How many days of the week should I exercise?

In this video, I am going to share my advice on how many days of the week you should exercise. Note: every body is different.  Some bodies require more, and some require less.  You'll also hear folks say you only need to exercise 1x per week and others say you have to exercise every day. And guess what? There's also research to back up each of those statements. Below I'll share my balanced approach to determining the amount of exercise most folks would benefit from.

Here are my 4 stages of "how many days of exercise should I do."

Stage 1: Just move your body every day. If you can, walk, ride a bike, swim, dance, yoga, active play, etc. for 30 minutes every day. This can be something like "walk to the grocery store" instead of drive.  Just move.

Stage 2: Once you're moving your body daily, take 2 of those days and incorporate some sort of strength training. This doesn't have to scare you. It can literally be 10 minutes of strength training.  Just add in 10-30 minutes of strength training on 2 of the days of the week. 

Stage 3a: Once you're incorporating some strength, you can make one of those two strength days a higher intensity "bootcamp" type strength workout, or a HIIT workout.  This is a higher intensity (higher heart rate) training exercise.

Stage 3b: If you want to take it up a notch, instead of making one of the two strength days a HIIT day, ADD one day of HIIT training, so you now have 3 days of strength training in your routine.  

Stage 4: Make one of your daily movement days a longer endurance exercise day. This may mean going for an hour walk instead of a 30 minute walk. It may mean going for a hike, or paddle, a longer bike ride, etc.  

That's it! It's simple. Don't make it more complicated than it is. And remember, we all go through different stages of our lives where we can do more, and/or need to do less. Listen to your body and adapt as necessary! 

If you need help getting in those strength training days, JOIN US in the Trainer In Your Back Pocket! That's what we do! We put all of this together into our monthly workout plans that you can follow along with! 

Moving your body should feel good. If it doesn't, let's connect and uncover the reasons why! Sometimes you may just need to modify the type of movement you are doing.