Consistency Will Always Beat Intensity

How many days a week should you workout?

How long should your workouts be?

These are great questions and the answer to these will be different for everyone.

How can that be?

Well, that is because we all have different lives with different schedules and demands that will determine how much time you have for workouts.

A lot of times people will go into a new workout program with the mindset that they need to go 5,6 or even 7 times a week and spend a couple hours at the gym each time to get results.

Of course, the more days you spend working out will allow you to achieve results faster for sure, but at what cost?

Can you keep up that intensity for the long term? Consistency will always beat intensity. What that means is it’s more important to determine what a realistic schedule looks like for you that will allow you to workout consistently over the long term, ideally forever, rather then just focusing on doing as much as possible to get results as quickly as possible.

Most of the time those that come out trying to do too much don’t last. It becomes too much of a burden and they start missing workouts which then gets discouraging and they fall back off track.

Someone who works out two days a week, every week consistently will be far better off then someone who works out 5 days a week for 2 months but can’t keep it up and stops.

One person is building a habit of consistency and the other is building a habit of starting and stopping. With consistency you are always slowly progressing. With starting and stopping you are never getting anywhere. You make quick gains then lose those gains when you stop and then have to start all over again right back where you were in the first place.

Real success is a marathon not a sprint.

So, when asking yourself how many days a week to workout or for how long, remember to look at it from a long-term perspective and do what you can consistently stick to over a long period of time!