Healthy Reminders – How Much Should We Work Out? [VIDEOS]

Welcome to Healthy Reminders, a weekly series that will help you thrive.

This week, we're answering the question, "How many times should we workout per week?"

Our featured activity this week is cross-country, or Nordic, skiing. That's what you'll see in the video as we go through this week's topic.

The question "How many is the minimum amount of time we should workout per week?" was answered well by Matt and Chelsea from Miramont in the video below.

I could tell they didn't want to let anyone off the hook for less than four times per week, but I really want to inspire the person who is working out zero times per week to pick it up just a little bit to reach the minimum amount that will provide some health benefits.

They both agreed, that all of us, unless we have issues that make us unable to do so, should work out at least 3 times per week. Men's Fitness concurred with this idea, while Women's Health Magazine, had this as their bottom line:

The bottom line: If you can’t squeeze in regular workouts, it’s OK to do two or three longer workouts each week—but exercising more frequently for shorter periods is still the ideal.

Over the years, I've found that most workouts designed by professionals last at least 20 minutes, and if they are that short, the intensity is pretty high. The lower the intensity, the higher the duration, up to about one hour of working out.

Moral of the story? Anything is better than nothing, and the base amount to attain noticeable progress will be to start working out three times per week for at least 30 minutes per session.

Featured Activity

This week's featured activity is cross country, Nordic, skiing. It's an ancient practice that is still a lot of fun!

• Excellent cardiovascular workout
• Full body motion works everything
• Enjoyable because it's done outside
• Cheap gear (3 - pin setups are old school and don't cost much) allows us to spend little and play a lot!

A good stride on cross country skis lunges the knee joint to almost a 90 degree angle. This is similar to a hockey skating stride, and in yoga, crescent lunge and the warrior poses (1, 2 and 3).

The deep bend in the knee is a good fundamental to have. It connects many parts of the body and can be very useful in every day life.