When you’re first starting out with working out, you have a lot of decisions to make about various factors such as where to work out, what kind of workout to do, what time to work out, as well as how long to work out for. And while it may be easy to just assume that all workouts should be an hour long, it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. In this article, we’ll explore workout lengths.
Longer is Not Necessarily Better
It may be easy to think that the longer a workout is, the better. After all, more exercise equals more benefits, right? Well, not exactly. The truth is that at a certain point, you may get diminishing returns and maybe even start to deal with issues of overtraining that will make it harder for you to work out the next day.
Start Small
If you’re a total beginner, it’s a great idea to start with shorter workouts and make them longer when you feel comfortable doing so. Beginning with something as simple as a 15-30 minute daily walk or yoga practice is a great first step, and you’ll definitely see benefits.
Let Your Workout Guide You
Ultimately, we recommend removing the consideration of how long your workout should be and instead focusing on meeting your workout needs based on the type of training you’re doing, your experience level and goals, and even uncontrollable factors like how busy your gym is.
