How Often Should I Do CrossFit?

If you’re thinking of trying functional fitness, you might wonder, “How often should I do CrossFit?”

The answer to this question depends on your fitness routine, goals, and ability to recover between workouts. In this post, we’ll discuss a few things to consider when deciding how often you want to train.

How to Determine How Often to Train

Whether you’re a seasoned CrossFitter or a newcomer, finding that sweet spot where you’re achieving your goals without injury or burnout is the trick.

Historically, the CrossFit training staff has recommended training for three days, resting for one day, training for two days, and resting for one day. This schedule works well for some people but not others.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

What’s My Goal?

Before we discuss how often you should do CrossFit, let’s talk about your goals.

Do you want to build muscle? Lose weight? Get healthier? Are you hoping CrossFit will make you better at another sport? Or maybe you want to improve your mental health?

You’ll want to set your workout schedule based on your goal.

Two to three weekly sessions should do the trick if you participate in other sports.
Shoot for three to five weekly sessions to improve health, lose weight, or gain muscle.
Five or more weekly sessions may be necessary if you’re training for a CrossFit competition. However, I wouldn’t recommend training this much regularly.

Your goals (and training needs) may shift over time. This is why we offer quarterly goal review sessions at Two Six–to ensure you’re optimizing your training schedule to support your goals.

What’s My Minimum Effective Dose?

The minimum effective dose describes the least amount of stimulus that brings about a desired change.

The newer you are to fitness, the less you’ll need to do to see positive results. Doing more than the minimum effective dose isn’t necessarily helpful and may even be harmful.

If you’re new to CrossFit, it’s crucial to ease into the routine. Aim for 2-3 sessions per week. This allows your body to adapt to the high-intensity movements and gives you time to recover. Remember, CrossFit workouts can be challenging, and your muscles need time to repair, especially in the early stages.

Active people who regularly lift weights may benefit from starting with 3-4 workouts weekly.

How’s My Stress Level, Overall?

Exercise is good stress, but it’s still stress.

Unfortunately, training too much when you’re super stressed out is a recipe for injury and burnout.

This is why it makes sense sometimes to reduce your training frequency and/or intensity when your emotional stress levels are through the roof.

You might be saying, “But Kim–working out is the only thing that reduces my stress levels.”

I hear you (kind of). And if that’s the case, you have three safe options:

Reduce your stress in other areas of life. Can you say no to that PTA potluck, or delegate a household task?
Look for other ways to reduce your stress, like meditation.
Keep the same workout schedule, but take it easy. Slow down, choose lighter weights, and focus on moving well.

I discuss stress load a lot more here. If life has been bogging you down, be sure to read it.

What’s Your Recovery Routine?

Training is important to get stronger, fitter, and healthier. But know what’s even more important?

Recovery.

You can train your booty off and still not get the results you want if you’re not treating your body well between workouts.

A good recovery routine includes scheduled rest days, proper nutrition, 7+ hours of sleep nightly, and consistent mobility practice.

Assuming you do CrossFit three or more days weekly, I’d rather see you dial in your recovery before adding additional training days.

You can read more about that here if you’re interested.