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Multiple Short Workouts vs. Single Long Workout..
- Thread starter BobbyB215
- Start date
If you are looking for the benefits, there are a number of things you need to consider. First and foremost, what you want to achieve. This won't be a massive shock, I hope, but if you want to run marathons, you need to be used to long runs, while if you want to do Olympic lifting this will be less essential.
Training as with most things is a matter of starting at the end and working back to find the best approach. If what you want is a bit of basic fitness and only have short slots to train in this is fine. If you want aesthetics this can also be achieved with this type of training as it is something that comes fairly well with moderate intensity training given time.
If your aims are a lot more hardcore it is better to uses the short sessions as a supplemental rather than core training. Tabata training is very short and there are a lot of people praising this as an alternative to longer sessions, notable exception are those involved in creating the workout. they recommend this as an accompaniment to a running or other cardio based training.
Cardio is the classic where people assume long is best. This has been disproven by showing that people doing 2 lots of 10 minutes a day at the same intensity as others doing 1 lot of 20 get the same results, same for 3 x 10 vs 1 x 30, in fact the time when this starts shifting is when you approach then cross the hour, at which point results get strange. People doing 10 minutes 6 times a day tend to work at higher intensities than if doing 1 lot of an hour, so for the average person shorter looks like a good plan here and in fairness it is for the person who doesn't maintain intensity, and this is where people get the idea that long term static state cardio doesn't work.
However for those of us who will keep up the same intensity throughout the hour as the average person would manage for 10 minutes because we warm in and just keep going at it there is a chink in the slander against long cardio workouts, it is called the adaptive heart. When you have been doing high intensity for between 20 and 40 minutes, dependant on fitness, your heart settles into a rhythm and starts slowing if you are keeping the same pace. Those of us who know this is coming feel the workout getting a touch easier so increase pace to re-elevate the heart rate to our max or percentage of it. This means as our heart is adapting to the steady state we are able to go faster, only slightly but enough to mean the intensity of our workouts increases with time.
So this means that whether or not long or short workouts are better can be down to how you train as well, if you are happy being moderate, short can be just as good or even better, if you like to go full on the longer periods where the body is warmed up and you are focussed are better.
Short workouts are hailed as the answer for those who have limited time, but I don't have the time for short workouts, so stick with medium length instead. Really long are a thing of the past and pending retirement future for me, and I have gained a lot when doing them.
This may look strange especially as I have said I don't have time for short but can manage medium. I do explain myself. Each workout requires warm-up, cool down and stretch time, in order to be optimal and avoid injury, even seasoned trainers like me are occasionally arrogant enough to forget this, and I did injure myself earlier this year by going in too high without proper warm up. The fitter you are the faster you can warm up safely, because the aim is to get blood pumping around the body not just get heat into it, that is a by product not the aim, despite the name. I can safely warm up for my run in a couple of minutes, my weights in little more, but add in a few more for the cool down and stretch and we are looking at a bare minimum 5 - 7 minutes for non-workout time in each workout, more than I have seen some suggesting the workouts take.
If you want to risk working out without bothering with these steps, I cannot stop you but I will think of you as one of the many others who fail to do so and keep physiotherapists well employed. I have been doing this far too long to take such risks as a regular thing.
I also don't have a lot of small time slots. I have a lunch break and a bit of spare time in the evening, which occasionally disappears. So a medium length run and medium length workout is good for my availability, while trying to fit in the same amount in smaller slots isn't.
Training as with most things is a matter of starting at the end and working back to find the best approach. If what you want is a bit of basic fitness and only have short slots to train in this is fine. If you want aesthetics this can also be achieved with this type of training as it is something that comes fairly well with moderate intensity training given time.
If your aims are a lot more hardcore it is better to uses the short sessions as a supplemental rather than core training. Tabata training is very short and there are a lot of people praising this as an alternative to longer sessions, notable exception are those involved in creating the workout. they recommend this as an accompaniment to a running or other cardio based training.
Cardio is the classic where people assume long is best. This has been disproven by showing that people doing 2 lots of 10 minutes a day at the same intensity as others doing 1 lot of 20 get the same results, same for 3 x 10 vs 1 x 30, in fact the time when this starts shifting is when you approach then cross the hour, at which point results get strange. People doing 10 minutes 6 times a day tend to work at higher intensities than if doing 1 lot of an hour, so for the average person shorter looks like a good plan here and in fairness it is for the person who doesn't maintain intensity, and this is where people get the idea that long term static state cardio doesn't work.
However for those of us who will keep up the same intensity throughout the hour as the average person would manage for 10 minutes because we warm in and just keep going at it there is a chink in the slander against long cardio workouts, it is called the adaptive heart. When you have been doing high intensity for between 20 and 40 minutes, dependant on fitness, your heart settles into a rhythm and starts slowing if you are keeping the same pace. Those of us who know this is coming feel the workout getting a touch easier so increase pace to re-elevate the heart rate to our max or percentage of it. This means as our heart is adapting to the steady state we are able to go faster, only slightly but enough to mean the intensity of our workouts increases with time.
So this means that whether or not long or short workouts are better can be down to how you train as well, if you are happy being moderate, short can be just as good or even better, if you like to go full on the longer periods where the body is warmed up and you are focussed are better.
Short workouts are hailed as the answer for those who have limited time, but I don't have the time for short workouts, so stick with medium length instead. Really long are a thing of the past and pending retirement future for me, and I have gained a lot when doing them.
This may look strange especially as I have said I don't have time for short but can manage medium. I do explain myself. Each workout requires warm-up, cool down and stretch time, in order to be optimal and avoid injury, even seasoned trainers like me are occasionally arrogant enough to forget this, and I did injure myself earlier this year by going in too high without proper warm up. The fitter you are the faster you can warm up safely, because the aim is to get blood pumping around the body not just get heat into it, that is a by product not the aim, despite the name. I can safely warm up for my run in a couple of minutes, my weights in little more, but add in a few more for the cool down and stretch and we are looking at a bare minimum 5 - 7 minutes for non-workout time in each workout, more than I have seen some suggesting the workouts take.
If you want to risk working out without bothering with these steps, I cannot stop you but I will think of you as one of the many others who fail to do so and keep physiotherapists well employed. I have been doing this far too long to take such risks as a regular thing.
I also don't have a lot of small time slots. I have a lunch break and a bit of spare time in the evening, which occasionally disappears. So a medium length run and medium length workout is good for my availability, while trying to fit in the same amount in smaller slots isn't.