Understanding how to organise your week in regards to improving or maintaining your overall health needs to have some sort of strategy. For example, how many days per week can you realistically set aside for one hour of exercise per day? Alternatively, how important is your health to you? Science tells us now more than ever before there are a huge array of benefits when you put yourself through a session of resistance training. Whether it be helping to regulate blood sugar levels to help offset and prevent type 2 diabetes or improve type 1 diabetes. Slow or even prevent brain disease such as dementia or Alzheimer’s, aid with overall improved blood flow through the entire body and give relief to ailments such as chronic arthritis. Improve poor posture created by desk jobs and spending too much time on devices. Less fat around your organs (visual fat) and strengthen bones. Of course, the most obvious is to build lean muscle tissue which in turn speeds your metabolism and allows you to burn more calories while resting.
It’s important not to confuse cardio with resistance training when it comes to the most productive way of reducing body fat. Overdoing cardio will burn muscle tissue, this is the opposite of what you want. As mentioned in the last paragraph building lean muscle tissue will enable you to burn more body fat while speeding up your metabolism. To get the maximum effect from resistance training along with all of the benefits mentioned above there will be a point of diminishing returns if you overdo it.
So exactly how much resistance training should you do? When asked this question the answer always remains the same. One session per week is better than none at all. However, it’s not at all optimal. With just one session per week, you restrict the amount of lean muscle you will optimally build hence the amount of body fat and visual body fat you will be able to burn while also reducing all of the other benefits mentioned above. Two sessions per week should be the minimum amount if you want to reap an increased percentage of the overall benefits of resistance training. Optimum in my opinion is 3-5 sessions dependent on goals and age. More sessions allow you to do more work per body part, working muscle groups through various angles hence better overall development as well as enhancing all of the other benefits mentioned above.
It’s important to give your body at least a couple of rest days per week. Like it or not your body is not a machine and overdoing exercise will cause health ramifications whether it be a weakened immune system or wear and tear on your joints.
As far as cardio goes, it depends on your daily routine. If you have a desk job a brisk 30-minute walk on average per day is sufficient for overall good health. When it’s combined with resistance training you have the perfect exercise formula for overall health and longevity, not forgetting to stretch along with some deep tissue work whether it be from a foam roller or a sports massage therapist.