How Many Days a Week Should You Train?
To burn fat and build lean muscle optimally you should be doing at least 4 workouts per week consisting of weight training. This from our experience at ProFitness Ireland works best for those looking to transform their body.
4 Workouts works best for us with our Small Group training clients as it gives you the stimulation needed for building lean muscle and also plenty of time to recover and spend time to recover.
If you want the best possible results I would also highly recommend adding 1 session per week of HIIT or what I call HIIC – High Intensity Interval Cardio. This is a short session, about 30 minutes of interval cardio sprints or a tool we use known as the ‘prowler’ !
Ideally the Sprints session would be done early morning on an empty stomach with only amino acids in your body – this promotes optimal fat loss whilst helping you retain your muscle. If you really smash the above sessions combined with a great nutrition plan then the only thing possible is fat loss results. By smashing these sessions I mean doing them properly, understanding sets, reps, tempo and time under tension – just sweating alone will not guarantee results.
If you can’t fit in the extra interval cardio session I would add in 10 minutes interval sprints at the end of two of the 4 workouts that you get in – just make sure they are intense enough to really get maximal results.
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Any other day over the above I would purely focus only on a weak point, like abs which we do once per week with our clients on their ‘off ‘ days. I would always recommend at least 1 day complete rest per week – some of our clients like to use our infra-red sauna on their days off.
What if you can only train 3 days per week ?
Some people can only fit 3 sessions per week in due to work/travel. If this sounds like you then you really need to work your a** off for those 3 days and I recommend your sessions are all over body sessions if your seeking optimal fat loss. For building muscle I would go for a split of upper body/lower body/upper body.
But you must remember the human body is designed to be active not to laze about and eat junk. On your non training days I would try to make sure you do some active recovery like walking, jogging, swimming etc. Its great for the mind and the body to know your not being lazy.
What if you want to train every day ?
Now you probably see some people who go to the gym every day but still never really change their body shape. Why ?The problem I see with a lot people who train every single day of the week is that A) their workouts are not hard enough and B) They are doing the wrong things. You are far better doing the right things and going hard 4 days a week than 7 days half arsed.
But what about over training ?
Then you get the common question – are people over training? Their are many considerations here including how stressful the persons life is etc and I would look at that first before telling them they are over training. For most people I would say no you are not over training and it’s often a case that people are under resting and under eating (especially on protein). So i’d advise you to look at that before you cut some sessions out of your workload first!
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Adrian
