Should one exercise every day?

Frequent and regular cardiovascular exercise provides many benefits to the body and mind: it may help you to maintain a healthy weight, and increase and maintain your bone density, muscle mass and joint strength. Exercise is also beneficial to one’s mental wellbeing and has indirect positive effects, for example it may assist in managing or improving conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, insomnia and depression.

Your motivation

Whether you should exercise every day depends on the reason why you are training. If you are exercising to lose weight, daily exercise will assist you in achieving your goal quicker, as weight loss occurs when the amount of kilojoules expended is more than the amount consumed each day. By exercising daily you are creating a bigger kilojoule deficit, which results in weight loss. However, if you are not an athlete and exercise in order to maintain weight or fitness levels, it is not necessary to exercise every day.

Frequent exercise will increase energy maintenance levels, thereby increasing the rate at which your body burns kilojoules at rest and assist in weight maintenance.

The type and duration of daily exercise are important factors when determining sufficient rest periods and correct techniques to prevent over-training and injuries.

What is right for you?

All exercise programmes should be structured to include sufficient recovery between training sessions. The frequency of these recovery periods depends on the individuals, their limitations and current type of training. If you exercise recreationally or lightly for one hour per day, then the other 23 hours should be sufficient resting time. If you are doing strenuous exercise for prolonged periods of time, then it might be necessary to increase recovery time between training sessions.

Although it is a good idea to slowly build up training frequency, intensity and duration (especially if you have been inactive or are recovering from injury), it is unlikely that you will over-exercise by doing light or limited exercise every day. ‘Too much’ exercise is determined by the individual’s body and its limitations, and everyone should do the appropriate amount and level of training that is suitable to him or her.

In short, daily exercise may be beneficial to the individual depending on the type of training, the intensity and duration of the training, and the goal he or she wants to achieve.

Sources
Exercise,  www.thefreedictionary.com
Stampfer, M.J., Hu, F.B., Manson, J.E., Rimm, E.B. and Willett, W.C. (2000). “Primary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease in Women through Diet and Lifestyle”. New England Journal of Medicine 343 (1): 16–22.
Venuto, T. (2003) Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. Fitness Renaissance, LLC.
World Health Organisation, www.who.org