How Much Should I Exercise?

When you first start out, you might have trouble keeping up with even the minimum amount of exercise we suggest in the first chart below. Start out with a schedule that your body can tolerate and that you think you really can manage, and build up from there.

Note that the schedules in the charts below are arranged so that you are never doing strength exercises of the same muscle groups on any two days in a row. If you want to do strength exercises every day, alternate muscle groups. For example, do strength exercises of your upper body muscles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and of your lower body muscles on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Or you can do strength exercises of all of your muscle groups up to every other day.

Begin exercising gradually. Once you have worked your way up to a regular schedule...

...get at least this much exercise each week:

...you can exercise up to this often each week (more than this could cause injuries):