How Long in the Gym?

Hey all, it's been pretty widely debated how long someone should spend training. I didn't really care much for it until I read a T Nation article about pertaining to hard gainers and easy gainers. One part of the article read that "training longer than 45 minutes will break down more muscle than he can rebuild." What's up with this? There are plenty of people who say that its fine training over an hour and then others say that anything longer than 45 mins is detrimental. Wouldn't this be dependent on what you do in the gym too? For example, if I'm only doing 3 sets of deadlifts but they're starting from my 1 rep max and then moving down, wouldn't he be in the gym much less time than someone who is focused on doing more volume? So shouldn't this be more individualized to the persons goals instead of generalizing the 45 mins is too much for everybody? What are your guys thoughts?

The article is this one: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...syhard_gainers

-Primal

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Originally Posted by Primal

Hey all, it's been pretty widely debated how long someone should spend training. I didn't really care much for it until I read a T Nation article about pertaining to hard gainers and easy gainers. One part of the article read that "training longer than 45 minutes will break down more muscle than he can rebuild." What's up with this? There are plenty of people who say that its fine training over an hour and then others say that anything longer than 45 mins is detrimental. Wouldn't this be dependent on what you do in the gym too? For example, if I'm only doing 3 sets of deadlifts but they're starting from my 1 rep max and then moving down, wouldn't he be in the gym much less time than someone who is focused on doing more volume? So shouldn't this be more individualized to the persons goals instead of generalizing the 45 mins is too much for everybody? What are your guys thoughts?

The article is this one: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...syhard_gainers

-Primal

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Depends on you.Lee Labrada and Mike Mentzer liked short intense workouts.Beckles claimed past 30 minutes was a waste of time.If your energy drops before the end of the workout the remaining sets likely will not spur any serious growth,but are better than skipping them.How you recover should be a gauge.You should have some additional strength in your major lifts every workout if you are striving to gain strength.

Depends on your strength level...if you are squatting 500 for sets of 10 good luck even getting warmed up in less then 30-40 mins. Most guys fall for that quick workout BS because they are lazy...you want to grow youll need to spend some time under the bar and thats not going to happen in 45 min. The other issue is the workout turns into an aerobic exercise not a muscle building exercise. For a decent leg workout it takes me 1.5 to 2 hours...try doing curls, squats, presses, extensions, stiff legs, etc in 45 min...good luck. Most upper body workouts can be done in 60-75 min depending on strength levels.

P

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Originally Posted by Praetorian

Depends on your strength level...if you are squatting 500 for sets of 10 good luck even getting warmed up in less then 30-40 mins. Most guys fall for that quick workout BS because they are lazy...you want to grow youll need to spend some time under the bar and thats not going to happen in 45 min. The other issue is the workout turns into an aerobic exercise not a muscle building exercise. For a decent leg workout it takes me 1.5 to 2 hours...try doing curls, squats, presses, extensions, stiff legs, etc in 45 min...good luck. Most upper body workouts can be done in 60-75 min depending on strength levels.

P

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Ok that's good to hear because I always thought it was stupid when people said that you can get done your workout in 45 minutes if you do everything right. To me, an hour is required at least before I even feel like it was worth the walk or drive just to get there. Thanks for debunking!

-Primal

Short workouts did it for Haney.Labrada did some leg workouts inside of 25 minutes.Danny Padilla did back workouts with a training partner taking 35 -45 second rotations.This is harder than most people are capable of.You won't need a sled.:)There is also the issue of recovery....

Alot of guys think they workout 2 hours per day but if you watch them train, they're actually talking or texting for at least half of that and when they do finally get around to doing a set, it's half-assed and useless anyway. I have respect for the guy who comes in with his earphones in, know's what he's doing and doesn't give a shit about who's dating who or any other bullshit going on in our gym. This is what I look for in a good partner.

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Originally Posted by cog

Short workouts did it for Haney.Labrada did some leg workouts inside of 25 minutes.Danny Padilla did back workouts with a training partner taking 35 -45 second rotations.This is harder than most people are capable of.You won't need a sled.:)There is also the issue of recovery....

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Yeah I also depends on which day it is too right? For me, I'm toast when the hour strikes every time I hit legs, but chest and back I can usually go an hour to two hours. Haha, my partner and I used do a set and then spot the other afterwards. It would be pretty gruelling! In terms of recovery, I heard that you need to stay away from a particular muscle group after you hit it for about 48 hrs to avoid breaking it down further than need be? Is that true do you guys know?

-Primal

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Originally Posted by cog

Short workouts did it for Haney.Labrada did some leg workouts inside of 25 minutes.Danny Padilla did back workouts with a training partner taking 35 -45 second rotations.This is harder than most people are capable of.You won't need a sled.:)There is also the issue of recovery....

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Again the workout becomes an aerobic exercise not a muscle building exercise. I wouldnt compare guys like Haney, Labrada or Padilla to every day folks in the gym...you are talking two different species here. Haney won the IFBB world championships and received his pro card before touching gear...nuff said! Also talk is relatve as most of these guys were in the gym much longer than an hour or two but total exercise time under the bar may be 45 minutes...huge difference.

P

P

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Originally Posted by scottlove

Alot of guys think they workout 2 hours per day but if you watch them train, they're actually talking or texting for at least half of that and when they do finally get around to doing a set, it's half-assed and useless anyway. I have respect for the guy who comes in with his earphones in, know's what he's doing and doesn't give a shit about who's dating who or any other bullshit going on in our gym. This is what I look for in a good partner.

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Agreed. I only had 2 training partners in 13 years and the one I actually have now, for the last 7 months, that was him who came to me as he saw how I was training and wanted to follow, the poor thing, he said he never trained as hard, barfing through his nose, blacking out, etc... he admitted that a few time after training he went directly to his bed shaking into fetal position. Lol But you know, that's what makes him a great training partner, he's not half-assed, he's committed and he walk the talk, those are rare, especially in a GL. This guy's progress has been tremendous in those last months.

Eric

Give both ways a shot, but i like shorter workouts.
The more you do sets like a marathon runner, the inroad... ie breakdown in tissue is to much for most.

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Originally Posted by TT Eric

Agreed. I only had 2 training partners in 13 years and the one I actually have now, for the last 7 months, that was him who came to me as he saw how I was training and wanted to follow, the poor thing, he said he never trained as hard, barfing through his nose, blacking out, etc... he admitted that a few time after training he went directly to his bed shaking into fetal position. Lol But you know, that's what makes him a great training partner, he's not half-assed, he's committed and he walk the talk, those are rare, especially in a GL. This guy's progress has been tremendous in those last months.

Eric

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Ugh, tell me about it! I just lost my new training partner because he went home for the summer! He was a great friend, met him in my human anatomy course! Difference was that he was from Hong Kong and I from Canada of course. It's crazy how the love of iron brings people together even from around the world! Plus it sounds really cool now when I say that I have had an international training partner :P

I have tried both ways of training St. I hated being in the gym for less than an hour, even if it leads to being less efficient, I think it will satisfy my mental status which is worth almost as much as the muscle growth. There's no use going if you don't think you are training optimally in my opinion.

-Primal

It seems the older and more experienced I get the longer my warm ups and my post workout stretching become. This is what makes my gym times longer, not the actual time spent lifting.

Most guys could use more time in the gym as their volume is much too low. With the popularity of HIT and the idea that test levels drop after 45min volume levels dropped to dismal levels and then people wonder why they arent growing.

P

I am spending a little longer in the gym lately,tried creatine a few times over the years and never noticed a thing.Now at 58 it suddenly does .

I think everybody has to learn their optimum training time vrs recovery,with consistant gains.The biggest change I have made over the years myself is reducing my rest time to 1 minute between sets once I get rollin.In my20,s I did constant 2hr workouts on a 3 day split.But I was resting 3+ minutes between sets.I got the same workouts down to a 1hr 15 min just reducing rest time.Just another approach.I use to train twice a day for a short term.But those days are over for me--Not Enough time anymore

Timed rest periods are great if muscular endurance is your goal. If your goal however is building maximum muscle and strength then you will require significantly longer rest periods. One minute rests will severely slow gains as it greatly reduces intensity levels.

P

My workouts are more than 1 hour long. But I have 5+ minutes rest between sets. I don't think I can do it in just 45 minutes. Maybe some people can. So it's all individual.

When I was training at my peak strength levels and hitting 285lbs part of my leg training included squats with 6 plates per sides for sets of 10...thats 585lbs for 10 for 1-2 sets depending how i felt. Then drop to 495 for a set of 12 reps and possibly 405 for 15 more. That is only one exercise for legs which also included leg presses, leg extensions and then hamstrings. I would love to hear an explanation on how to do a 45min workout for legs when the correct warm up to get to 585lbs itself takes at least 25min...thats not including a single working set.

P

I tend to keep my workouts within an hour. After an hour your body releases stress hormones that cause muscle breakdown (catabolism).

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Originally Posted by jack3d14

I tend to keep my workouts within an hour. After an hour your body releases stress hormones that cause muscle breakdown (catabolism).

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Cortisol is not an issue even with training for 3 hours. The entire idea of very short training periods has been completely misinterpreted and has now lead to an army of lazy people in the gym. Arnold used to train twice a day 3-4 hours sometimes...now guys screw around for 45 minutes and call it training.

P

Wow, good to see the old threads getting some love still. Prae is right, I'm training for 2 hours every day for 6 days now and I'm seeing more growth. Cortisol is only an issue if you literally destroy yourself and then try to keep going but even then it's very difficult to reach that point and at that point it's just flat out overtraining anyways- the 'true' kind of overtraining. As long as you pace yourself and train with common sense you should be fine. Also ta-kid has a good point, it wasn't until I started training for longer that I noticed that my body responds better, everyone is different and people need to find out what works best for them instead of listening to people on the internet who half the times don't even have any scientific studies, training experience or years to back up what they are saying.

-Primal

The only thing matters is what kind of workout you are doing. Yeah generally speaking, if you spend 60 minutes in the gym actually working out, most likely that should be pretty good. However, it all depends on what you are doing. I use to do cardio one day, weight lifting the other, MMA style exercises (Burpees, etc) the third and I finished off each workout with a 20 - 30 minute run. It took me an hour at most. Anything more then that would be overkill and unnecessary unless you are a pro bodybuilder. I'm not so I can't comment on that.

The training you do is dependent on your goal. You cannot compare mma , bodybuilding, running, football, OLY weightlifting etc. All require vastly different training forms, duration, intensity, recovery etc.

P

The age old question. I just workout until I start to feel I've had enough. Sometimes this is 45 minutes sometimes it's 2 hours.