Hoping to figure out how often should you work out? Is it every day? Twice a week? More? Less? I’ll break it down so you know when and how to train.

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It’s easy to develop this mindset of “if some is good, more is better.” Especially when it comes to fitness and nutrition. 

In this world of on-demand everything, we want immediate results. This includes our quest for rapid fat loss and instant six pack abs. The fitness magazines don’t help things, either, with their cover stories on how to get shredded by the summer, “Do these ab moves for ripped core in only 12 weeks.”

Unfortunately, it’s a load of click-bait crap designed to sell copies.

The promise of being in the best shape of your life by cranking out three workouts per week in just three months is not possible. Sorry to break it to you.

As a result, it’s easy to go to the extreme and push yourself even harder and harder––because in the past, when you took up running three or four miles per day, it seemed to work.

“But fat loss is harder to come by now because of age” (actually not true) so you might have thought that you needed to increase that daily running habit to five miles or more.

Then you tossed in a bunch of HIIT classes. And yoga. And the occasional spin class. Or bootcamp. 

Suddenly, you were working out six days a week. Maybe even seven. All of it intense. All of it punished your body, but none of it actually led to meaningful results.

I talk quite a bit about the rigors of overly restrictive nutrition and how that is a recipe for yo-yo dieting.

Today, we’re going to talk about the fitness cousin to the punishing nutrition approach: working out too much.

Instead, I’ll show you how much you should work out each week to earn and maintain great results.

Now, to be clear, what you might believe is overtraining doesn’t really happen for the casual exerciser. That’s more reserved for someone that makes working out their entire life, like bodybuilders, athletes or professional performers (actors, musicians, dancers, etc.).

What I’m going to talk about today is creating a more lifestyle-friendly and sustainable approach to fitness and working out. Less is actually more in this case and you do not have to “go big or go home” every single day of the week to maximize your results.

Let’s get into it.

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“Am I working out too much? How often should you workout????”

I open up my direct messages to anyone and everyone on Instagram so I can answer questions and help clear the general misinformation from the fitness world. So as people follow me and feel compelled to reach out, I get quite a bit of message like this one:

“So, I’m working out every day doing some weights and cardio. I do CrossFit like two or three times per week and a few spin classes and then I’ll try to do a bootcamp with my friends on Saturday or Sunday. But I’m not losing weight. I’m not seeing the results that I want. Should I do even more?”

Results, especially the ones that commenters like this are looking for, do not come from exercise. Those results do not come from doing more.

This is the backwards way to approach fitness and develops a poor relationship to movement. 

To put things bluntly, the only reasons why you should be increasing the frequency of your workouts and training (outside of your normal programming) is because you enjoy it, because you have the time, and/or because you just really want to.

That’s it.

Remember, this fat loss process is a journey. A long and winding journey that has a ton of obstacles.

But, in the driver seat of that car is your nutrition. Not your workouts.

Too often, you’ve been led to believe that training volume is what dictates the ability to get those lean and toned muscles and six pack abs. 

This is not your fault. It’s all over the damn internet and random infomercials schlepping cardio machines and adjustable weights and workout gear. 

But all of that marketing and all of those products always leave out the most important piece to the body transformation puzzle:

In order to lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit. And in order to create a calorie deficit, you must eat fewer calories than you burn. Manipulating the amount of food that meets your face hole consistently is the key to fat loss victory. 

In its most simplistic terms, a calorie deficit is eating fewer calories than you burn. Boom. That’s it. There are three ways to make this happen:

• Diet: This should be the primary driver of your fat loss journey. Manipulating how many calories you eat on a daily basis is the most important piece to the weight loss puzzle. No amount of exercise will overcome a poor diet. If you’re kicking ass in the gym and not seeing results, then check your nutrition.
• Exercise: You should move. You should lift heavy things. Do this a few times per week. Not because of the calorie burn, but because getting stronger boosts metabolism, which in turn burns more calories. But, strength training also keeps you healthy. It’s the closest thing to the real-life Fountain of Youth that we have.
• NEAT (or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis): This just means all of the stuff you do that is not purposeful movement. Like, fidgeting. NEAT can make up almost 20% of the daily calories you burn. And the best way to manipulate this one is to get up and walk. If you’re sedentary, aim to increase your daily step count by about 1,000-2,000 per day and work up from there. Take the stairs. Park farther away. Just get up and pace if you have to.

When you couple the calorie deficit with the added intensity of strength training and strategic implementation of cardio tactics (like walking) and do this consistently over time, that’s when the results will come.

If you are struggling to see meaningful weight loss progress, you need to check that your nutrition is in order first. Then, we can tackle your workout programming.

And as we dive into creating that fitness plan that works best for you and your goals and your lifestyle, it’s important to be clear about all of this:

The theme of this article, much like everything related to health and fitness, is highly individualistic. So toss in the big shrug emoji for each bullet point and realize that a lot of this stuff is simply, “It depends.”

But, on the margins are the real answers that will help you figure out the best game plan for you. 

That’s where the real awesomesauce is. 

Let’s figure out how to make this work. It starts with determining how often you should workout.

How often should you workout each week?

The answer to this question is going to come down to many factors. First on that list is the overarching question of: What is your goal?

If your goal is to do enough strength training and cardio to reap the benefits of exercise to stay healthy for long-term, that’s awesome. And it looks totally different from someone who wants to look magazine cover ready, compete in a fitness competition or train for a competitive sport.

Now the chances are that if you’re reading this article and appreciating the knowledge bombs that I drop on this website, you’re probably just like the majority of my audience and online coaching clients: A regular person hoping to improve your health, lose a little fat and establish a better relationship with food and exercise in a sustainable way.

Fantastic.

You already know the importance of establishing that calorie deficit. You also should know by now the importance of incorporating a strength-training program to your routine and to prioritize lifting heavy stuff over pounding the treadmill or the pavement  with endless bouts of cardio.

To reap the benefits of that strength training, you should be lifting heavy shit twice per week at minimum.

That’s it. Honestly.

Sure, if you had the time, it would be slightly more beneficial to up that frequency to at least three times per week for your lifting routines, but honestly, this is not totally necessary for your goal of preserving muscle in a busy schedule.

However, when you do lift those 2-3 times per week, you must get after it. And you must get after it with a focus on getting stronger while hitting the key muscle groups. You’ll want to hit every major muscle group in the body two times per seven days at minimum.

The human body has some simple functions that can be strengthened through regular exercise. The basic movement patterns of human beings looks like this:

• We push things;
• We pull things;
• We hinge at the hips;
• We squat;
• We lunge;
• We carry things.

That’s about it. So if you add a full body routine to your weekly schedule that mimics these movements with some kind of resistance, you’ll be totally fine with a 2-3 times-per week setup. 

What does that setup look like? The goal is to move towards the compound movements. if your workout consists of simple moves like bicep curls and a few leg raises, it’s time to upgrade.

These compound lifts should be staples of your training program:

• Bench Press – Do you even lift, bruh? The upper body exercise of broskis everywhere is not just for gym rats and hardgainers.
• Pull-ups – For those struggling to hit that first pull-up, you can work with the Lat Pulldown machine or grab some dumbbells and practice the DB Row for similar pulling movements.
• Deadlifts – Hinging at your hips helps build a fantastic booty.
• Squats – More bootyliciousness here.⠀
• Overhead press – Lifting weights over your head to bulletproof your shoulders.

These movements hit the major muscle groups of the upper and lower body. Including the glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, shoulders, back, arms and core. It’s the whole friggin nine yards. And a sound programming setup with these compound movements still follows the general movement patterns we just discussed.

In more simplistic terms: you get more bang for your buck by focusing the majority of your strength training on the compound movements. 

Make these a priority, then you can supplement with what are more commonly known as the accessory exercises––movements that really just isolate one muscle (like bicep curls, or a dumbbell chest fly).

Here’s a minimalist workout that checks all of the boxes and you can perform this routine 2-3 times per week (just be sure to take one day off for rest and recovery in between sessions).

Understand that you can work out more if you’d like and if it meets your schedule and lifestyle and goals. But, this twice-per week approach is the minimum effective dose.

RELATED: For more on the best weight loss workout plan if you are just getting started, you should read my guide to creating the optimal weight loss workout program for beginners. OR you can download this simple full body fat loss routine right now and get started today by clicking through the link below.

You could also supplement the resistance training with a couple of sessions of cardio. Yes, I said cardio. No, I did not say cardio should be the driver of your fat loss journey. Nor did I imply that cardio should be the main driver of your exercise regime. 

It is totally fine to supplement your strength training with some bouts of cardio if you are into that.

You could train five days per week with three sessions of strength training and then two days of cardio. Or you could go with two full body strength training sessions per week, add in two cardio days and then add a day of active recovery like yoga, mobility work and flexibility movements. 

Remember, the key is to utilize all of your muscle groups at least twice per week. And both of those sample set ups do just that. Everything must align with your goals.

If you are really focused on adding muscle, you’ll want to add one or two additional strength training days. If you want to improve your endurance, you’d want to add one more cardio day to your routine. Just remember that baseline rule of at least two days of strength training per week to ensure you’re getting the minimum work requirements for muscle preservation.

Should I work out less to get more results?

This is another one of those, “Well, that depends,” question and answer segments. 

If you’ve crammed your weekly schedule with so many classes and workout sessions and routines that it is a dizzying array of sweat and it’s hard to keep up, then you’d likely need to cut back on your training programming a bit.

My philosophy is to add a small dose of purposeful movement to your day … every day. But, that does not mean a grueling workout performed seven days per week.

Get a good mix of strength training, mobility and flexibility, cardio and perhaps a round or two of interval training if you’d like. Some of these methodologies can be combined into one workout, several workouts or spread throughout your week.

But, you should focus on cranking out at least 2-3 strength training sessions. That’s it. That’s the minimum effective dose that will provide enough benefits to preserve lean muscle tissue. If you’d like to do more, knock yourself out. 

But you do not need to do more.

A sample schedule with all of those factors would look like this:

• Monday –– Full Body workout A
• Tuesday –– 10-15 minute interval session
• Wednesday –– 20-25 minute cardio session and 10-15 minutes of flexibility
• Thursday –– Full Body workout B
• Friday –– 10-15 minute interval session
• Saturday -– 20-25 minute cardio OR lots of walking
• Sunday –– Rest day (can include 10-15 minutes of flexibility and lots of walking)

Notice there is something for every day. Even the rest day. But nothing is too taxing, in fact everything works in synergy with one another to provide balance and bolster your strength training workouts. 

It’s here where your goal is to get stronger through what we call Progressive Overload. That is just fitness sciency shit for “making progress in reps, weight, rest time, form, etc.” from one workout to the next. 

This setup works really well for anyone that has a cramped schedule but still wants to get the bare minimum accomplished in their training.

Likewise, if you’ve got some major short-term stressors going on in your life, this might work best for you. 

Let’s say you’ve got a major work project that is kicking your ass. Or you’ve got a sick kid at home. Maybe you’ve got some other personal shit weighing you down right now. Well, all of those things are stressors and there is no need to hammer yourself and your body even more when those things are going on. 

In that case, I like a minimal setup like this to just get in and get out and move on with your day. You could even just skip the interval sessions altogether here and focus on those strength training routines.

And the strength training sessions do not need to be marathons. In fact, let’s go into further detail on just how long your workouts should last.

How long should my workout last?

Of course, there are a ton of factors that dictate the actual length of a workout. Not to mention, the markers of measurement for said “workout” can be interpreted quite differently for everyone. 

Does the workout begin once you hit the gym? Or does it start with your warmup? Perhaps the workout begins when you start your first real “working” heavy set?

When does the workout officially end? Is it after the last working set? Maybe you stop the timer after your cooldown or stretching and foam rolling. Or perhaps you just count the entire gym experience as the total time and don’t stop the timer until after you’ve showered and left the gym. 

Not to mention, what gets included in the timing? Do you count that chit chat you made with your buddy about the weather? Maybe it takes an extra 3-4 minutes to creep on the woman in the squat rack (don’t be a douche, fellas … leave women alone when they train). What if you have to wait an extra 5 minutes for a machine to open up? Does that count, too?

As you can see, there are a ton of variables here. But, for the sake of sanity, we’ll just assume the total workout time is from when the warm-up starts until the cooldown and stretching are wrapped. 

And for that, the answer will always be the same: your workout should last as long as your workout needs to be. 

Yep, that is willfully obtuse. Told ya earlier this was all about the individualistic nature of things.

I’ve designed workouts that are 10-15 minutes in nature for clients that really are cramped with their schedule (more on that in a minute). 

That said, the majority of the workouts I design fall into the 35-45 minute range. Likewise, I tend to follow more of a three times per week setup. And keeping our previous rule in mind, all of my programming allows for each major muscle movement to be hit at least twice per week.

This setup just happens to be what works best for the majority of clients.

But, this varies from person to person and client to client. And if you were to come to me and work with me in my coaching program, you’d see that I build each program from the ground up. They all start with a blank sheet of paper and I design the program based off of your goals, schedule, access to equipment and personal preference. 

And that is how you should go about designing your own program.

Just because The Rock is in the gym for 2-3 hours at a time doesn’t mean you need to do that. Keep in mind, Dwayne Johnson is getting paid to look like a Greek God. You are probably not.

A few things to consider when judging your workout time frame is the total volume of the session (or how many sets and reps are taking place) and what the intensity looks like (how hard are you pushing yourself and how much time are allowing for rest between sets).

Typically, I like to provide longer rest times in between the first one or two movements of each session. These movements are those compound exercises we talked about earlier and involve the most muscle recruitment.

For example: the Deadlift is mostly thought of as a lower body focused exercise, yet the entire body is involved in executing it correctly. The goal here is to push yourself in that set and then provide enough of a rest period so your body can prepare to go hard on the subsequent sets. Typically, this means a rest period of anywhere from 60 seconds to about two minutes.

Whereas those bicep curls don’t recruit nearly the same number of muscles, so the rest time between these sets can be much shorter (like 30 seconds to a minute).

If you find your workouts drifting in total time to areas that are just not sustainable, look to those rest periods and see if you can find some gaps where you can cut out some extra downtime. For instance, perhaps you can superset two or more movements (that’s going from one exercise directly into another with minimum to no rest at all). 

An example of this would be supersetting a Dumbbell Incline Bench Press with a DB Reverse Lunge. Both movements work totally different areas of the body (Bench press works the upper body and lunges work the lower body), so there is only a little bit of crossover in exertion and the two moves don’t interfere with one another.

Let’s put all of this together with an example. 

Rebecca came to me as an online coaching client looking to lose a really stubborn 10 pounds of belly fat that had accumulated after her second child. She’s a small business owner and writer and because childcare costs are stupid expensive, her youngest child stayed at home with her throughout the work day.

In other words, her schedule was jam packed.

So we devised a plan that worked for her goals and her busy schedule. I gave her three full body workouts. I tossed in an interval cardio session that she could perform on her stationary bike at home. And then I prescribed some additional steady state cardio in the form of walking by pushing her stroller.

Sounds like a ton of time, Pete … what gives?

Each workout was 10-15 minutes. Tops.

Here’s what it looked like in action:

Strength Workout A (1x per week)
Push-ups x 10 reps
DB Rows x 10 reps
Kettlebell (Or DB) swings x 20 reps
Rest 1 minute and repeat 5 times

Sprint Workout (1-2x per week)
3 minute walk
20 second sprint on treadmill at 8-9 mph
40 seconds rest 
Repeat 5 times
2-3 minute walk

Strength Workout B (1x per week)
DB Thrusters (Squat to overhead press) x 10 reps
Reverse Lunges x 10 reps/side
Plank from Push-up position x 30-45 seconds
Rest 1 minute and repeat 5 times

Cardio Workout (2x per week)
Walking for 20-30 minutes while pushing the stroller

Each workout is about 10-15 minutes in nature. That’s it.

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By supersetting and grouping the key movements and prioritizing intensity and progressions, we were able to maximize her results with minimal time spent.

The results? She lost 10 pounds of stubborn belly fat. And she’s continued this lifestyle of quick, effective workouts after spreading her wings and flying on her own.

She’s kept the weight off and texted her bestie to thank her for recommending me and my coaching services:

The moral of this story is that you do not need to punish yourself with endless bouts of cardio or grueling workouts every single day, all week long.

Your diet is the driver of the fat loss process, remember that and trust the process.

With Rebecca, we really nailed her calories and protein targets and she was a stickler for hitting those numbers on a consistent basis. 

Did she go over some days? Absolutely. Her husband works in the restaurant business, so there were plenty of occasions when going over happened. And that’s okay.

It’s all about the consistency with nutrition. And the workouts.

There were times when life and work and parenting got the best of Rebecca and she missed a workout. But, she set a rule to herself to never miss consecutive workouts. And she stuck with it.

And that’s the moral of the story. 

You do not need to beat yourself up in the gym in order to see progress. 

And most importantly, I do not want time to become a barrier for entry into working out because you’ve been led to believe that anything short of an hour-long session is simply not effective.

When it comes to fat loss, the most important piece of the puzzle will always be your diet. And therefore, the most important exercise you’ll perform involves your fork and your plate.

The more consistent you are in putting down your fork and pushing away your plate, the more progress will come from a fat loss perspective.

Your workout program supplements the diet. It does not drive the journey. So stop chasing calorie burn in your workouts and instead look to a lifestyle with your diet and your fitness plan that will work for you.

If you’ve got more time to train and it fits your goals and you genuinely enjoy more movement … cool, have at it and crush it. But if your time is crazy busy and you aren’t necessarily a fan of working out, make sure to fit in the minimal requirements we addressed in this article, but don’t feel like you have to go big or go home. Just go and do something.

Something will always be better than nothing. Adopt a “more than nothing” mindset with your fitness and you’ll be in good shape.

Photo by Meghan Holmes on Unsplash

Let me help you figure out how often should you workout to lose weight … 

Finding the right time and right workout plan can be incredibly overwhelming. But, I’m here to help you out.

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “How often should you workout” and I’ll answer any questions you have about training.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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