Welcome to the Get Fit Guys, quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield. I'm the Get Fit Guy. And in today's episode, you're going to discover exactly how often you should lift weights each week.

Now, I was recently on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon,

and one of my friends who was on the trip with me sidled up to me on the raft and asked me a

question, I seem to get quite frequently, how many times per week should I lift weights?

Now, I'll grant that the answer to this could be pretty complex. For example, it could highly depend on whether your goals are maximum muscle gain,

maintenance of bone density, building strength, maintaining strength, training for a specific sport, etc.

However, let's just say that your goal for lifting weights is to simply garner as many benefits as possible from weight training,

like strength, lean muscle mass, power as possible from weight training, like strength,

lean muscle mass, power, longevity, weight loss, metabolism boosting, et cetera, with the minimum

effective dose of lifting.

Well, in this episode, you're going to learn exactly how many times per week you should

lift for this minimum effective dose along with maximum benefit.

Now, in the episode, how much exercise do you need

for longevity? And you can grab that episode over at quick and dirty tips.com. You learned that

for ideal longevity, along with many other benefits derived from exercise, you should try to get

150 minutes of physical activity per week and have around 20 to 30

minutes of that be extremely vigorous. However, there's a distinct difference between lifting weights

and exercise. For example, in the episode, How to Look Good, Naked and Live a Long Time, I discussed

the importance of targeting specific

energy systems, specifically cardiovascular fitness, muscle endurance, strength, mitochondrial density,

metabolic efficiency, and stamina. Now, only one of those components, strength, is targeted

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