WHEN YOU'RE KICKING off a workout plan, there are some details that are important to establish from the start. You'll need to know what you're hoping to accomplish with your workouts, so set some goals. Where you'll be able to exercise comes next. Are you going to a gym, sweating at home, or both? Then (and this will be crucial): How often will you be able to train? How many days a week can you commit to working out—and how many will you need?
Your goals will play into answering that question. To build muscle, strength, and general fitness, you’ve got to do two things: Train enough and recover enough. Get that balance wrong, and your goals—whether they’re to lift more weight, shed fat, finish a triathlon, or age more comfortably—will remain out of reach.
“If you don’t train frequently enough, you don’t produce repeated stimulation. You don’t take advantage of the increase of strength and size,” says Shawn Arent, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., chair of the Department of Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina. The flip side, he says, is training too hard, too often: Your body builds muscle and strength when you recover from your workouts, not when you do them. Without adequate nutrition and recovery time, your body can’t make those changes.
