A subject I hear all the time, mainly with guys, is how often should I train?. How much is not enough and how much is to much? Should I train every day or every other day?  If I want to get bigger should I increase the frequency of my workouts?  Is more really better? Well, as in many cases there isn’t one answer for everything. It depends on what type of results you are trying to obtian. What type of training that you are doing, and on your body type. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly it also depends on what you are doing when you’re not in the gym, nutrition and sleep. Without being too general, most people can workout as many as six days a week with one day off.  With that said, you want to make sure your nutrition matches that much training and you are getting close to eight hours of sleep, these two elements are very important for body recovery.  Recovery, no matter what your goals and training objectives are, is everything.

Now assuming that you’re doing the correct recovery, then your training can be everyday with one day off to rest. Although it sounds simple, but most don’t manage to do it, you just need to train in a method that will get the results you want. For instance, if you are looking to put on a lot of muscle, in other words get “yoked”, than maybe working one or two muscle groups hard each day with at least a day in between for those muscles to recover is the best way to go. That way, each day change the muscle group you work and simultaneously allow for recovery. Conversely if getting “cut” or toning is your goal you can work several muscle groups or the whole body everyday, but not to complete failure each time.  This could cause some muscle strain or injury so maybe kill the muscles one day and do cardio the next, particularly if you’re working the entire body. This is more of a pattern that is conducive to those with a set schedule, where although busy, can establish a set time on a regular basis to either get into the gym or set up a home workout. Lastly, of you are trying to loose weight maybe do cardio everyday as the base of your routine and implement weight training 3 or 4 days a week as a supplement. A power lifter for example, will do shorter workouts but go super heavy every other day with light cardio on the in between days.

None, of this is written in stone since there are different schools of thought on training. So, the best way is to try different workout routines and see what works best for you personally and produces the desired results.  If you are serious about training and conditioning your body than a little self-study will go a long way and the best part is you will be all the better for the effort so it’s a win-win.