personal trainer

What is the Best Workout Schedule?

Billie S. Dickenson July 2, 2022

With so many different exercise routines and types of workouts, it can be overwhelming to figure out how to get started. You may wonder what the best workout schedule is, what types of exercise you should include and how often you should be doing them.

I will start by saying, some exercise is better than nothing! I never want people to feel discouraged to even start because they feel like they can’t commit to a certain number of days per week or a certain length workout each day. Even a 10-minute walk around the block is making steps in the right direction — so do what you can, when you can! 

For those people with a general goal of improving their health and fitness, incorporating different types of exercise on a consistent basis, and reaching a moderate-intensity during those workouts, will provide the best results. Being regularly active boasts a wide variety of health benefits that include managing weight, reducing the risk of disease, strengthening bones, improving brain health, and improving a person’s ability to perform daily activities.

As a personal trainer, many of my clients enlist me to create the best workout schedule for their lifestyle and their goals. While this is customized to each person, there are a few basic guidelines that I follow.

How often should I exercise?

The CDC recommends 4-5 days of exercise a week to improve overall health and fitness. The recommend length is at least 30 minutes daily, though some exercise is better than none.

Depending on your personal goals, gym accessibility and what kind of exercise you enjoy doing (i.e. running, weight lifting, Pilates), your workout schedule may look different from someone else’s. But this is the workout schedule I generally recommend to improve overall health and fitness.

As a certified personal trainer, yoga and Pilates instructor, I recommend that my clients exercise five days a week, dividing the workouts as follows:

How many cardio days should I do each week?

How much cardio you should be doing depends on your goals. If your goal is to lose weight, participating in at least two days of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or another aerobic activity (like spinning, swimming or fast walking) is what I recommend for my weight-loss clients.

These vigorous activities increase calorie burn. Though most lower-intensity cardio sessions will only increase calorie burn during the activity itself and maybe a little afterward, HIIT workouts lead to the “after-burn effect.” This means that not only are you burning calories during the workout, but for hours after your workout session.

How many strength-training days should I do each week?

I recommend that my clients strength train three days a week. Not only does research show that strength training help reduce overall body mass and fat, but research also shows it can improve your body image. Many of my clients report feeling stronger and more confident after a single strength-training session because they have find a sense of accomplishment in strengthening their bodies. Other clients have found that after adding in strength training, their bodies begin to release weight and they finally see the number on the scale start to go down.

A sample weekly workout plan

I usually recommend adding Pilates core work to strength-training days and yoga and/or stretching to the cardio days.

However, if you are crunched for time, you can perform cardio and strength training in the same day. Just keep in mind that it’s best for your muscles to not do the same strength-training workout two days in a row because the muscles need time to rest and repair. You can do cardio, core work and stretching every day!

This sample workout plan gives you an idea of what a week of well-balanced workouts may look like, including strength training, cardio, yoga and rest days.

  • Monday: Strength training (full body) with Pilates abs and yoga stretching
  • Tuesday: Cardio HIIT Session (20-30 minutes) or long walk/swim
  • Wednesday: Strength training (full body) & with Pilates abs and yoga stretching
  • Thursday: Rest day
  • Friday: Strength training (full body) with Pilates abs and yoga stretching
  • Saturday: Cardio HIIT session (20-30 minutes) or long walk/swim
  • Sunday: Rest day

Stephanie Mansour is a contributing health and fitness writer for TODAY. She is a certified personal trainer, yoga and Pilates instructor and weight-loss coach for women. She hosts “Step It Up with Steph” on PBS. Join her complimentary health and weight-loss challenge and follow her for daily inspiration on Instagram and in her new app.

Watch Now: A Kettlebell Abs Workout That Targets Your Obliques

Billie S. Dickenson June 30, 2022

Core exercises don’t need to be bodyweight-only, and this quick kettlebell abs workout proves that adding resistance to the mix can be a great way to challenge those all-important muscles.

In this video, the fifth installment of Sweat With SELF’s new kettlebells series, you’ll complete a 20-minute core workout that’s focused on your rectus abdominis (the muscles that run vertically along the front of your abdomen) and your obliques (the muscles along the sides of your abdomen). Lee Jimenez, a certified kettlebell level one instructor and ACE-certified personal trainer, and ACE-certified personal trainer Tiffany Ragozzino will take you through the routine, which includes three rounds of four kettlebell exercises.

After a quick warm-up—where you’ll get the blood flowing throughout your body with exercises like the cat-cow, bird-dog, and plank walk-out—you’ll get into your abs workout. You’ll complete each exercise—the single-arm assisted sit-up, Russian twist, plank pull-through, and side-bend/windmill progression—for 45 seconds, resting for 15 before going right to the next move. After all 4 exercises are finished, you’ll rest for 60 seconds before starting again from the top.

These kettlebell core exercises help you build both strength and stability in your rectus abdominis and your obliques through motions like rotating or flexing (say, when you’re performing the Russian twist or sit-up) as well as through resisting movement (like when you’re keeping your body steady during the plank pull-through). Working all of the functions of your core is important in any strength-training routine, since it better mimics the actions of your core in everyday life—which is super important for injury prevention.

Throughout the course of this workout, you’ll be encouraged to progress at your own pace and build ownership over these moves. In the first round, for instance, try to familiarize yourself with the movement patterns and get more comfortable performing them. The second round builds on that—to do so, you’ll sub in a windmill progression in place of the side bend—and the third round really encourages you to give it all you’ve got.

Choose your kettlebell wisely for these moves—you don’t want to go too heavy, which can cause your form to falter and overstress related muscles, like your lower back. A light- to moderate-weight kettlebell will likely be your best bet. (For more information on how to choose the best kettlebell for you, check out our introduction to kettlebells video.)

Ready to light up your core? Grab a kettlebell, block off 20 minutes, and give this kettlebell abs workout a try.

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How to Motivate Yourself in Health and Fitness

Billie S. Dickenson May 17, 2020

Personal Trainer

Is There a Real Need For a Personal Trainer?

Let's talk about different forms of motivation. As a person looking to get motivated to lose weight, you should first ask yourself, "Can I motivate myself? If I cannot afford a personal trainer can I still get the job done?" Some people - those who are motivated by something or have completely made a decision to motivate themselves -- can use this motivation to get to a point where they're making good decisions about their eating habits, losing weight, and reaching their goals. On the other hand, there are people looking to lose weight who are not in a particular state of mind to motivate themselves.

The question is, Do you need a personal trainer to motivate you? I cannot answer that question for you directly, just as I can't take your journey to health and fitness for you. But I can tell you this: in my opinion you can lose weight without a personal trainer. And you can even lose weight without dieting. I'll give you tips on how to succeed in self-motivating to weight loss, and discuss if and how a trainer can be useful in the process.

You Can 'Do It Yourself'

Self-motivating can be very difficult. We have created a society which seems to be very needy. This manifests in the realm of health and fitness as the belief that we have to hire a personal trainer and go to a gym in order to accomplish our health goals. But personal trainers are just another tool to assist you in your weight loss; hiring a personal trainer does not determine whether you're going to lose weight or reach your goals. I know a lot of personal trainers who have obese clients start a weight loss process and after they lose five or 10 pounds they set them loose.

Those clients are still obese. I know personal trainers working with clients to get them stronger but they end up gaining weight because of the muscles they build. In the grand scheme of things, this is a positive development because muscle burns more calories than fat, but the clients cannot control what they are doing outside of the gym-- self-motivating to change their diets - so they do not lose weight. The good news is that the inverse is also true: you CAN lose weight without a personal trainer. If you structure the way you make changes in your life properly, you can do the job of losing weight and getting fit yourself.

To do this, you will have to understand certain aspects of fitness and nutrition. Given the public health crisis of obesity in our society, there are enormous amounts of information on how not to be obese available to you -- on the Internet and in libraries and bookstores -- that you should take full advantage of. Gather resources and information about the human body, food plans, workouts, training regimens, and dietary supplements to help you work towards reaching your fitness goals. I also recommend looking in the self-help section of the bookstore to see what speaks to you.

This can help you change your mind about other negative habits in your life so there is a complete metamorphosis, not just of the body but of the mind as well. This is what ultimately determines your success - how far you can go to alter your mind. This is why personal trainers do not guarantee weight loss, because they cannot live in your head. What can guarantee that you reach your goal is altering your state of mind so that you think differently about health and fitness, about your weight loss. Even better, eventually you will not have to think about it at all. Health and fitness and training can and will become second nature, just like waking up and brushing your teeth.

You Can Do It at Home

As we think about health and fitness being second nature, let's also consider the necessity of a gym or fitness facility to reach our fitness goals. As with the 'need' for a personal trainer, there is no need to pay a monthly fee to enter a place where there is equipment, other people, or sometimes distractions in order to reach our fitness goals and become healthier people.

Just being active and doing more than you did in order to become obese or gain the weight will start the process of reversing your obesity or shedding pounds. So if you do not have a gym or fitness facility, what do you or where do you go for exercise? Well, places you can get a good workout may be in your own home, like a spare bedroom, basement, or garage.

Find a spot where you can lay out a couple of mats, put up a small television, get a few free weights, and some workout videos. Add some fresh plants and make sure you have nice lighting and upbeat colors to make it an inviting personal workout space. Over time, setting up your own workout space will cost you considerably less than the gym membership that you going to be paying for even when you're not going to the gym.

You can also go outside in the sunshine and nature to get some vitamin D and fresh air. In the spring, summer, and fall your training may happen at a park or lake or some other outdoor venue. In the winter this may be a little bit more difficult, but you will have your personal workout space to retreat to, where you can continue to stretch, do push-ups, sit-ups and free squats in order to keep your body in motion to burn fat and continue weight loss. None of these suggestions requires you going to a fitness facility. They don't require you to put out a great deal of money to become healthy.

What it does require is that you build a resistance to failure and the negative voices in your head and create within yourself the aptitude for self-motivation. This means you will have to take on the burden of being able to motivate yourself. In essence you will have to become your own personal trainer.

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