Friday, January 31, 2014

Short Term verses Long Term work outs

“I spent three hours in the gym today”
“I can’t go to the gym because I just don’t have the time”
Do you hear these excuses? I do and all the time. This is the reason why I believe that people can get what they need to get done in 30-40 minutes and no longer. Yes, this includes cardio work and weight training. There have also been studies that have proven that short term workouts are much better for the average person than long drawn out workouts, even when it comes to building muscle or losing weight.

The following excerpt from an article published in the UK Telegraph, "6 Minutes of Exercise A Week As Good As 6 Hours" by Peter Zimonjic, elaborates on this study.

"Just six minutes of intense exercise a week does as much to improve a person's fitness as a regime of six hours... Moderately healthy men and women could cut their workouts from two hours a day, three times a week, to just two minutes a day and still achieve the same results, claim medical researchers".

No, I think this is a bit extreme but I understand where he is going with this. So let me put my little spin on this. Studies have been done through several Universities that, in their final assessment they found that with short term work outs (less than 1 hour) your caloric burn can stay with you up to 2 days whereas with long workouts, (more than 1 hour) when you are ready to leave and go home, your body is pretty much back to normal. They have shown that your caloric burn has stopped by the time you get out to your car.

Look at it this way, you should be trying to make working out part of your life, not your life and if you are going to spend hours at the gym, it is no longer a small part of your life but it has become a large part of your daily life. I can see how this can drive people away, especially since our lives are so busy in so many other important areas.

I believe that 30 to 40 minutes of working out is sufficient for Joe Public because, face it we are not trying to become Olympic athletes, but we are only trying to get ourselves in much better shape and maintain it over the rest of our life. How can you do everything in 30-40 minutes? It’s easy. When you get to the gym already have your workout in mind and plotted out so that once you are off the treadmill (only 10 minutes) you can immediately get right to work. Now because you are only going to be working out for 30 to 40 minutes, the usual 10 minute water breaks are not necessary. Once you finish with one exercise immediately move to the next exercise and continue this until you get everything done. Then at that time get some water and get ready to leave.

Now for your Olympic athletes and those that are sports specific this idea will not work because there is so much more that goes into understanding the training necessary to be on the top of your game for that particular sport. However for Joe public just wanting to get fit and stay in shape, 30– 40 minutes daily is just fine.

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