How Often Should You Train When Getting Started?

Something we see quite often when someone first starts training is that they're really motivated.

They've decided they want to get fit. They're ready to make a change. And because they're feeling motivated, they want to go all in.

"I'm going to train four or five times a week."

Which sounds great.

The problem is, quite often, this is coming from someone who hasn't been training at all.

You're comparing your day one to someone's year ten

I think social media has a lot to answer for here.

You see someone online talking about their training and they're in the gym four, five or even six times a week.

So you think that's what you should be doing too.

But what you don't see is everything that's come before that.

They might have been training for ten years. Fitness might even be their job. Their whole life might be set up around being able to train that often.

At some point, they probably started with a couple of sessions a week as well.

You're comparing your day one to someone's year ten.

And that's not a particularly fair comparison.

Make your plan fit your actual life

When someone starts at Southtons, we'll normally have an intro with them first. That might be a sit-down chat or a phone call.

We'll talk about what they want to achieve, but we'll also talk about their life.

And it's amazing how often someone will tell us how busy they are.

They've got kids. They've got a busy job. They run a business. They're travelling up to London every day. Whatever it might be.

Sometimes that's exactly why they've struggled to stick with a gym in the past.

Then they'll say:

"I'm going to train five times a week."

And I'll normally ask them a really simple question:

Out of 10, how confident are you that you can actually do that every week?

If they say 10 out of 10, brilliant. Let's make a plan.

But if there's hesitation, that's probably telling us something.

Maybe two sessions a week is actually realistic. Maybe it's three.

There's nothing wrong with that.

In fact, I'd much rather someone planned to train twice a week and actually did it than planned to train five times and constantly felt like they were falling short.

The same two sessions can feel completely different

This is where I think people can accidentally make getting fit much harder for themselves.

Imagine two people both train twice this week.

Person one planned to train four times.

They finish the week thinking:

"I only managed two. I've failed again."

Person two planned to train twice.

They finish the week thinking:

"That's both my sessions done."

They've done exactly the same amount of training.

But one feels like they've failed and the other feels like they're succeeding.

That's important, particularly if you've tried to get fit several times before.

If you've set yourself unrealistic targets again and again, every time you don't hit one it can reinforce that feeling of, here we go again.

And that's when people can start dropping off.

But you've not failed.

If you were doing nothing and you're now training twice every week, you're doing two more sessions than you were before.

Do that consistently for months and years and you'll see incredible progress.

The dark horses of the gym

I sometimes call them the dark horses of the gym.

They're not necessarily the people you see training five or six times in one week.

They're the people who quietly come in two or three times a week.

Every week.

Then six months or a year down the line, someone suddenly says:

"Wow, when did they get so fit?"

There wasn't a magic programme.

They just kept turning up.

Compare that with someone who trains five times one week, then you don't see them for two weeks, then they come back for a session, disappear again and repeat the cycle.

I'd take the boring consistency every time.

Don't pay for another way to feel like you've failed

We even see this with memberships.

At Southtons, we have memberships for nine sessions a month, 13 sessions a month and unlimited training.

Someone might be really motivated when they join and choose 13 sessions because that's what they think they should be doing.

Then they consistently make nine.

Nine sessions a month is great. That's roughly twice a week and, particularly if you weren't training before, that's a massive improvement.

But instead of being pleased with the nine sessions they've done, they focus on the four they haven't used.

They feel like they've wasted them.

Again, we've managed to turn something positive into something negative simply because we set the wrong expectation at the beginning.

Start easy and earn the increase

When you start training, think about what you're currently doing and how much free time you realistically have.

Then make it easy.

If you know you can train twice a week, start with twice.

Keep doing it until those two sessions just become part of your week.

You don't have to think about them. You don't have to constantly find the motivation. They're just something you do.

Then, when two starts to feel easy and you find yourself thinking, I could easily fit another session in, add one.

Go to three.

Later on, maybe three becomes four.

Before you know it, you might be someone who trains four or five times a week.

But you don't have to start there.

It's much easier to go from two sessions a week to three than it is to go from zero to three.

Remember what you actually wanted

If you've started training recently and you're already beating yourself up because you're not going as often as you thought you would, remember what your goal was when you started.

You probably didn't actually care whether you trained three, four or five times a week.

You wanted to get fitter.

You wanted to feel better.

And you wanted to find something you could fit into your life and actually stick to.

So if you weren't training at all before and you're now getting to the gym twice every week, don't look at the sessions you haven't done.

Look at the ones you have.

You've started building a habit.

You've started becoming more consistent.

And you're doing more for your health and fitness than you were before.

That's a win, not a loss.

Thinking About Getting Started?

If you've been thinking about getting fitter but you're not sure how often you should train, what sessions you should be doing, or even where to start, that's exactly what we'll help you with.

We'll have a chat about where you're at now, what you want to achieve and, most importantly, what you can realistically fit into your life.

From there, we'll help you put together a plan that you can actually stick to.

Find out more and get started at Southtons Fitness →