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Whether you are a seasoned gym-goer or are brand new to exercise, having a weekly workout plan can help you stay consistent and ensure you continue progressing towards your fitness goals.
And while life can sometimes get in the way of your scheduled workout program—for instance, maybe childcare falls through and you have to skip yoga to watch your toddler, or a work meeting runs late so you can’t fit in the dumbbell weight lifting routine you had planned—having a set structure week-to-week can go a long way in helping fitness become an ingrained part of your lifestyle.
As for what your weekly gym workout plan should look like? Well, that answer is really going to vary from person to person. Factors like your baseline fitness level, current health status, exercise goals, and how much room you have in your schedule to exercise will all dictate the best workout schedule for you. For example, the right exercise routine for an avid runner trying to set a new PR is probably going to be a whole lot different than the best workout schedule for muscle gain and muscle growth.
All that said, if you’re looking for some general info to get you started, there are some broad guidelines that can give you a good sense of what comprises a well-rounded weekly workout plan. With that in mind, we spoke with four experts to get some basic guidance on how often you should work out, the components of a good workout routine, how you can make it a lasting habit, and how much exercise is too much. Right this way for all the need-to-know intel.
How often should you work out each week?
Like we said, there’s no simple formula that’s right for everyone. If you’re looking to amp up your fitness level, your magic number of days depends, in part, on how active you already are.
For example, you’ll probably see physical (and mental) results from one day a week if you don’t already work out at all, Noam Tamir, CSCS, founder and CEO of TS Fitness in New York City, tells SELF. But if you’re used to multiple workout days a week, one day probably won’t challenge your body enough to maintain your fitness or make progress.
The ideal breakdown of cardio and strength work varies depending on your specific goals, but in general, four to five days a week of exercise will do the trick if you’re aiming to improve or maintain your fitness.
Of course, if you’re just getting started and don’t exercise currently, that might be too big of a jump at first, ACE-certified trainer Sivan Fagan, CPT, owner of Strong With Sivan, tells SELF. And overdoing it right away can turn you off completely from working out. Instead, a good beginner workout plan is to try starting with two workouts a week. After you get used to that, you can consider gradually increasing the number of days, Fagan says.
How can beginners turn working out into a habit?
It sounds simple, but if you want exercise to become a natural part of your routine, you need to stay consistent with it, certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist Keith Hodges, founder of Mind in Muscle Coaching in Los Angeles, tells SELF. “It has to be a part of your lifestyle,” Hodges says, adding that the ultimate goal is to make movement as ingrained into your schedule as, say, showering or brushing your teeth.
Now, that doesn’t mean you need to be hitting the gym hard seven days a week (in fact, that’s actually ill-advised—more on that in a minute). But by aiming to fit in a little bit of movement each day, even if it’s not a full-on workout session, you can increase the chances of exercise becoming a lasting habit, Fagan says. It could be as simple as taking a 20-minute stroll during your lunch break or flowing through some relaxing yoga poses before bed.
Building a social group around fitness can also help exercise become a set part of your routine, Hodges says. “Try to meet people at the gym to start to build that community,” he advises. Connecting with others can help you feel less alone in your fitness journey. Plus having a gym buddy (or two) can provide you with additional motivation and encouragement to stick with your workout plan.
Additionally, setting a doable goal for how many times you’ll work out each week can be helpful to make sure you don’t get burned out, Fagan says. Goal-setting in general can be a good way to help you stay motivated, enjoy your workouts, and stay on track with a consistent plan. If you’re “just going through the motions with no set goal in mind, it’s not as fun,” Hodges says. “You’re not working toward anything.” Learn more about setting realistic fitness goals here.
Another key component to making exercise a habit is being thoughtful about when you’ll work out. Again, there’s no right answer to this, but it helps to take a careful look at your schedule when figuring out when you should pencil in your workout. For instance, if your mornings are super hectic with lots of last-minute changes, it could be self-defeating to plan on morning workouts, Fagan says. In that case, an afternoon or evening workout may be more likely to happen as scheduled.
Lastly, pay attention to your body: Some people feel more energized in the morning, while others drag at that time of day. Matching up your workout time to when you feel the best can make you more likely to want to stick with it, Fagan says.
What’s a good workout routine?
What constitutes a good workout routine will depend on your individual goals, but if you’re looking to just generally improve your health and fitness, it should include some type of strength training and some type of cardio.
If you want to work out five days per week and are working on both strength and cardiovascular fitness, try three days of strength training, two days of cardio, and two days of rest. If you want to work out four days a week, think about your goals: If you want to add muscle, cut a cardio day. If you want to improve endurance, skip a strength day. Or switch it each week, Tamir says.
Remember, it’s important to be realistic about your own schedule when you’re asking yourself how many days a week you should work out. If four days makes more sense for you than five days, do that. But if five days is reasonable, great!
Why: Strength training is a super important way to keep your body functional for the long haul, Fagan says: It helps prevent the bone loss and muscle loss that comes with aging. It also helps strengthen your joints, Tamir says.
How: To build muscle mass, you should try to work each muscle group two to three times a week, Tamir says. So in a two- to three-day strength plan, this means you should aim to do full-body workouts, giving yourself 48 hours in between each session to give your muscles time to recover.
You’ll want to hit the major muscle groups of your upper body and lower body, including your glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, shoulders, back, and arms—and don’t forget to include some core exercises too. That might sound like a lot, but that’s where compound exercises come in. Moves like squats, lunges, rows, and chest presses work more than one muscle group at a time, so you get more bang for your buck.
You also want to have a balance between pushing movements (like an overhead press or bench press) and pulling movements (like a bent-over row or pull-up). Remember, strength training is not just about free weights or machines—mastering bodyweight moves will challenge your muscles too.
Shoot for 12–15 reps per set when you are just getting started, Fagan says. Once you’ve become more comfortable with the moves, you can add more weight and decrease the reps. One to two sets of each exercise is enough for your first month, after which you may want to increase it to three, she says.
You should do different moves in each of the three strength sessions, but repeat those same moves every week.
“I would stay with a program for four to six weeks and progressively increase the weight,” Tamir says. The week before your last week, he suggests lowering the weight a bit “to give your body a little bit of a recovery, and the last week really push it hard."
Why: As important as it is to strength train, cardio also has its place in a balanced workout routine. “Doing cardio keeps your circulatory system working optimally, helping you to recover faster, [and it] keeps your endurance up,” Tamir says. “It also increases your VO2 max, which helps your body utilize oxygen.”
How: You’ve got a ton of options for cardio: an outdoor jog, a bike ride, the good old elliptical machine, swimming laps at your local recreational center—the list goes on. Functional movements, like kettlebell swings and agility work, can also count as cardio, as long as you’re doing enough reps during a certain time frame to keep your heart rate elevated.
“Whether something is cardiovascular depends on where your heart rate is at and how long you’re doing it for,” Tamir says. Target heart rates are different for everyone, but Tamir suggests that a good baseline to aim for during your cardio routines is between 120 and 150 beats per minute for 45 to 60 minutes. (Of course, work up to that level—shorter cardio routines are great too.)
Another option is interval training, where you work hard for a short amount of time and alternate that with recovery periods, Tamir says. The best part? You can do this with pretty much anything—indoor rowing machine, bike, running, functional movements, you name it.
There are also plenty of cardio classes out there that you can try. Heart-pumping examples include indoor cycling, kickboxing, HIIT classes, dance cardio, running classes, rowing classes, and more.
Why: Taking a break lets your body recover and rebuild—and gives it some time for post-workout muscle soreness to ease up—so you can get back to your workouts refreshed and ready to rock it.
There are a few ways to work in a rest day. A rest day can involve active recovery, meaning you don’t have to hit the gym or break a serious sweat, but you still do something.
"It’s not just about the physical recovery—it’s also the mental,” Tamir says. “Doing something that you enjoy that’s active is great for the mind…and it assists in residual fatigue.”
But sometimes the best rest day is a day of actual rest. It’s perfectly okay to do absolutely nothing on your rest day. What’s most important is that you listen to what your body and brain need. Some rest days, that might be doing a light morning stretch routine. Other days, it might be binge-watching Netflix on the couch. Both have a place in your weekly workout plan!
How: Active recovery shouldn’t require much effort. Think low-key, gentle movement. You can do some stretching, just take a walk, or try a class like restorative yoga. It’s also okay, as mentioned, to do nothing physical on your rest day. If you do choose active recovery, aim for 30–60 minutes of really light activity.
Where you place these rest days is up to you—if you do your workouts Monday through Friday, feel free to take the whole weekend off, Tamir says. Or you could break them up by doing a strength day, a cardio day, then a rest day before getting back to weight training. As SELF previously reported, the American Council on Exercise recommends taking at least one rest day every 7 to 10 days of exercise, but when and how often to take rest days is highly individualized, which is why it’s important to tune into what your body is telling you—and then heed that advice.
Is two hours in the gym too much?
When it comes to exercising, more doesn’t always equal better. In general, a smart approach to working out is “quality over quantity,” Ava Fagin, CSCS, director of sports performance at Cleveland State University, tells SELF.
“It’s totally possible to get a good workout in, or enough of a workout, to elicit the goals you want” without exercising for hours at a time, Fagin says. Of course, some people, like marathon runners, may actually need to spend multiple hours exercising at a time as part of their super-specific training programs. But for the general population, logging two hours at the gym isn’t necessary—and, in some cases, could even be counterproductive if you push yourself too far and overwork your muscles.
So how much time at the gym is ideal? In general, a strength-training session should last 40–60 minutes, plus foam rolling and a quick warm-up beforehand. As for cardio, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends logging 150 minutes of moderate-to-intense activity per week. How you split up those 150 minutes will depend on what type of training you’re doing, whether that’s longer, steady-state sessions; shorter HIIT workouts; or a mix of the two.
Is it bad to work out every day?
Now, it may sound counterintuitive, but rest days are on the schedule for a reason: Working out every day is not a good plan if you want to improve your fitness long-term.
Working out too much without giving your body the down time it needs is akin to taking two steps forward, one step back, explains Fagin. Eventually, taking that one step back over and over again “elicits a downward slope of progress just because you’re so tired,” she says.
Not taking a rest day when you need it, especially if you are overtraining, can increase your risk of overuse injury, decrease your performance, crush your motivation, and suck the joy out of an activity you once loved, according to ACE.
Instead, follow the advice above for building weekly workout plans that include doses of work and doses of rest. With that kind of balanced approach, you’ll get to your goals faster and with less risk of injury (and enjoy the process more!). Now that’s what we call a workout win.
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