Lifestyle
Food & Nutrition
Fitness
Getting fit and losing weight are two common goals that many people share, but not everyone wants to get to them the same way. If you’re someone who prefers to work out at the gym and stay on top of your health, then you may be wondering how often you should actually go to the gym in order to get the most benefits from it in the shortest amount of time. We’ve done the research for you, and I tried going to the gym three times a week for two months.
The Setup
Before I started, I wasn’t much of a gym person. If I had made it part of my routine, though, I probably would have stuck with it – because it’s not always easy in life to figure out what you actually want or need. And once you’ve decided on something, you stick with it until you don’t have time anymore (see: procrastination). But unfortunately, that’s me – and there was always too much work; too many other things going on (or not enough time to do them). In short, I knew nothing about exercise except that people said it’d make me healthier. So one day I went to Google and typed best exercises for weight loss into search. The first result said pull-ups were best for losing weight around your stomach area – so obviously I thought I should start doing those immediately.
The Routine
I was fully aware that I would not be able to sustain three gym sessions per week indefinitely, but at least in my first month of working out so frequently, there were no setbacks. No aches or pains, no illness — nothing impeded my routine or forced me to take any time off from working out (and yes, during that two-month stretch I took absolutely zero sick days). Working out regularly had given me more energy and kept me feeling healthier and more active than I had been since I stopped playing competitive sports in high school — and that sense of euphoria persisted into my second month of frequent exercise. It wasn’t until February rolled around that things began to change… [Read More…] The first sign of trouble came when I strained my left shoulder while performing dumbbell chest presses on January 30th. Although it didn’t really hurt when it happened, it was definitely sore after — so much so that I opted to skip weight training entirely on January 31st. In other words, as long as you’re starting with your baseline fitness level and making small increases over time as you feel comfortable doing so, there’s very little risk of injury. After all, what kind of an injury could occur if you’re just lifting lighter weights? If anything goes wrong here then something is wrong with your technique.
The Results
I lost about five pounds and toned up, but not in ways I could’ve predicted from running on a treadmill or lifting weights—if you consider my chest and arms toned. I’ll discuss more about what happened below, but suffice it to say that going to the gym regularly is only one part of the exercise success story; what you do there is another huge piece of the puzzle. And when it comes down to it, I found yoga was better at helping me achieve my fitness goals than going to gyms three times per week! (End with) But as much as I enjoyed my time doing yoga, what surprised me most was how much time I spent researching classes online: Which studios had good instructors? Which teachers taught challenging classes? Which classes should I take if I wanted to get strong and lean? For someone who never took an interest in health before (and didn’t have many friends who did), now here I was spending hours each day learning about all things wellness. Ultimately, that’s why a lot of people fail at sticking with their workouts: They get bored.
The Takeaway
While I found going to the gym was a good way to release stress and exercise, there were downsides as well. People I’d see regularly at work could tell something was off when I didn’t want to talk about my weekend, or how excited I was about seeing them at our next yoga class together. And like any other part of my routine, once you miss a few weeks of being at the gym, it becomes that much harder to start up again—so much so that more than one personal trainer has recommended exercising three times a week as your magic number of commitment-filled visits before it starts feeling mandatory instead of inspiring.
