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Going To The Gym Once A Week Is Better Than Not At All

When it comes to feeling better, and your mood, going to the gym once a week is better than not at all. New studies conclude that frequency isn’t crucial to feeling better. All that matters is that you get in there

Going To The Gym Once A Week Is Better Than Not At All

Another study just came out confirming what every gym-nut knows: Working out, particularly, strength training, makes you feel good.

As someone who goes to the gym 4-5 times a week religiously, I know that sometimes, going to the gym that day is the difference between me feeling good or not.

Even though on day’s off, I get an extra two hours of my time to work, part of me still misses hitting the weights.

Often, I’ll wake up in the morning and have sort of an anxious and uneasy vibe about myself, but when I have a coffee and get a good 45-minute workout in, I suddenly feel like I’m the best person on earth.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Complicated

And it really doesn’t have to be complicated either. A lot of people think they have to hire a personal trainer to start going. But really, you can just get a membership and go.

You can get away with only focusing on 5-8 exercises.

Just by doing these exercises, you’ll be getting more than enough physical activity: Squat, Bench Press, Overhead Press, Pendlay (or Bent) Rows, Deadlift, Pull-ups, and Chin-ups.

And you don’t have to do all of them in one day, either.

if you’re looking to learn how to lift, check out Jonnie Candito’s Strength Training Program.

And If you need it to be even simpler, Strong Lift’s 5×5 is great.

New Study Continues To Confirm What’s Slowly Becoming Common Knowledge

And according to a new study, the frequency isn’t even that important. Regardless of how often they go, exercise makes everyone of all ages feel better.

At this point, everyone knows that exercise is good for your mood, but it seems like people have a hard time getting into the habit of going every day.

To me, that’s insane. It’s so ingrained in my lifestyle and daily routine, that when I don’t go, I feel like I’m missing out on something. Like I’m making a big mistake.

A study conducted back in 2016 reached confirmed what people into exercise already know.

It involved over one million people, a huge sample size, and their inference was that people who are working out even once a week are at a substantially lower risk of developing clinical depression.

However, for the most part, these exercise studies have been on aerobic exercise, rather than strength training.

And according to the New York Times, there hasn’t been that many studies conducted on just strength training.

Human Beings Are Meant To Work

Nevertheless, It’s like what I’ve pointed out in the past, human beings are work-horses.

We’re meant to have a purpose of some kind, something to do; a passion, a mission, whatever you want to call it.

Going To The Gym Once A Week Is Fine If That’s All The Time You Have

Sometimes, it’s easy to set an unrealistic goal for yourself whenever you first start something, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

You’re better off to make it your goal to just go to the gym even once in a week.

Because, truthfully, most people aren’t working out 4-5 times a week, and you may not even have time to do that sort of thing. Although, it’s a matter of making time. 

Get Exercise Anyway You Can

Lots of people get exercise through other ways, like biking, swimming, playing sports, running, and so on and so forth.

In 2017, a study came out indicating that, as it was mentioned at the beginning of the article, exercises, particularly, strength training, helps with anxiety.

In May, JAMA Psychiatry released their study on how exercise helps with depression, rather than their past results which dealt primarily with anxiety.

The New Study Concerned Itself With Just Weight Training

According to the New York Times, the researchers gathered as much data as they could on the topic, but were only interested in experiments with a control group.

In other words, control groups are a group of subjects that have not received the treatment or factor which is under study.

A control group, in this case, means that there was a group which did not exercise and a group which did.

This sort of experiment is crucial for figuring out whether or not a medication or factor is making a difference or not.

They also looked at whether their subjects were depressed before and after the training. When the researchers finished observing all of the data they had compiled on 2,000 men and women from past studies, they found that resistance training reduced the symptoms of depression.

It Doesn’t Matter How Often You Go – It’s Still Good

The most interesting part of the new study is that it appears that the frequency of how often you work out doesn’t matter. So, whether you go 5 times a week, or once every two weeks, it’s still going to make you feel better when you’re in the gym.

This is common sense.

However, it’s difficult to actually establish causality. All that really matters is that you get in the gym and break a bit of a sweat. Whether you lift for 200 repetitions or not, it’s still going to make a difference.

Moreover, it affects everyone of every age, whether you’re in college or in a retirement home.

Packing On Mass Or Strength Doesn’t Matter

Other things that didn’t appear to matter included things like whether you pack on mass or not, or whether you actually get stronger.

All that matters is the workout itself. And the fact that you’re releasing those endorphins in your brain that are making you feel good.

Regarding the differences between aerobic exercise and weight training, there isn’t much of one. Both kinds of physical activity improve mood and well-being and help in the long-term.

However, They Can’t Determine With 100% Certainty If It Staves Off Mental Illness

Will exercise make a difference in staving off illnesses like schizophrenia?

They’re not really sure.

Brett Gordon, a graduate student at the University of Limerick in Ireland, led the new review and said that weight training could be changing aspects of the brain, including the levels of neurochemicals that influence moods.

It could be a placebo effect, and they can’t measure if it is or not, because they – obviously – can’t blind a person as to whether they’re lifting weights or not.

Mr. Gordon goes on to say that they’re unable to recommend people going to the gym instead of taking medication because there simply isn’t enough data.

Nevertheless, the data is conclusive. If you want to feel better, get exercise.