Episode 3: Beyond the Gym: Rethinking Exercise Frequency for Long-Term Success

Questioning whether your workout routine is enough? You're not alone. Many fitness enthusiasts believe that maximum results require maximum gym time, but this podcast flips that narrative on its head.

Your "training age" – how long you've been consistently exercising – plays a crucial role in determining your optimal workout frequency. A 50-year-old beginner has different recovery needs than a 25-year-old veteran, regardless of motivation or discipline. We explore why many people, especially those new to fitness or returning after a long break, achieve better results with just 1-3 weekly workouts rather than grinding through daily sessions.

Through real client examples, I share how one individual started with once-weekly workouts, gradually progressed to twice weekly, and actually experienced negative effects when attempting three weekly sessions. This perfectly illustrates the central theme: exercise creates positive stress, but only with adequate recovery does this stress translate into improvements in strength, energy, and functionality. Without recovery, workouts can deplete rather than energize.

The podcast challenges listeners to remember why they're exercising in the first place. For most, the gym isn't the destination but the vehicle that enables a more vibrant life outside those walls – playing with grandchildren, hiking with friends, gardening, or enjoying new hobbies with confidence and pain-free movement. Your workout frequency should enhance these priorities, not compete with them.

Ready to find your optimal training frequency? Visit spiralingfitness.com to connect with our coaching team and discover how personalized fitness approaches might transform your relationship with exercise. Remember, sometimes less truly is more when it comes to sustainable fitness results.

Transcript

Working Out Less: Challenging Common Misconceptions

Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to episode 3 of the 1% Better podcast presented by Spiraling Fitness, with your host, josh Williams. Hope you're all having a fantastic week, whatever you're all doing, whether you're walking, driving, waking up, going to sleep, I don't know. Whatever you're all doing, but today I want to talk about this idea of why working out less might actually be better for you. And so today that's what I really want to talk about is this idea that we can get stuck in our heads of I need to work out more, I need to do more to get to the results that I want to get. To want to get to and I was having a conversation just the other week and I've had this conversation before is, well, is working out X times a week enough, like I really feel like I should be working out, you know, four or five, six days a week? And this is a common misconception. So sometimes we identify our our lack of progress or not being able to get to the goal because we're not working out often enough. And that's what we're going to talk about today of why that might be true or not true when it comes to workout frequency. So, when it comes to workout frequency, so the big myth understanding this is, the more is better. But so this idea of I need to train, you know, five, six days a week, and if I'm not doing that, then I'm slacking, I'm not doing enough, I'm not going to get the results that I want, well, first off, we've got to have a clear idea of where you want to get to and what you're going to get to, because that puts everything into context when it comes to activity, workout frequency. So that's, that's the. That's another thing that we're not going to talk about.

Understanding Your Training Age

Speaker 1 1:56

But but here's what most people don't realize, especially if you're starting out. So there's this thing called a training age. So training age is not how old you are. It doesn't matter if you're five years old or you're 55 years old. Training age all comes down to how long have you been training for? So and I would also say consistently training for.

Speaker 1 2:21

So let's kind of break this, this down. If I'm 40 or I'm 50 and I just start working out, I am at a beginner training age. My body's not used to working out, it's not used to the types of movements, types of movements being loaded and the recovery. So I'm starting at a very low training age versus somebody that is 20 who has been working out for five, six years consistently has a higher training age. So let's call it they are five years old in training age versus someone starting at 50 is zero years old in training age, and so what that all means is is the body used to adapting to the stresses and responses.

Speaker 1 3:08

The other thing you have to understand is you can always start training at any age, but there is differences because, again, a 20 year old or even a 30 year old has lived less life than a 50-year-old. I am not saying anything groundbreaking here. I'm just doing some simple math and I came to that conclusion. The other thing is, is this rate at which the body can recover is going to be different from them, and so what can often happen is we compare ourselves to what somebody in their twenties or thirties are doing. Or if somebody had been working out, let's say they were consistent in their twenties and thirties, but then life got busy. They had kids, their job became more demanding. Plethora of things, life, life events got us off track. Now it's been 10, 15 years. The training age in some ways resets your body actually might remember the movements pretty well, but the tissues, the nervous system, the recovery, the bones, all that go into play of the structures that allow us to train at different levels based off of our training age. So we have to understand our own training age, where we're starting at, where we're trying to get to uh, irregardless to what you might see other people doing in that end. So again, how often we train comes back to your training age. If it's your first day of training, the beauty is one to two days a week. You're going to see really good results for a good period of time.

The Real Goal of Training

Speaker 1 4:53

So understand the real goal of training. We don't want workouts to just be like a good workout. So I say often the gym isn't the destination. The reason we work out isn't necessary to work out. The reason we work out is because it aligns with our goals of where we want to do. I want to be active, I want to be healthy, I want to have high energy. I want to have strong bones. I want to be active, I want to be healthy, I want to have high energy, I want to have strong bones, I want to be toned All these things going to the gym helps with, but the goal isn't to be really good at the gym. The goal is because I go to the gym and I do things and I exercise properly in ways that are going to propel me forward and things that actually matter to me, whether that's getting up and down, energy playing, all those things. So it is hard, but let's not get the gym confused with the goal. There are people that the gym is their hobby, that is, it is their safe place, it is their, their recharge place, and that's going to be different than someone that is just using it to get a little stronger, healthier for the long haul in in life.

Finding Your Sweet Spot

Speaker 1 6:11

So the next thing to understand is why? Why am I saying like, one to three days a week is okay and more isn't always better? Again, let's keep this into context. That's always really key. And so, again, who we mostly work with is the 50, 50 plus population. I would also say the population that maybe has a young training age. So you are new to training or you're getting back into training after many, many years and that is fine. That's a great place. But the idea of, hey, two days a week is probably not enough for me and I need to come in. You know, four or five, six days a week, like a lot of things, there's a bell curve, there's I'm not doing enough and then I'm, then I'm doing too much.

Speaker 1 6:59

The thing what we need to understand is we want to do enough to get the benefits that we want, but not more than that. And the reason is, when we work out it creates stress. Stress is good and stress is bad or or not so good, not healthy for you, and we want more of the good stress. The thing with all stress is we need rest and recovery to get the benefit of the stress. So every time we work out we get a little tired. Our muscles might get a little sore. It stresses the bones, the tendons, our energy system. The body naturally doesn't like that, so it is going to adapt and learn to make itself more resilient the next time it faces those same challenges. So that's another reason why varied exercise at a high level is not always great. Having consistent exercise is now again, once the body adapts to it, we want to progress it. So progressive overload, so it keeps on adapting.

Recovery and Off-Days Matter

Speaker 1 8:03

Now going back to that sweet spots of days a week. I have had clients that started one day a week. I've had clients that came in after many years in their their 60s or 50s, that had never worked out before and we started once a week. And the reason we started once a week is sometimes that's their schedule, but a lot of it is their recovery. And so we started once a week and about six weeks in this particular client improved their strength, improved their energy, and then what we ended up doing was saying, hey, let's try two days a week. They were able to do two days a week. They started lifting more. They went from, uh, this kind of spin with us now for almost a year and they went from, you know, lifting you, 10 pound weights up to now like 25 and 30 pound weights for their bench press, and it's been remarkable. And so they started with once a week, allowing the body to adapt. They were still getting improvements. They were still getting where they wanted to. Now the body had adapted to a point where we needed to go to twice a week and the body could handle it. They were able to recover from that and it was still beneficial for them. They weren't becoming overly sore, they were still progressing and they were feeling good.

Speaker 1 9:17

Now, this client, the next step could be to stay at twice a week or it could be to go to three times a week. We decided that when we did three times a week, we tried it. They were feeling kind of pretty sluggish and tired on quite a bit, and so for the most part we've stayed at twice, twice a week. Now will we try going to three times a week again Maybe, but but more isn't always better. So it's not forgetting what the point is. The point is to be strong. They are now stronger. The point is to have more energy and more energy to move with confidence, to do things that they want to do, and they can do those things. Now could adding a third day a week allow them to do that better, potentially? But then there's also the risk of again being more tired, stress, stressing the body that I can't recover from. And so, again, that's finding that sweet spot, and that's what we have found. Typically, the two to three times a week is that sweet spot.

Speaker 1 10:09

You also have to take into consideration what are you doing on your off days, and so that's where clients come in. Well, if I'm only coming in two to three times a week, what am I doing on my off days? And again, we try not to use the word only, but if you're coming in two, three times a week and that's that sweet spot to allow you to get stronger, allow you to get that tone, allow you to of get that energy. Maybe do some corrections, um, for better posture.

Speaker 1 10:33

Then on the off days, the goal is the workouts allow you to have more energy to express yourself, to do the things that you want to do. That could be going for longer walks with your dog, so now your dog's happy, you guys are best buds now. That could be playing with the grandkids. That could be picking up new hobbies because you have more confidence in what you do. So that could be playing with the grandkids. That could be picking up new hobbies because you have more confidence in what you do. So that could be a plethora of things. That could be, you know, doing other things that express activities such as, you know, hiking, biking, gardening, um, it could be joining pickleball.

Speaker 1 11:05

I mean that the list goes on and on of things that we might want to do or or try, and that's what the off days are for. We should aim to be active and, at the very least, get outside for a walk, get the fresh air, you know, go for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, somewhere in that range. It doesn't have to be something crazy, but the goal is those two to three workouts that we do. They propel you to be able to do more outside than what you had normally been able to do and again, put a caveat on it working out more than that isn't wrong, but it's understanding your body and where you're trying to get to, and more isn't always better. What we always try to do is protect against this idea, because if we go up and we start stressing the body more than it can recover, then we can get injured, and when injuries happen it sets us back. Now I've had injuries before working out as a part of my life, but until it becomes something, it can also become a really deterrent for wanting to exercise again, and so at the end of the day, we want to do everything we can to propel forward without stepping back with injuries, and so that's why we've found over the years that two to three times a week is that sweet spot.

Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Speaker 1 12:20

Again, if I'm working with you know a client that maybe is working on more pure strength to compete in strength competitions or physique competitions. Of course we're gonna need more, more frequency in that, but then also the recovery protocol is going to be a much more strict Meaning. I need to get my eight hours of hours asleep, I have to get my certain amounts of protein, carbohydrates, all those things, so as as the work and the stress on the out on the body increase, so does the importance of recovery and being consistent with that as well. So with kind of putting this all together, you know, more isn't always better, finding that sweet spot and not forgetting why you're working out, like what's, what's the end goal right now. You know I've heard talked about in maybe other other episodes.

Speaker 1 13:13

You know I'm trying to run a marathon right now and so my workouts, uh, typically, when I'm not running so much, you know, I'll try to work out, yeah, three to four days a week. But now that I'm running three days a week, you know I'm getting in about maybe two strength training workouts if I'm lucky. But the goal of those workouts are to maintain as much strength as I can during the season of running and then to work on some muscle groups that are maybe getting tired. So, whether that's resisting, extension and core movements, glute engagement and then, of course, putting a premium on stretching the tight muscles such as, like you know, my calf hip flexors, things like that. That can get tight, so the workouts change depending on that. But again, don't compare yourself to what you used to do. Or, if you're new to working out, understand your training age, where you're starting, and that the goal is to feel better outside of the gym.

Speaker 1 14:12

For most of us, we're not going to the gym to be great at the gym. We want it because we want to live a long at the gym. We want it because we want to live a long, healthy life where we can do what we want to do and also support the people that we want to support. And also, for some of us, we just don't ideally don't have to need people to support us if we don't as well. So if this podcast resounds with you, please like, share, subscribe.

Speaker 1 14:40

If you know something that might be good to hear, please share it with them as well. If you're just learning about Spiraling Fitness you don't know who we are please check out our website at spiralingfitnesscom. We would love to connect with you, learn about you and see if we could potentially be a good fit for you as well with one of our wonderful, amazing team of coaches. So again, thank you so much for joining me on this time. I am your host, josh Williams. I hope you have a fantastic week. Get in the gym, work out, get outside, enjoy the beautiful weather or, depending on where you are, maybe it's not beautiful weather but enjoy the day and be active, be healthy. Thank you all so much.