How Long in the Gym?

[Primal]

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

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

[Want2lift]

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.

[Praetorian]

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

[cog]

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 .

[ta-kid]

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

[Praetorian]

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

[tt_tom]

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.

[Praetorian]

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

[jack3d14]

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

[Praetorian]

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

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