There seems to be a lot of confusion around this area and it can be daunting when trying to plan your exercise around your busy schedule.
Many people believe that to achieve your fitness goals, you need to be hammering away for hours on end and just the thought of that is enough to upset the flow of productivity with stress levels going through the roof!
Considering that long workouts would be over 90 minutes while shorter ones being under 60 minutes, what is better then, longer of shorter workouts?
Shorter… and here’s why!
1. Consistency
Sticking to shorter workouts as the majority and giving each of them your best is far better for your overall application to your program, as this gives you more time to focus on other areas of your life and not feel so overwhelmed with the amount of time allocated to training.
2. Regulates Appetite
With the steady approach and commitment to regular exercise, you allow the opportunity for your appetite to regulate itself with sufficient time between meals and less spikes in the hunger pangs!
3. Less cortisol ( stress ) produced with shorter workouts
Exercising for lengthy periods in a steady state e.g. a 2 hour bike ride without any intervals or rest periods, just pushing hard the entire time can be detrimental to your health due to the increased amount of cortisol that your body produces, especially if you have other stressors in your life such as a demanding job coupled with not enough sleep. The combination of stressors can lead to many other systems such as your immune system and adrenal glands not functioning at their optimum.
4. More fat loss
Keeping your workouts within a sensible time frame can provide you with a bigger window for burning calories. Think about how pumped you are for the first stage of your workout vs the last dreary “I’m knackered” phase and it makes perfect sense see that more effort is given when you’re fresh. More of these type of metabolically stimulating sessions produce a bigger numbers burned over the week.
Also read: Torture Device or Gym Machine? How to Not Be Scared Of The Gym
5. Intensity & Quality
With shorter workouts, you have much more energy to give across the entirety of the session, instead of being flat for a large portion of it. Having Focussed attention during to the whole sessions allows clarity for you to so you can concentrate on your technique, giving you a much better result with muscular muscle recruitment patterns.
6. Quicker Results
By training effectively with total attention and motivation to shorter sessions, you build your confidence exponentially, without feeling ‘foggy’. Feeling strong with mental clarity/focus and energy in the tank to fuel your physical input gives your workouts a higher score of effort given! More confidence, faster noticeable results.
7. Variety
Performing shorter workouts opens up many different options for training types and locations. Some extended sessions can really only apply to more cardio–based activity, while shorter ones can be anything from weight training, classes, HIIT to CrossFit etc.
8. Injury Prevention
Long and tiring workouts do of course come with an elevated risk of injury while your effort level decreases and your attention is compromised.
9. Accountability
With the larger amount of training variables available to you, this makes for a great way to diarise with alternatives and may even lead to an opportunity for you to hook up with a training buddy on some days. With this comes accountability, as you KNOW that there’s no way you’re backing out with all of these options.
Also read: How to Go From Gym to Glam With Ease
10. Overall Better Health
It goes without saying that with more motivation, a streamlined routine and a plethora of choices as to how you train right at your fingertips, you are happier, you feel empowered and you get to spend more quality time in other areas of your life to balance out all of the components that make up your own journey.
The 12WBT workouts are designed with the above in mind and average a sensible 60 mins of hard work and of course the sub 30 minute Express Workouts, which are exactly that are nifty alternatives when you don’t have the time for the full hour for a quick blast!
