How Often Should You Exercise?

Whether you are the type of person who creates a lot of space in their life for exercise, or you struggle to find time for looking after yourself, there is enough information out there to keep you going and cater for your needs.  You could, on the one hand, perform exercises daily, or select a collection of exercises that suit you. On the other hand, you might only do a set of exercises that you like once a week. Either way, our main thoughts are that it’s important to get a balance of strengthening, stretch and release work, and to do some level of cardiovascular exercise to keep yourself functioning well and remaining healthy.

We suggest you start with whatever is manageable. If you need to start slow and build up that is fine. If you find yourself overexercising and injuring yourself a lot, get something that is at a level you enjoy and work out what is sustainable. If it’s not working, strip things back a bit. It’s important to see how your body responds to a new exercise programme. Let your body and your continued physical education explorations lead you.

Developing and maintaining a relationship with your body is of vital importance.  Pilates and Yoga are exceptionally good disciplines for learning to do this.  We would also go a step further and suggest balancing out strengthening, stretching, and release work.  This will give you a good sense of what the tension in your body is like, and where it is.  We employ these concepts into models in our 123 Approach to Fitness book.  

Another consideration is when to notch things up a bit, or to ease things off.  Sports science terms this ‘periodisation’.  However, we like to think seasonally and with variety.  Try varying the cardiovascular activities you partake in at different time of the year.  You might swim more in summer, cycle more in Autumn, gym train in winter, and run in spring.  With a little knowledge of strengthening, stretching, and release work, you can adapt your conditioning programmes to suit your chosen activities. 

Let us know how often you exercises, or any thoughts you have in relation to what we have written.  We always love hearing from you!