We all know that exercising regularly is good for our health, but getting ourselves to actually do it is a different story. It’s very easy to fall into a cycle of exercising consistently, followed by a period of doing nothing at all. If this sounds familiar, know that you’re not alone. Having the knowledge of how often we should exercise is an important place to start when it comes to improving our consistency. While exercise frequency will vary from person to person, there are some guidelines we can all follow to get started. 

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which is known as the gold standard for exercise recommendations, it’s important for us to incorporate both aerobic exercise and strength training into our routines. Aerobic exercise is defined as physical activity that uses your body’s large muscle groups rhythmically and repetitively, such as walking, running, cycling, or swimming. The main goal of aerobic exercise is to improve cardiovascular health. Strength training is exercise that uses resistance on our muscles, forcing them to contract against the opposing force, with the main goal of making our muscles stronger. 

At minimum, the ACSM recommends that we participate in moderate intensity aerobic exercise for 30 minutes per session, five days a week. This minimum recommendation can also be accomplished by increasing the intensity of the workout. At vigorous intensity, the minimum recommendation for aerobic exercise changes to 20 minutes, three days a week. As intensity of exercise increases, the volume and duration can decrease. As for strength training, the ACSM recommends we prioritize full-body workouts at least twice per week. 

An easy way to tell the difference between moderate and vigorous intensity exercise is to notice whether or not you’re able to have a full conversation. If you can, you’re in the moderate range. If you can’t, you’re in the vigorous range.

While planning our weekly exercise schedule, it’s important we take many factors of our lives into consideration. One important factor to consider is the amount of time we spend physically active outside of scheduled exercise. As time being sedentary increases, your amount of intentional exercise will also need to increase. 

If you’re walking or carrying objects for most of your day, you may not need as much intentional exercise as someone who sits at a desk for eight hours. Other factors we want to take into consideration include our goals, what we need to do to reach them, and how much exercise makes us feel our best. 

It’s usually our goal to move toward the state of health we desire. If you notice you’re in a state of being that you’re unhappy with, it’s also okay to use that as motivation to move away from what you know you don’t like. This will turn into moving towards what you want once you give yourself the momentum to figure out what that is. 

Use these minimum recommendations to help you set a baseline schedule for yourself, and reward yourself for consistency. Remember that consistent progress toward our goals is always better than inconsistent perfection.