In the recent past, I have seen many people discuss which option is better. Should you workout once a day for one hour or is it better to spread it out and do it 4 times a day for 15 minutes each. At the end of the day, seems like it is the same thing but let’s take a look at it from a practicality point of view.
What is your goal?
The first thing you need to ask yourself is what exactly your goal is. If you are into building huge muscle then you can stop with the 15 minute workouts, because that will never happen for you. If you are looking to get fit or lose a few pounds, then it sort of does make sense. Consider this – before you eat any major meal, you do a quick 15 minute circuit training workout e.g.
- 5 minute warm up
- Max push-ups
- 20 jump squats
- 10 Pull-ups
That is one example. Another example would be:
- 5 minute warm up
- 20 Burpees
- 20 Legraises
- 20 Crunches
(Repeat the Leg raises and crunches twice)
These are very quick high intensity workouts and just think about this way, when you do similar workouts just before you eat something, most of it is going to be used towards recovery and basically, none of it will be left over to be converted to FAT. Plus, these are great cardio workouts, so your stamina and overall health improves as well.
One hour torture
Some people like this and some don’t. After you have been working for a few months/years, you tend to convince yourself to get up and go to the gym or work out at home. I know how it feels when you want to work out but the idea of spending an hour just lifting weights, gasping for air and tiring yourself out plays a very negative role.
Sweaty
When you work out your tend to sweat, and if these workouts are high intensity, you will keep on sweating for quite some time. Imagine that you work in an office and you did a quick workout before a client meeting. Chances are, you will forget your deodorant and the client won’t want to stick around and would leave early – Not Good!! So here is a question, is this method practical for people who work?
Metabolism
Personally, I believe that breaking your workout up and spreading it out helps keep your metabolism elevated for most of the day. However, if the workouts are just a walk on your treadmill, then this may not be very true. If you work out an hour a day in one go, then you will reap the benefits of the traditional EPOC effect which will last a few hours depending on how intense your workout was, but will breaking the workout, you are targeting the mini EPOC around your meals which is a better strategy.
Conclusion
Based on the above, seems like doing 4 x 15 work outs are a better option than one long workout for fitness and weight loss. However, taking a practical look at it, most of us are working class people and we might not be able to work out 2 – 3 times during office hours. The strategy is suitable for stay at home moms, college students with 2 lectures a week etc.
At the end of the day, the idea is to get an hour’s worth of exercise. As long as you can do that, you should be fine.
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