How often should I train?
Maybe you’ve just started your membership with us, and you’re super excited to jump in and get the most out of what we offer at XLAB! Or maybe you’ve been with us for a while, and are thinking about adding another session in? We want to keep that energy going both in the short and long term, so here’s a few things to think about to get the most from your training.
Main takeaways:
Consistency beats intensity! (that doesn’t mean you can just sandbag your workouts completely though)
Listen to your body, if something doesn’t feel right, DON’T just push through it
Train a minimum of 2, maximum of 5 times within a week, assuming you’re not ill, to see great long term progress!
Don’t train more than 3 days in a row unless you’re about to have 3+ days off. Never do 5 in a row. The risk of injury is too high.
Consistency beats Intensity!
What can be achieved in a single session, even the very best of sessions, is tiny in comparison to what can be achieved in the long term. With that in mind, we need to build a consistent schedule. This can often be much easier said than done due to life outside of the gym. But what we would recommend is setting a minimum and maximum number of sessions we hit per week. Our minimum should generally be 2 sessions, and our maximum should really be 5. 5 sessions is something we should build to, not something someone should be doing within their first month!
An ideal progression would be after your trial, to continue hitting 3 sessions a week for 2 more weeks. Then, if we are feeling good and finding that very manageable, we can move to 4. We have found 3-4 times a week is a sweet spot for most of our members, we have plenty who RX most of our workouts and are in great shape, who train 3-4 times a week. If you’re young (under 40), and have the time and drive to want to do 5, we would recommend only moving to this once we have done 4 sessions a week for at least 2 months. For those over 40, this tends to be overkill and often leads to more aches and pains and actually LESS progress. 3-4 is plenty for you guys.
Obviously if we’re ill or away, then we might miss a week or 2 of training, but as soon as we can, we should be looking to get booked in and keep the ball rolling. On the flip side, any more than 5 sessions or even worse, training every day, we are likely to be pushing too much volume and run a much higher risk of injury. And nothing stops progress like being injured!
Listen to your body
This is a big one, that most of us will always struggle to get right. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t just ignore it! This can be a tough one, especially as we get older. Inevitably, we will get aches and pains. It’s unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore it. If we follow these simple rules we can get out of pain and back to full training much faster than blindly turning up and ignoring that dodgy knee until it forces us to take time off.
Make adjustments earlier rather than later IE if your knee hurts doing a deep squat, but not if you go halfway, try doing some box squats for a couple of weeks. Like wise, if you had 4 hours sleep, haven’t eaten for 7+ hours, had a fight with your partner or worse all 3 of those, this will impact your performance. You should consider dialling back the intensity if you’re feeling drained from the rest of your life.
Hopefully this guide can help you find that balance in training and build a long term, consistent schedule of exercise that keeps you moving well and relatively pain free indefinitely!