When we talk about sport, we can roughly classify people into 4 categories. Those who don’t do it at all, those who do it occasionally, those who do a lot without being pro, and the pros themselves. I’m schematizing a bit, eh.
Each of these groups has different goals and aspirations : if you don’t play sports at all, running a marathon in 1 month seems impossible (and it probably is), If you’ve been training 3 times a week for 4 months, that’s really not absurd. Suddenly people who are just taking up sport are sometimes a bit confused with everything they read on the subject, which has often been written by athletes from other categories. So we will start from the beginning:
If I’m just getting into sport, what’s the right pace?
As you can imagine, there is no true and absolute answer to this question, it depends on several factors. But we will think together to define YOUR own rhythm.
The beginner’s mistake: the more workouts I do, the better! = FALSE
The body enjoys exercise, okay. On the other hand, he doesn’t like to be tired, he doesn’t like to wrestle, and he wants everything to be done gradually. Unless you are a high level athlete, limit yourself to 1 WORKOUT PER DAY MAXIMUM. Concentrate your efforts on one session, once it’s done that’s more to do, and give it ALL. We do not do 2 “average” sessions instead of a large one, the results obtained are far from being as satisfactory. Also because the body needs to rest to build muscle, and doing more than one session every 24 hours does not allow this remedy there.
The beginner’s mistake: forcing yourself to go to the gym 3 times a week (if you don’t like it)
Not everyone is cut out for the gym, or for going for a run in the morning, or for swimming every day, or whatever. So if you force yourself to do something you don’t like too often, you’re going to stand up on your own and let it all go. The venue, or the race, may not be your lease, ok. On the other hand, if it can help you achieve your goals, you will still have to incorporate it into your program e . On the other hand, use the rest of your free time to do sports stuff that you like! If you replace one training session per week with an hour at the climbing wall, or with a session of skipping rope, yoga or rollerblading, that’s great!
The goal is to challenge yourself and learn to love new disciplines, but not to impose yourself daily things that you hate . Sport is to do yourself good (even if it sometimes hurts a bit), not to punish yourself!
So what’s the right pace? 2, 3, 7 sessions per week?
If we always start sports, we try to be rational: we are not going to go from 0 to 5 training sessions per week, as people very accustomed to sports can do. On the other hand, it must still be sufficiently regular and recurring to become a habit – story that at a given moment, we reach without worry the 4-5 sessions per week, when we will really be hot. Ideally, there are more days a week where you exercise than days or you don’t – so 4 is a must. But 3 is already great , and a great way to start.
And for the duration, is 30min enough? Is 2 hours too much?
As for the duration, we can hear all kinds of things: at least 20min, at least 45 … Let’s get it all clear.
Already, any exercise is good to take: if you only have 20 minutes available, then we will give EVERYTHING for 20min, do a huge interval training session that stings (I will give you examples of sessions in the following article, I promise), but we forget the slow cardio: Indeed, 20 minutes, if you do regular cardio (like the elliptical, rowing, jogging) this is the time when your body will stop using the stores of glucogen (sugar, therefore) to tap into the fat stores. If it’s just 20 minutes and barely starting the process to quit, we forget. The interval will raise the cardio much faster, work the muscles (therefore call for muscle reconstruction behind), and if we will not tap in the fat reserves, we will consume a lot more sugar available and burn more calories.
Obviously, a 1 hour session in 1h30 is optimal , because it allows you to break down the effort much more: warm-up, effective work (whether cardio or strengthening with 20min of cardio at the end of training) then stretching.
Beyond 2 hours, if you are not used to it, or if we are talking about relatively intense exertion, it becomes (very) tiring on the body, and the risk of injury increases. If we are hot from time to time and have a little time ahead of us, why not, but we avoid that it happens too often.
So, to sum up?
- If we start, a sporting activity 3 or 4 times a week (but not necessarily always the same!)
- it takes 3 weeks to get into a habit, so you don’t give up ANYTHING, especially at the beginning
- We don’t do more than one training session per day
- Between 1 and 1:30 if possible, but if it’s less, it’s always better than nothing (on the other hand, we do as intense as possible)!