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Exercise
Rx - F • I • T • T - Frequency |
Frequency is how often you exercise and is important because it plays a major role in determining whether the benefits of regular exercise accumulate or not. If you don't exercise often enough the good things that happen as a result of your workout disappear before you can build on them. Conversely, if you exercise a particular muscle group too frequently, you overwork those muscles before they've had a chance to be repaired. Neither of these situations is good, so let's look at both in more detail.
The benefits of a particular exercise or exercise intensity are known as the exercise's "Training Effect" (the effect the exercise, or training, has). These training effects occur because your body adapts structurally and functionally to the physical demands you place on it. However, these training effects don't last indefinitely. Eventually, without more exercise to trigger your body into another cycle of adaptation, the training effects begin to dissipate.
When your goal is to increase fitness benefits, you should choose a frequency that causes your body to add a new training effect before the training effect from the previous workout starts to diminish.
Building Fitness Frequency Minimum:
4 days per week with no more than one day between workouts.
If your goal is to maintain the fitness benefits you've already gained, then you can choose a lower frequency, one that doesn't let you lose previously gained benefits but isn't concerned with accumulating more training effect. Loss of training effect starts to happen when there are more than two days between aerobic workouts. This leads us to an important breakpoint:
Maintenance Mode Frequency Minimum:
3 days per week with no more than two days between workouts.
Important Information About: Recovery Time (Next Page)
Return to: Exercise Rx - F-I-T-T Introduction
