People today are quite concerned about getting into better physical condition, and they do not mind spending a lot of time in the gym. Those who have just started hitting the gym tend to ask a common question: How often should I go to the gym? Want to know how much effort you need to put in to reach your fitness goals? Keep reading to find out.

Why Doing Exercise?

Here are some of the main benefits of engaging in regular exercise:

• It helps control your body weight. You can lose or maintain weight by doing exercise regularly. You burn calories when you spend time doing physical exercises. The higher the intensity of the exercise, the higher the number of calories you burn.
• It helps prevent health conditions and diseases. You can protect yourself from cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and many other health conditions. Through exercise, you can improve the levels of good cholesterol and reduce the levels of unhealthy triglycerides in the blood. This helps improve your blood circulation and keeps you from dealing with health problems such as metabolic syndrome, stroke, depression, type II diabetes, arthritis, and certain kinds of cancer.
• It helps you sleep better. Regular physical activity will make it easier for you to fall asleep at night and enjoy a deeper sleep as well.
• It keeps you happy. A 30-minute walk can stimulate brain chemicals that regulate your mood and make you feel happier. Besides, your self-confidence will also improve once you see a change in your appearance through exercise.
• It improves energy. Through regular exercise, you will be able to improve your stamina and this will help boost energy as well. Engaging in physical activities regularly will increase the amount of oxygen that reaches your tissues. This makes it easier for your lungs and heart to work and you, in turn, will feel more energetic.
• It improves your sex life. Exercise will improve the levels of sex hormones and make your sex life exciting. Studies show that regular physical activity can enhance arousal for women.

How Often Should I Go to the Gym?

In General

It is quite natural to ask the question.That is mainly because people believe that they will get negative results if they over-exercise. Generally, you should have at least half an hour of physical activity every day. The Department of Health and Human Services has recommended the following 2 sets of exercises to be included into your workout session:

• Aerobic exercise: You should do aerobic exercises for at least 150 minutes a week – that is when you are engaged in moderate aerobic activity. Moderate aerobic exercises are activities such as swimming, brisk walking, and mowing the lawn. Take it to 75 minutes a week if you talk about vigorous aerobic activity. Vigorous aerobic exercises are activities such as aerobic dancing and running. Be sure to spread out the activities throughout the week.
• Strength training: You should do strength training for at least twice a week. Strength training can include activities such as heavy gardening or rock climbing – the use of weight machines also falls into this category.

Goal Specific Training

In addition, when you ask "how often should I go to the gym”, you may have specific goals in mind. If that’s the case, then the following information might be helpful in giving you some ideas.

• Better health

When your aim is to enjoy better health, you need to spend at least half an hour in moderately intense physical activity every day. This will help you lose 200 calories a day that will help you keep fit.

• Weight loss

You should spend 60-90 minutes doing moderately intense physical activity every day while keeping your calorie intake in check to lose weight. You may have to spend at least an hour doing physical activity to prevent weight gain. Instead of sticking to traditional aerobic exercise, you should opt for High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to lose weight more efficiently. However, it is important to start HIIT program only after you have conditioned your body through regular exercise. An even better approach is to combine typical aerobic exercises with HIIT.

Note: When discussing “how often should I go to the gym”, the bottom line is that you will lose weight when you exercise most days of the week, but you do not have to exhaust yourself in the process. For example, getting 150 minutes of aerobic activity does not mean you should spend so much time performing certain exercises – you can achieve your goal simply by running on a treadmill for 10 minutes, three times a day, and five days a week. Just stay consistent with whatever you do to get positive results. Also, making exercise part of your daily routine is also a good way to form consistency. Go jogging in the morning before work, and hit the treadmill or taking yoga sessions in the afternoon can all bring you one step closer to your fitness goal.

• Preventing cardiovascular diseases

If the reason behind asking “how often should I go to the gym”is to improve your cardio-respiratory fitness, you need to keep your heart rate between 55% and 65% to 90% of your maximum heart rate. Experts suggest you should stick to intensities of only 55% to 64% maximum heart rate if you are not in a perfect condition.

It is important to understand exactly how cardiovascular fitness is measured. It is basically expressed in the form of maximum oxygen uptake, which refers to the amount of oxygen your body can use per unit weight per unit time. Several methods are now in use to measure this indicator. Many cardiovascular tests need to be validated by measuring the link between the estimated cardiovascular fitness and maximum oxygen uptake.

• Sports performance

To improve your sports performance, the best thing to do is to play more of that sport. You can definitely try certain exercises for better conditioning to improve certain aspects of the sport. While selecting any exercise program, you need to consider the specific muscles involved, type of muscular contraction, intensity, duration, motor skill, and recovery time.