How Long Is an Ideal Workout?
How do you know if you’re doing too much or not enough? We talked about how to manage exercise intensity , but what about the actual time you measure during your workout? The optimal workout duration depends on your goals and what you are doing.
If you really don’t have time
If you’re asking this question because you don’t know when you can find, say, an hour to train, I have good news for you: any workout is better than no workout.
Exercise instructions for Americans used to include the rule that an exercise only counts if you do it for 10 minutes or more. They dropped that rule in 2018 , so even the shortest articles are important.
Need ideas? Aside from taking a quick walk around the block, you can also try “snack for fitness” as one of these 5 minute ideas . Or work on a targeted movement, such as pull-ups, “lubricating the groove” and spreading the number of reps throughout the day .
If you want to improve your cardio fitness
Let’s talk about what you can do if you have time for a more traditional type of exercise. For example, how much should you set aside to improve your aerobic fitness and reap all of these heart-healthy benefits ?
For sustained exercise like jogging or cycling, set aside at least 20 minutes for a focused workout. Thirty minutes is probably the best option for what you plan to do several times a week: three 30 minute sessions equals just 90 minutes, which is in line with the US guidelines for cardio workouts of 75 to 150 minutes per week. Five 30-minute sessions will also make you an enjoyable daily routine.
But you don’t have to limit yourself to 30 minutes. Many fitness classes last 45 to 60 minutes, which is great too. 30 to 60 minutes is a serious cardio workout that most of us can find or set aside time for.
Want to go even longer? Low-intensity cardio workouts (such as hiking or light jogging) for 90 minutes or more will help improve cardio fitness. Workouts of this length are usually held once a week. For example, in a running program, you might do 30-minute runs several times a week, followed by 90-minute long runs on Saturdays.
What if you prefer to do cardio as fast as possible? High-intensity interval training (HIIT) can help if it’s real HIITs and not just labeled YouTube videos. The decent Tabata protocol takes only four minutes; other HIIT protocols typically run for no more than 10 minutes. Once you add the five minute warm up and recovery, you get 15-20 minutes for everything.
If you lift weights
Weight lifting workouts vary in length depending on your goals and how your program is structured.
If you’re a beginner, a 30-minute workout three times a week will probably be enough for you to start seeing results. If you are more experienced, you may still prefer to break your workout into daily 30-minute chunks rather than doing longer workouts several times a week.
If you lift weights and strive to maximize strength, your workouts will take longer for each exercise. You need to do warm-up sets to gain working weight throughout the day, and you need 3-5 minutes of rest between sets for difficult, complex exercises such as squats and deadlifts. Add it all up, and daytime squats may well take half an hour on their own. Thus, these types of workouts can last anywhere from one to two hours.
So we have a range of 30 minutes to two hours for weight lifting workouts, depending on what you are doing. If you want to spend less time at the gym, consider combining the two exercises together and try to shorten the rest time between sets.
In addition to being good for your heart, cardio can improve your body’s ability to recharge faster between sets. Don’t expect to be able to do deadlifts in a row with two minutes of rest, but improving your fitness can help you cut your rest time from eight minutes to five, or allow you to do isolation exercises like curls with a minute of rest. instead of two or three.
How to save time without wasting your workout
We also have some tips on how to save time at the gym if you find your workouts are taking longer than you need to.
Remember, you can combine strength training and cardio – even on the same day – to get a little more of each. If you can set aside an hour for exercise, you can squeeze a 30 minute lift session and 30 minutes on a treadmill.
It might also be worth looking at all the other things you do during your workout to see if you are using your time correctly. If you have a long trip to the gym, shower for ages after that and spend time chatting with your gym friends between sets, it might take you three hours to do what is actually just a 90-minute workout.
Be honest with yourself about your schedule, but understand that there is no need to act ruthlessly unless you are in a tough time pressure. Maybe hanging out with friends at the gym is the best part of the day. Perhaps you could make more progress if you allowed yourself a full hour in the gym instead of trying to squeeze everything into 45 minutes.