How Often Should I Workout and Lift Weights? 

The first thing I would ask you and look at are your goals. Do you want to focus on losing weight? Building lean muscle? Just tone up? After defining your goals, I would simply give yourself a realistic timeline and construct a weekly schedule according to that timeline. Usually your goals will tell you how many days a week you should be working out and lifting weights.

Ex- Say you want to get ready for a friend’s wedding or even your wedding and you want to look your absolute best. Give yourself at least 3 to 6 months for a realistic timeline to acheive your goal; or longer depending on how drastic the changing of your body will go through, and construct a schedule devoted to that goal. If you’re a beginner, you may want to start 2 to 3 days a week in the gym and gradually move to 3 to 4 days a week.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), you should exercise 20 to 60 minutes, three to five days a week for health/fitness promotion (ACSM 1995). Exercising only three days a week may be enough for previously sedentary people to improve their fitness, but it will take more exercise to see further improvements. (Again, it depends on your goals) Improvements in aerobic power (VO2 max), cholesterol levels, body composition and cardiovascular health are all augmented the more often you exercise. However, it is important that you do not progress too soon or exercise excessively, since both these behaviors can lead to overuse injuries.

(Duncan et al. 1991; Gettman et al. 1976; Milesis et al. 1976)

Often people are told they should not lift weights on consecutive days, although they are encouraged to do cardiovascular exercise as often as they can. **MYTH BUSTED!** There is nothing wrong with lifting weights every day, just as there is nothing wrong with running every day. Muscles do not know the difference between lifting weights or running. The only thing muscles do know how to do is to contract to overcome a force or resistance. Whether you need to lift weights every day or not soely depends on your fitness goals. 

For basic strength gains, you should lift weights at least 2 to 3 times a week. For more advanced seasoned lifters, lifting weights more often is fine, and the training program can be organized using easy and hard days, just as with cardiovascular workouts. This is called linear progression overload in a timely manner known as periodization. **Keep in mind that I recommend not working the same muscle groups 2 days in succession, in order to give the muscles time to properly adapt and heal without overuse injury.