How Many Times a Week Should You Workout?

I was sitting down for a consultation with a new client earlier this week when the question arose as to how often someone should train to achieve optimal results with his or her physique. This is actually a common question that I receive from new clients all the time so I thought it would be a good topic to cover for this week’s blog.

What’s Your Goal?

When designing a Training Split for a new client, the first question I always ask is what they are training for. If a client tells me that he or she just wants to become overall more healthy and fit, then the split I create for them is going to be much different then someone who tells me that he or she wants to compete in a fitness competition or be in the best shape of their life for their wedding that’s only six months away.

What’s Your Timeline?

The less time a person gives themselves to achieve their target fitness goal, the more time and effort their going to have to put into their workouts AND their diet in order to succeed. Therefore it’s not only important to define your goal, but it’s also important to give yourself a realistic amount of time to achieve your goal.

What’s Your Story?

When most people start exercising and cleaning up their diet, they are usually quite excited and motivated to see the potential changes that could occur within their physiques. They prep all their meals ahead of time. They buy a bunch of new workout clothes. They might even download the latest fitness app to their Iphone to help hold them accountable for their training sessions. They are ready to transform their physiques and they are set to achieve results. The only problem is that they most likely won’t accomplish either of these things because they didn’t sit back and analyze their own lifestyles before they even had a chance to begin upon their fitness quest.

What’s Your Reality?

If you work 5-6 days a week, 10-12 hours a day, chances are that you most likely WILL NOT be able fit in going to the gym 7x/week for 3-4 hours at a time. And if your job requires you to fly throughout the country and stay in multiply hotels from week to week, then chances are that you most likely WILL NOT be able to prepare all of your meals ahead of time. And if you’re anything like me and grow bored with most apps quite quickly, then you most likely WILL NOT remain consistent with following your new fancy fitness app for a prolonged period of time.

What Are Your Intentions?

Although your intentions might seem good from the beginning, they are not realistic. You have to factor in your lifestyle, your career, you family, etc, when you factor in how you’re going to achieve your target health and fitness goals. If you are honest with yourself and understand what you truly are capable of doing and not doing as well as how much time and effort you can dedicate to achieving your goals, then you will not be setting yourself up for disappointment or let down, when the results don’t come as quickly as you would like them to.

What’s Your Why?

What’s your why is different then what’s your goal. Remember your goal is what you want to achieve. But your why is why you want to achieve it. For example, I have a client who wants to lose 25lbs by the end of this year. This is her goal. The reason she wants to lose these 25lbs though is so that she will be able to fit into a certain dress size and feel better about herself both internally and externally. This is her why. I have another client who’s goal is to lose 75lbs in the quickest and safest way possible. This is his goal. The reason he needs to lose these 75lbs is so that he can have a necessary surgery done that requires him to be in a healthy weight range to be operated on. This is his why.

Regardless of what your goal is, if you don’t have a why backing it up and reinforcing it on the days that you want to give up and quit, then you will never achieve it.