How long do you spend in the gym on average? If everyone who viewed this article answered in their head, we would surely come to a variety ofprobably from a few minutes to three or even four hours.
In fact, the length of a workout is completely individual and depends on many key factors. Nevertheless, in today's article we will try to answer this question, which appeared on our YouTube channel in the community section, as best we can.
First of all, it depends on priorities.
Most important of all (and unfortunately not specified in the question) is your focus and your priorities. If you are primarily concerned with building strength and are into powerlifting, for example, your breaks between sets may be a bit longer. Or rather, the intensity with which you work in training plays an absolutely crucial role in this. If you are within, say, 50% of one rep max (if you have a benchpress "max" of 100kg, then you are having funlet's talk about 50kg) and you are able to perform 10 reps with that weight, a shorter break between sets will probably suffice. But if you have to do three sets of three reps with 95% of one rep max (and therefore 95kg), you probably your nervous system is going to take a beating and you'll need a much longer (several minutes) break.
When you're trying to build muscle volume and mass, on the other hand, you're all about contraction and usinglower weights to be able to perform a higher number of reps. And last but not least, you can incorporate various gigantic sets, supersets from time to timesets, crash sets and other intensification techniques to speed up your whole workout. After all, such a Dorian Yates leg workout took around 40 minutes. When we filmed with Vojta Trnka, he was able to train the same (mostly equally unpopular) part in an hour. So in theory, training bodybuilders can definitely take less time. However, that's not the main point I want to make in today's article.
How about those dreaded catabolic hormones?
If we look at the issue of training duration from a more professional point of view, we find thatthat the secretion of our anabolic hormones reaches its peak after about 35-60 minutes of exercise in the gym. After that, their amount starts to slowly but surely diminish. However, the level of your hormones (whether anabolic or catabolic) is not the most important factor. The most important thing of all is how much you enjoy training. Some people are comfortable with multiple shorter workouts a week, others are more comfortable with no more time at the gym.three times a week at most, but when he's there, he's happy to work out for three hours.
In short, do it in a way that you enjoy it as much as possible, and over time, see how your body responds to it. Once you've worked out for a while, you'll definitely know what exercises, how long the breaks are, what intensity, frequency and volume of training works best for you. But everything is a matter of time, especially in this sport.
My personal experience
Those who know me, know that in bodybuilding and bodybuilding training principlesI don't move around much, because my primary focus has always been on building strength. And that's why I probably can't say much more on the subject of bodybuilding training than I've written and observed here. But what I can talk about (or at least I think I can) is powerlifting.
When I was preparing for my first competitions, I was just training three times a week for about 2,5-3 hours. Back then I was able to take advantage of it and it had its benefits, mainly I had four times a week "free" day when I could do some active recovery, walking, mobility, playing football with friends and many other activities.
Over time, however, the frequency of my workouts began to increase and reached an imaginary peak when I was training six times a week under the bushRadomil Vasik of Iron Warriors, the national coach for the IPF and one of the best and most knowledgeable coaches in the country. The training sessions were good, usually for an hour and a half a day, and even on them I was able to make very decent progress.
But the main criterion for me was always to enjoy the training. And if you are only doing the sport recreationally, you don't have to force yourself to do anything and enjoy every workout. In that case, the results will definitely come with time.
More articles from the "Questions and Answers" series:
- Ketogenic diet and its effect on strength? - Q&A #1
- Is soy protein a good choice?
- To exercise despite muscle soreness or not? - Questions and Answers #3
- Best training plan for working out 3 times a week? - Questions and Answers #4
- How long should a gym workout last? - Questions and Answers #5 (this article)
- How to promote veining? - Questions and Answers #6
Why can you trust us?
Hey! Hey! I'm Mirek and I've been working at World Fitness almost since the beginning, except for a small break. But before that I lived only in the gym for a few years, doing deadlifts and power triathlon, going to competitions and winning a few medals.
Probably the one I value the most is the national record in the WUAP federation. But besides working out, I was also interested in food and supplements, I liked to enjoy my free timeI used to read different researches and professional books in my free time to know as much as possible.