Resistance Training vs. Endurance Training: What Your Weekly Training Schedule Should Look Like
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How much resistance training should you be doing? Are you doing enough? Or are you doing too much? And what about cardio? Where does that come into the mix? It’s confusing, right?!
I see two major issues with the women I work with: Either they are wildly over-training or they are not being consistent enough. Both lead you to NOT seeing the results you want.
So what should your training plan look like?
In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I outline how many days a week you should resistance, how many days a week you should endurance train, how to structure your weeks with a sample schedule to follow, how to pair resistance training with endurance training to over training, and how many days of rest you need a week.
Get instant access to the Movement With Julie workout app now! Head over to sale.movementwithjulie.com.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in, let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. Today, I wanted to talk all things resistance training versus endurance training, which is essentially just cardio, it's just a fancier word for that, and what your weekly training schedule should look like. So how much resistance training should you be doing? How much endurance training should you be doing? Because working with thousands of women over the last few years, about eight years, and in particular over the last three years, especially in my Movement with Julie app, I have seen two major issues with the women that I work with.
Either they are wildly over-training or they're not being consistent enough. Both of those lead to you not seeing the results that you want. So in today's episode, I want to answer and outline, how many days a week should you be doing resistance training? Then how many days a week should you be doing endurance training? And how to structure your weeks with a sample schedule to follow and then how to pair resistance training with endurance training to avoid over-training. So how many days a week should you be resting? How many days a week should you be working? And so on and so forth. That is exactly what today's episode is going to be about.
So if that is something that you are interested in, be sure to keep listening. If you have notes or if you want to bookmark this for a time when you are laying out your weekly schedule, definitely recommend doing that. But before we dive in, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Toribeth03. She gave a five-star review and said, "I absolutely love this podcast. As a nutrition and exercise science major, I learn so many things from Julie that I don't hear or learn in my classes. I absolutely love how empowering and positive she is." Thank you so much, Tori. I really appreciate your review.
I appreciate every single one of you guys' reviews. If this podcast or any specific episode has helped you in any way, I just ask that you leave a review. It really does mean the world and it also does help us rank in the charts, which just essentially pushes our episodes to more people. The more women that can hear this podcast, I believe, will be transformed for the better. So thank you in advance for doing that. All you have to do is go to Apple Podcast on any Apple device, type in Embrace Your Real, and then you can scroll down to the bottom and you'll see the rating and review section right there.
So in this episode, I'm going to dive into some of the most frequently asked questions that I get both on resistance training as well as endurance training so that you can feel confident in how much and how little you are training weekly. First things first, let's talk about some of the FAQs regarding resistance training. The first question that I get a lot is, how often should I be doing resistance training? When I say resistance training, that is simply just weight training. So picking up dumbbells, picking up barbells, anything with resistance.
My philosophy honestly is two to five days per week depending on your goals and consistency. Anything less, you're just not going to be working each muscle sufficiently and you're not going to be seeing the results that you want. And anything more than that, you're likely going to overwork your muscles, which again will not see the results that you want. So keep that in mind. This is for the general public. This is not in any way, shape, or form talking to women who are competing in body building shows. This is just for the general public, how often should you be doing?
Now, I would recommend resistance training two days a week for someone who is just getting started or someone who has a history of not being consistent. The simple reason to that is because two days a week is very, very simple to commit to. You can break it up into two days. So I would do an upper body and a lower body day. On the day that you are focusing on your upper body, you're going to be doing exercises that target your back, your chest, your shoulders, your biceps, triceps. Then on the second day that you are doing your lower body, I would focus on your larger lower body muscles like quads, glutes, hamstrings, and adductors.
So it's super important that you are working each muscle weekly if you want to build strength and definition in that muscle. Skipping a week is only going to delay your progress and leads you to seeing mediocre results. Let me repeat that again. You need to work each muscle group at least, at the bare minimum, once a week to see the results that you want. And at the same time, you need to work each muscle group enough to see those results. That's why I, again, recommend doing a very bare minimum of one upper body day and one lower body day weekly to ensure that you are working each muscle group enough to actually see results.
So a two-day a week schedule could look something like on Monday you're doing upper body and then on Thursday you're doing lower body or you can even reverse it. I know some people who might have more calories on Saturday and Sunday, if that is the weekend. Maybe you want to use those calories towards a lower body day and really give you the energy that you need, so maybe you could flip that and it could be Monday lower body and Thursday upper body. Totally up to you. Then on the other days, I would simply recommend moving your body in some way, shape, or form, whether that's cleaning, walking your dog, doing yoga, or just doing some sort of movement that breaks up your sedentary day if that is something that you have.
So if you have a sedentary job, if you're not on your feet a lot, definitely recommend trying to increase that movement throughout the day. So once you're consistent with that, then I would recommend adding in a third day. And on that third day, I would recommend doing a total body workout. This is where you would combine exercises for lower and upper body together. These are called compound movements or compound exercises. A few of those examples would include squat press. So you are performing a squat with dumbbells in both hands, and then when you stand up, you are pushing the dumbbells over your head.
So as you are squatting, you are holding the dumbbells on either side, almost resting them, but not completely resting them on your shoulders. Then as you go up in the squat, as you push up, you are going to then push up the dumbbells to do a shoulder press. Another example would be a chest press glute bridge. This is where you would perform, for example, 10 to 12 reps of a chest press with dumbbells in both hands, but you are also in a glute bridge position with your knees bent at 90 degrees and your hips lifted up in line with your knees. Those are some good examples of total body movements.
If you follow me on Movement with Julie either on TikTok or Instagram, it's just the handle, @movementwithjulie, you'll see tons of different workouts I have. I mean, copious amounts of full body workouts and compound movements. So you'll definitely see those two that I just recommended. You'll see those in a video form because I know video can really help people just know how to do the exercise and how to perform it confidently. So total body workouts are typically often compromised of more compound movements, like these ones where the exercise is targeting both your upper and lower body.
Something important to note when doing upper body, lower body, and total body in one week is that it's important to give each muscle group around 24 to 48 hours of rest before working them again. Your body needs time to rest, repair, and rebuild your muscle after working it. Muscle growth does not happen when you're working out but when you're at rest. Let me say that again. Muscle growth itself does not happen when you are working out, but it actually happens when you are at rest. In fact, during your workouts, you are breaking down your muscles.
So if you work the same muscles over and over like two days in a row, you're just going to be breaking down the muscle consistently and not building it up, thus you're not going to see accurate results from those workouts. And likely, it's going to lead you to be extremely sore. So if you are sore, like if you do a workout one day and then the very next day you're doing a very similar workout that's using the same muscle group, you're likely not going to be able to perform that movement as effectively. Whereas if you were to give yourself that adequate amount of rest, you could actually push the weight, you could have proper form, and you would see better results that way.
So if you're wanting to work out like three days a week, your week might look like something Monday, lower body, Wednesday, upper body, Friday, total body. This would just allow your body enough time to rest and recover between the workouts so that you can see optimal results. Remember this especially when you're just getting into being consistent. You need to give your body time to get into it. You don't want to go full throttle into it because that will likely lead you to be very, very sore, which will only hinder you during your workouts and it's not going to be enjoyable. Doing a lower body and a total body back to back could prevent you and your muscles from fully recovering.
Now, let's say you've been extremely consistent with the schedule that I just discussed and you're ready to step it up a level. I would incorporate a day where you focus exclusively on your glutes and maybe some accessory work. So I know for me, I personally do a shoulders and glutes workout. The reason I do that is because I am targeting shoulders in my total body workouts. But I have found that women want strong shoulders, and this is honestly myself included. So I have loved incorporating a shoulders and glutes workout.
If you're staying consistent and you want to see progress, you're definitely going to want to work your lower body and glutes at least a minimum of two days a week, at minimum. And then again, in your total body workouts, you're obviously likely going to be working your glutes as well. So if you're wanting to up the resistance training to four days a week, this is the workout schedule that I would recommend. Monday being lower body, Tuesday being upper body, Thursday being shoulders and glutes, and then Friday being total body. Now, that third workout is going to depend on your goal.
So I either say do a shoulders and glutes workout or a cardio and core workout. The reason that I always suggest shoulders and glutes first as that third workout versus the cardio and core is simply because if you're doing one of my total body workouts, I already include core and I already include some cardio in that total body workout. So I don't think it's necessary, especially if you are really focusing on getting movement outside of your workout. So going on walks, going on jogs, just being active. Upping your steps to at least 5,000 to 7,500 steps a day would be ideal.
Then you don't really need to focus on that cardio and core because you're already going to be targeting your core and total body. But I have just found that women in general, they tend to have goals of growing their glutes and they want to have strong shoulders, which is why I would do again Monday being lower body, Tuesday being upper body, Thursday being shoulders and glutes, and Friday being total body. This is going to enable your body to get the proper recovery that it needs between working the specific muscle groups without over-training them.
From there, if you are wanting to add that fifth and final resistance training... The cool thing about resistance training is that if you are performing exercises correctly with intention, every single exercise should actually target your core as well. So you really don't need to be doing like ab core workouts every day. In fact, I would highly recommend you not doing that to get a stronger core. But adding in a specific core day can definitely strengthen your core and it can amplify your results. So personally, I just do what the Movement with Julie training schedule is.
If you're ready to commit to all five days of resistance training, a great example of that would be Monday is lower body, Tuesday is upper body with targeting the specific muscles in your upper body of biceps, triceps, back, and chest, Wednesday being cardio and core, Thursday being shoulders and glutes, and Friday being full body. Now, I just mentioned doing cardio. Let's dive into how much endurance training AK cardio you should be doing a week. This is the most frequently asked question I get about cardio, is, do you actually need to do cardio to see results?
The short answer is no. You do not need to do a certain amount of cardio to see results. You can do resistance training only and see incredible results. The one caveat to that is that you can do resistance training only and see amazing results if your nutrition is in check. But that's applied to any type of training that you do. At the end of the day, your results will be dependent on your nutrition. Let me say that again. At the end of the day, your results will be completely dependent on what you are doing in your nutrition. You've likely probably heard this. You can't out train a bad diet.
And that's true. Supplementing your resistance training routine with endurance training can be extremely beneficial depending on what your goals are. So if you're wanting to train to be stronger and more fit, then definitely add in endurance training. And this is if you're not already being active. If you're already getting 7,500 to 10,000 steps per day, I wouldn't even say that you need to do a specific cardio workout. I mean, unless you really love doing them, you could absolutely do one to two times a week HIIT training. When I say HIIT, that's high intense interval training. I would do no more than 20 to 25 minutes.
So this is one to two times per week, no more than 20 to 25 minutes of HIIT training. Of course, if you wanted to do one longer HIIT workout instead of two, and it's a one class that's 45 minutes a week of HIIT training, that's amazing. You absolutely don't need to do this, but this is honestly just why I program one cardio day into the Movement with Juliet app because I do believe that there are benefits to getting that heart rate up on a weekly basis and just making sure that you are keeping up with your endurance training so that you can keep up with your life, whether that's going on a hike with your friends or that's going on a jog with your dog, or that's keeping up with your kids.
I mean, really being intentional about endurance training can help just the overall quality of life depending on how active you are. With that being said though, there's absolutely no reason for you to spend 45 minutes running on a treadmill or an elliptical or a bike multiple times a week to see the results that you want. You do not need to do endless sessions of cardio to see the results that you want. I literally used to waste so many hours a week doing cardio and I never honestly even saw the results that I wanted to. I kept struggling with seeing results and it was because I wasn't prioritizing my resistance training.
I was prioritizing burning calories in my endurance training over resistance training. If you are wanting to look more fit, toned, defined, and slimmer, then resistance training is what you will want to do for that, not endurance training. So please, please, please keep that in mind when building out your weekly workout sessions and training schedule. Also, if you do cardio, like I said, you don't need to do more than 20 to 25 minutes to gain the benefits. I personally love HIIT, which is high intense interval training style cardio, simply because I am going all out for a minute max and then I'm recovering for a minute 30.
I know that might sound like, why are you recovering more than you're working? It's because I am making sure that I'm working to my absolute max in that one minute. Typically, it's 45 seconds to one minute interval, and then giving my body enough adequate rest during that recovery so that I can go all out for that next interval. So totally recommend doing that. This honestly leads me to my next frequently asked question I get about cardio and endurance training, is how much should you do cardio and for how long? Like I said, I would recommend doing at least one day a week if you want to.
But you really don't even need to do that at all. If you like doing cardio and it does make you feel stronger, you like the sweat, then I would recommend doing anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes after your resistance training workout. So maybe you do a resistance training workout for 30 to 45 minutes or even 45 to 55 minutes depending on how long you have allocated for that in your schedule, and then follow with a 15 to 25 minute cardio. Totally dependent on you. You don't have to do HIIT, high intense interval training. I personally, if I'm going to be doing cardio, I would much rather do it for a shorter period of time and work harder in that shorter period of time.
But it is totally up to you when it comes to what kind of cardio you want to do. I know I'm keeping it vague, but really, you don't need to get into the nitty-gritty details. At the end of the day, consistency trumps everything. Consistency trumps everything. Just remember that. When it comes to the nitty-gritty details, I would much rather you spend a shorter amount of time if you don't prefer doing cardio but you like the benefits of it than thinking that you need to spend 45 to 60 minutes on an elliptical or treadmill. That's just not the case.
I always go for more effective and efficient workouts. And I think that many people would agree that they would much rather spend their time elsewhere doing other things than slaving away on a treadmill or elliptical. This leads me into my next frequently asked question, which is, how long do your workouts need to be? So if you're doing resistance training only, they shouldn't be longer than 45 to 55 minutes, sometimes an hour, an hour and five minutes. If you're doing more than that, either you are taking longer breaks between sets, which totally depends, again, on your training.
If you are training your max, so you're maxing out on all of your lifts, that might take longer because you are taking longer breaks to make sure that you're giving your body adequate rest, which is completely fine, especially if you're okay with working out longer. Or maybe you're doing too much. If you're resting 90 seconds between sets and you're not pushing your reps or your max capacity when it comes to volume, then likely you're just maybe resting longer than you need to or maybe you're getting distracted.
I know for me, I always put my phone on airplane mode just to ensure that I am completely focused, that I'm not getting distracted because I know the moment that I open up an app like TikTok or Instagram or even Pinterest during my workout, that could easily lead me to a five to 10-minute rest period when that's not going to be efficient in my workout. So inside my Movement with Julie app, when I program workouts, I have two specific workouts that you can pick from one from each day, whether that's a full workout, which takes anywhere from 45 to 55 minutes.
Sometimes it takes an hour. Or if you're low on time or just want to get a quick and effective resistance training workout in, I do a 30-minute variation which will take you anywhere from 28 to 30 minutes and 32 minutes at the max. And that does include the rest set. So typically, my average rest sets that I program in there for you are about 30 seconds in between a superset. And if it's a circuit, which is four exercises back to back or more, then I will typically program a minute rest. It totally depends.
Sometimes if it's a longer working circuit, then I would program two minutes, but no more than two minutes for resting in between rounds. Then in particular with superset, which is just one set of each exercise, two exercises back to back, I never do longer than 30 seconds. So keep that in mind when it comes to your rest sets. But at the end of the day, really, you don't need to be doing longer than an hour max when it comes to your resistance training. And even then you don't even need to do an hour.
It's totally dependent on what you have allotted in your schedule and what you prefer. The last frequently asked question that I get is, what is the max amount of days that I would train for optimal results? Remember, I'm speaking to the common population, women who just want to... They want to see results, they want to be healthy, they want to be fit, but they also have a life outside of it. They're not training rigorously for something they're not, an athlete that is a professional athlete or training for a specific show or whatnot. The average human needs about two days off from training to rest their body.
When I say that, I'm not saying laying around for two days and doing nothing. This is how I categorize it. So one day, which for me personally is typically on Saturdays, I call that an active recovery. And then on Sunday, the recovery day would still be active. I would say I average anywhere from 5,000 to 7,500 steps on a recovery day. So I'm definitely still going for a walk or I'm doing something, cleaning. Oftentimes, I do my cleaning on my rest days. So I'm not completely sitting on the couch all day.
But I will say that the majority of my day is pretty sedentary and I'm giving myself adequate amount of rest because I know, come Monday morning, I'm going to start my workout week again and I want to make sure that I'm giving my body time to fully recover so that I can see optimal results. So again, these two days do not need to be back to back. For example, you could train and always take Saturday and Sunday off, like do a Saturday active recovery and Sunday recovery, or you could take Sunday and Wednesday off. It totally depends on what you prefer and what your schedule is.
I know so many women who like to start their workouts on Sunday. So throughout the week, maybe they have a really busy day with their kids or with work or responsibilities, and so they prefer to have a midweek active recovery day. Totally fine. Again, it's totally dependent on you and I'm just sharing what has worked for me and what I know and have seen so many women do inside the Movement with Julie app. So let me recap some of the basics of resistance and endurance training. Resistance training, at least two to five days per week.
Your resistance training workout should be... the range could be anywhere from 28 minutes to 55 minutes. Really no longer than an hour and 10 I would say. You do not need to do cardio daily to see results. In fact, I would recommend not doing that just to make sure you're giving your body time for optimal results and you're not constantly over-training your body, because again, over-training can lead to not seeing results as well. I recommend, if you do want to do cardio, one per week, and it could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 25 minutes depending on that.
If you prefer and want to do two times a week cardio, do two sessions of 25 minutes. So you could do two sessions of 15 to 25 minutes. Again, I personally love HIIT training, high intense interval training. I just feel like I get a bigger bang for my buck. But again, it's totally up to you. If you are pairing cardio with your resistance training, try to remember to do your resistance training first and then do your cardiovascular endurance training afterwards. You do not need to do long cardio sessions to lose weight or see results.
Let me say that again. You do not need to do 60 plus minutes on a treadmill or elliptical day after day to lose weight or see results. For the average person, you can take two days of rest, one day being in active recovery, the other day being a recovery. Both of those days you're still slightly active on your recovery, definitely more active on your active recovery, but not as vigorous as your workouts throughout the week. Avoid over-training because you want to make sure that you are not completely over-training to the point where your body has no time to rest and recover.
Because remember, when you're building muscle, it doesn't happen when you're actually weight lifting, it happens when you're resting. But also, on the flip side of that, make sure that you're working each muscle group at least one time a week for optimal results. I hope that this was beneficial. I know that this got into the weeds a little bit when it comes to the nitty-gritty of putting together a workout schedule. But I know for me, if I would've had something like this, it would've saved me years and years of over-training and spending so much time on the cardio machines and not spending enough time in the weights area.
It was simply just because I was not educated. If you are ready to start following a schedule when it comes to your training, I do have my Movement with Julie app that makes it extremely simple. All you have to do is open the app and follow along. I give you five brand new workouts every single week that are carefully programmed to ensure that you are training every muscle group the right amount and also ensures that you are not over-training. Each week you get a brand new lower body, upper body, cardio and core, shoulders and glutes, and full body workout.
It really does make training so much easier. If you want to learn more, you can head over to sale.movementwithjulie.com. Again, that's sale.movementwithjulie.com and you can join there and gain instant access to the week of workouts. Every single day, I do give you two workout options depending on your time constraints. So there's a 30-minute variation which takes anywhere from 28 to 32 minutes, and then there's also a full workout which typically takes women on average 45 minutes to 55 minutes, sometimes an hour, no longer than an hour and five minutes to complete that.
So totally dependent on your time constraints and what you prefer. I really hope that this episode was helpful when it comes to developing your training routine and helps you understand how much resistance training and endurance training you actually need to do. Again, if you want to learn more about the Movement with Julie app, I will link that in the show notes below so that you can easily go check that out. I also have tons of workouts on my Movement with Julie Instagram, my Movement with Julie TikTok. So be sure to check that out.
If you have a friend or a coworker or a sister or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can also screenshot this right now on your phone and you can post this up to your story, be sure to tag me, Embrace Your Real on Instagram, so that we can see your tag and we can interact with you. We love connecting with you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next episode. All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Juliealedbetter.
Yes, it's with A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing. Be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface, so go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.