Health experts have revealed how many days a week you need to exercise to start seeing ‘almost immediate’ results.
Professor Ken Nosaka, from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia, shared that adults need to exercise ‘at least three times’ a week if they want to increase their muscle strength.
The physiotherapist claimed that while he recommends short bouts of exercise on a daily basis, three-to-five days of concentrated activity will yield results in as little as four weeks.
‘I personally think it’s the best to exercise a little bit every day – even if it’s only 20 minutes of Pilates or cardio – to stay active and healthy,’ he told FEMAIL.
‘Muscles need down time from strenuous exercise, but if you spend half an hour every day at roughly the same time, your body will have 24 hours to rest.’
Professors at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Western Australia shared the ‘tipping point’ of when you start to see meaningful benefits from exercise
Professor Nosaka subscribes to the World Health Organization’s recommendation of at least 150 minutes of exercise a week.
‘However, exercising once a week for two hours is less effective than exercising every day for 20 minutes.
‘If it is not possible to have 20 minutes a day for exercise, even five minutes a day makes a difference for fitness and health.’
The professor revealed that – based on a study he conducted at ECU – only two days a week of exercise make almost no difference to a person’s muscle strength.
‘It’s important to listen to your body – if you do an hour of Pilates and you feel sore the next day, you should rest,’ he advised.
‘But if you wake up feeling fresh and energetic – I’d recommend another session at the gym.’
Professor Nosaka also stressed that exercising every day was not sustainable and would not work over long periods of time because muscle adaptations occur when the body is resting
A study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology recently investigated an increase in muscle mass after performing a three-second arm contraction.
The study tested two groups of people – one performed a three-second arm contraction twice a week, and the other repeated it three times.
The ‘arm contraction’ was akin to slowly lowering a heavy dumbbell, from a bent arm to a straight arm.
Research found that, for this particular exercise, a repetition of two-days per week saw no significant changes, however the three-day group saw small but significant increases in concentric strength (2.5 per cent) and eccentric strength (3.9 per cent).
