Keeping track of fitness and your own health can be a hectic task when dealing with everything that happens throughout the week. As a young adult, you’re often pretty busy with homework, part time jobs, or perhaps even hobbies. It’s easy to get lost in the Hundreds of details happening in life and forget to work out. How do we fix that?
For starters, while there is government recommended guidelines for health and exercise, they are not exactly easy to follow for the average person. Perhaps, the cold, cookie cutter nature of these recommendations might seem intimidating because they make it seem like a big deal. Don’t fear, for there are some ways to not have to hit the gym 5 times a week to stay reasonably fit.
A lot can be said for the factors that make up fitness. Three key things we’ll be talking about are: Frequency, Volume, and Intensity. How often you work out is Frequency, that one is easy. Volume is how much you do when you work out, reps and sets. Intensity is how much weight you are lifting. That being said, let’s break down some standards real quick.
Many people say that you need to work out many times a week to get the advantages of muscular health. While that is partially true, there is another option when it comes to frequency. If you can sufficiently modify your volume and intensity to be moderately high you can make your visits to the gym fewer, provided you do this safely. For example, if you’re doing heavier lifts with only a few different ones on your checklist, then you can do that just once a week (1). All you have to do is adjust the volume and intensity accordingly!
That might’ve seemed like a bit much, but here’s the simple finale here, straight from the mouth of renowned physiologist Dr. Andy Galpin.
(2) At it’s most base level, three things: Lift some heavy stuff, Move yourself really fast, Move yourself for a long time. Just do those three things separately, once a week. You’re already ahead of the population then.
The Body of Knowledge, Episode 3 (Podcast)
Using some basic guidelines, you can jump ahead of a majority of the population. Just eat your food, and train hard.
(1) Franco, C. M., Carneiro, M. A., Sousa, J. F. D., Gomes, G. K., & Orsatti, F. L. (2019). Influence of High- and Low-Frequency Resistance Training on Lean Body Mass and Muscle Strength Gains in Untrained Men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 1. doi: 10.1519/jsc.0000000000003145
(2) The Body of Knowledge Podcast (ft. Dr Andy Galpin) Episode 3
Hansen Health 