It depends…. However, we can still look at the various reasons that some workouts are longer than others to help understand what might work better in certain situations and for certain goals.
Working out for a marathon will require more time, working out for strength will require substantially less.
Even 30 seconds counts, we all have to start somewhere, I’ve seen people start with 2 minutes on the stationary bike and build up to 45 minute spin classes, conversely had people bring their workouts down to 30-40 minutes from 2 hours for better results and life balance.
I like to look it like this:
Trainer writes program, we take a little more rest in between sets for the first few workouts, overall 52 minutes.
We get used to the program and require less rest, normally in order to keep the same feeling (our muscles have adapted) workout now takes 44 minutes – is this less effective now?
It’s more time efficient for sure, less rest will keep the muscles working hard. Should we look to increase reps/weight or add exercises?
An important factor here is whether the workout is still achieving its goals.
Let’s take a few examples:
A. Powerlifter, has the following to complete:
Squats
20kg 10 rep warm up
60kg 5 rep warm up
80kg 5 rep warm up
100kg 5 rep warm up
120kg 5 rep working set
120kg 5 rep working set
120kg 5 rep working set
To allow for their muscles to recover sufficiently, 2-5 minutes of rest would be required. This is due to the outcome being one of max strength.
Total rest time – 12-30 minutes
B. Bodybuilder
Squats
20kg 10 rep warm up
60kg 12 rep working set
60kg 12 rep working set
60kg 12 rep working set
60kg 12 rep working set
Bodybuilding typically uses hypertrophy, fancy words for time under tension and surprising enough we take less rest between sets 30-90 seconds
Total rest time – 2-6 minutes
I know there are less sets in the second example! Still even if expanded for a full comparison the difference would still be significant.
If we take that and apply it to the rest the gaps grow, well we would expect it to…..
The powerlifter would (typically) do less movements in the overall workout, the bodybuilder would have a few more (again typically) so the gap narrows with the additional exercises the bodybuilder completes.
This brings me back to the start, the length of the workout is linked directly to the goal, in the majority of cases.
Strength – less movements, more rest
Hyperthrophy – more movements, less rest
Let’s pop over to cardio for a moment, and pick a half marathon – training from the outside will consist of working up to a half marathon distance….
In an ideal program we would also include some other workouts to help, these could be speed based, hill based and so on. These will over the course of time become much shorter than the longer distance run.
We could be doing a 70 minute long run with 20-30 mins of sprints or hills.
The length of the workout becomes a secondary consideration and the content and progress leads the inclusion of speed/hill work as an example.
The cardio one is a great example of the goal leading the content, rather than it having to be X minutes long. We are also starting to see more of a shift for strength work also, more purposeful exercises with quality reps rather than lots of exercises with lot’s of reps.
When looking the length of workout, look at the specific requirements accordingly to your goals, see what is required the time will then calculate itself.
Not sure if your workout is hitting the time/goal sweet spot? Give a member of Team SF a message to help you out info@spikefitness.co.uk or 07597215652.