How many gym sessions a week should you be doing?

How many times should you go to the gym each week? This is a great question and it is 100% individual to your own specific context. 

Golden rule: Hit each body part twice per week

In short, my golden rule is to hit each body part twice a week. If you follow this rule, you will get fitter. If you manage 2 sessions in a week then you would look at 2 full body sessions. If you can get 6 sessions in a week you can focus on individual body parts. 

Consider you training goals

Now let’s look at most people and their training goals. We can further determine how many sessions a week is appropriate for a certain goal. 

I want to focus on the general person. They want to get a bit fitter, stronger and potentially leaner. This is mostly due to the understanding that being healthy requires all of these things. How many sessions a week should this person do? 

Well it comes down to their overall commitment ability. This type of person is likely pretty busy. Committing to 5 sessions a week is probably going to end in burnout or what I like to call “the overcommitted gym goer,” that bites off more than they can chew.

Instead of thinking about how quickly you can burn off your Christmas lunch, start thinking about what is sustainable long term for your health and longevity. If you can only manage 2 sessions a week then 2 sessions a week it is! At Redemption we are able to get away with only 2 sessions a week for our members thanks to minimal effective dose training. 

Minimal effective dose training

All this means is to do as little work as possible to gain as much benefit as possible. Now this does not mean that you don’t have to work hard. This just takes a smarter approach. If we could do 2 really well programmed and efficient sessions and get the exact same results as someone else doing 4 or 5 sessions then isn’t that a win? We have now freed up most of this person’s week to spend with family or focus on what is important to them. This also brings risk of overtraining and injury right down.

There is only one catch here. You need individualised and specific training programs to achieve this. You cannot just do random workouts or do burpees until you feel unwell. You need to follow a well written and periodised program. 

At the end of the day, if you want more free time to do the things you enjoy, minimal effective dose training is the way to achieve it. Stay tuned for more specifics around how to implement this style of training.