and lead to weight loss.
There is no recommended upper limit on the amount of cardio exercise you should do on a daily or weekly basis. However, if you push yourself hard with every workout, then skipping a day or two each week to rest may help you avoid injury and burnout.
It turns out, exercise experts pretty much agree on the number of rest days people who are in good shape and exercising regularly should take: On average, you should be taking two days per week for rest and active recovery.
How much equals too much is a more individualized question, though. We know that 45-60 minutes a day is generally recommended, but even as little as 15 minutes a day will reduce mortality risk and extend life expectancy.
Taking a few days off will actually do more to improve your fitness and training. Typically, I recommend that people take a few days off from exercising every six to eight weeks, assuming you work out at a good intensity and are consistent.
Christopher McGreer, MS, NSCA CSCS, personal training coordinator at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Health & Fitness Center, agreed and added that "five days a week of exercise doesn't automatically ensure weight loss." The type and intensity of exercise a person is doing will significantly impact weight.
HIIT is a great, safe, and effective workout, but there's no need to do it every day. Keep it to three times per week. You'll still reap the benefits and give your body time to recover properly.
According to HHS, you need at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity. By doing 40 minutes of cardio five times a week or more, you'll be getting at least 200 minutes of exercise. The extra minutes can actually be beneficial to your weight-loss goals.
But if you're used to multiple workout days a week, one day probably won't challenge your body enough to maintain your fitness or make progress. The breakdown varies depending on your specific goals, but in general, four to five days a week will do the trick if you're aiming to improve or maintain your fitness.
As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day. If you want to lose weight, maintain weight loss or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to exercise more. Reducing sitting time is important, too. The more hours you sit each day, the higher your risk of metabolic problems.
Train your abs every single day
Just like any other muscle, your abs need a break too! That doesn't mean you can't activate your ab muscles during your warm-up with exercises like Planks, Inchworms, and other balance and stabilization exercises, but you shouldn't train them every day.
I've found that the sweet spot is somewhere in the 20-30 minute range. If your workout lasts any more than 30-minutes, you're probably not working hard enough to optimize the benefits of HIIT.
Gottschall recommends that you only introduce HIIT after at least six months of consistent exercise, doing a mix of cardio and resistance training across five days a week. “At this point you can replace one cardio session with one or two shorter HIIT sessions, separated by two sleep cycles.”
Training four or five times a week is ideal, but most people find that unachievable due to time constraints, so Mans says it's best to aim for three: “This exposes your body to a large enough training stimulus throughout the week, which enables the body to adapt, get stronger, leaner and fitter.”
While seeing results from working out heavily depends on the person and their current level of fitness, "My [clients] generally see initial changes within four to six weeks, and actual results within eight to 12 weeks," Wilson explains.
How much weight you lose depends on the amount of exercise you're willing to commit to and how closely you stick to your diet. If you really want to see results reflected on the scale and continue to make progress over time, you need to commit to working out at least four to five days per week.
If you don't sleep well or long enough consistently for a few days, your reaction time, immunity, cognitive functions, and endurance will decrease, with compounds the symptoms of overtraining. Dr. Wickham says that two rest days in a row should be enough to reset the body back into a normal sleep schedule and cycle.