What Is a Good Workout Schedule?
- Many people will tell you that the best time to work out is in the morning. Others may disagree and say that the evening is the best time to work out. They are both wrong. The proper time to work out is when your personal schedule will allow you to dedicate an hour or so to focus on your workout. Review your schedule for the week and determine when you are able to work out.
For good results, you should work out at least 3 days per week. These workouts do not need to be longer than 1 hour. Unless you are a professional athlete or training for an event such as a marathon, 1-hour workouts done regularly will be more than sufficient. The amount of recovery time needed after exercise should also be taken into account, which is why it is a good idea to stagger workouts. An example of this would be working out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Keep in mind that it is not necessary to exercise at the same time each day. You could have a 5 a.m. workout on Monday, a 6 p.m. workout on Wednesday and a 12:30 p.m. workout on Friday. The time of day does not make a difference, especially since there is already a full day scheduled for recovery. The only time you might have a problem is if you have scheduled a 10 p.m. workout on Monday and then a 5 a.m. workout on Tuesday. You should wait until Tuesday afternoon for your workout to give your body a chance to rest. - Once a workout schedule has been decided, treat it like an important appointment. The best workout schedule ever created will not help anyone unless they actually put that schedule into effect and make a commitment to stick to it. Short of an actual emergency, there is no reason to skip workouts that have been scheduled in advance. If you are consistently missing workouts, then bring the schedule back to the drawing board to address the problems and create a plan that fits better.