How Long Should Your Workouts Be? (45, 60, or 90 min)

How long should your workouts take to see the best results? Does working out for longer than 45 minutes diminish muscle growth and fat loss due to hormonal changes? Or is this a myth? Find out what the scientific evidence has to say about exercised induced changes to testosterone and cortisol, and if there really is an optimal workout length for building muscle and burning fat. 

How long should you work out during each training session? Is there actually a time limit for your workouts that you don't want to exceed. After all, I'm sure you've heard some people say that that working out for longer than 45 minutes to an hour will have a negative effect on your hormones, and do more harm than good, ultimately limiting your progress. Meanwhile, others say that there's no need to worry so much about overtraining and the more time you put into your workouts the faster results you'll get. So which one is it? Well, that's exactly what I want to go over in today's video. And not only will I provide my personal suggestions, but I'll also go over exactly what the scientific research has to say on this topic. So let's start first with the very common belief that you should never exceed hour-long workouts and preferably even keep your workouts under 45 minutes. This idea is mostly based around what happens to hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, and cortisol during exercise. When you start working out your body will respond by naturally boosting testosterone levels and the theory is that this boost is supposed to help improve our performance, help us build muscle to a greater degree, and it's also supposed to help us burn more fat... So far so good, however, the idea is that after around 45 minutes your Cortisol levels will start rising while your testosterone levels start dropping putting your body into a catabolic mode where you're more likely to breakdown muscle tissue for energy, and store more body fat. So exercising past the 45-minute mark was always thought to be at best a waste of time and at worst something that could undo all your hard work at the gym. Now, is there any truth to this? Well, there have been a couple studies that looked at this topic directly and one of the first ones was a small study back in 2001 that involved a small sample size of only 16 men. The researchers divided these men into two groups. One group only trained one arm for 9 weeks. While the other group trained their arm the same way, but also included 8 sets of Legs at the end of their arm workouts, to stimulate more testosterone and growth hormone to be released. Sure enough, after each workout, blood tests showed that the group that also trained their legs experienced higher spikes in testosterone and growth hormone levels. And At the end of the 9 weeks, the group that worked both their Arm and legs increased their strength in their trained arm by a whopping 37 percent while the group that only worked their arm without training their legs increased their arm strength by only 9 percent. So this study clearly showed that you should ideally limit your workout length to that first 45 minutes while testosterone and growth hormone is elevated since in this study it led to more gains......... or did it. Well, it actually turns out the study was flawed. The participants in the leg's and arms group started off 20 to 25 percent weaker than the participants in the arm only group, giving them the opportunity to take greater advantage of newbie gains leading to a greater change in their strength levels throughout the study. (1) So it was ultimately inconclusive
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References in the video:

2. "exposure of loaded muscle to acute exercise-induced elevations in endogenous anabolic hormones enhances neither muscle hypertrophy nor strength with resistance training in young men" 

[GravityTransformation]

Hope you guys enjoy this video. To clarify further I DO NOT say that 45 min is the best workout length at any point of the video. Before commenting please make sure you at least skim through the video 😁. As always thanks for tuning in!

[ronakpatel]

I spent 45 minutes waiting for equipments to be available 🙄

[IDontTalkToCops]

45 - 60 mins feels like a sweet spot for me. Still allows me time to get everything done if you focus on your workout with purpose and don’t sit on your phone for 5 minutes after each exercise like I see a lot of people doing 😁

[JohnNorris]

Shoot, When I was a boxer, I used to train 5 to 6 days a week, up to 6 hrs a day. Warm up, bag work, Weight training, Sparing, etc. I did this for years and was in fantastic shape. I had no negative effects that I can remember.

[supernarl]

I hate the fact that I can eat donut for like 3 minutes, and have to workout for like 2 hours to burn the calories it has. 🤣

[Zephreyer]

“It’s better to work really hard for a short period of time rather than to work lightly for a long period of time”
- My Coach from Basketball Practice

[ryancooper]

I do a push pull legs routine. The weightlifting usually last me about 35-40 minutes (I superset everything) and then I do either 20 minutes of cardio or core work. Has done me wonders. And to anyone reading, keep following that dream of fitness 💪 Get a great workout in everyone!

[TheClinchMagazine]

I personally think 45 minutes to 1 hour is enough for average people who have other job besides lifting.

Edit : I now think even 20 minutes is enough if you know how to train. Increase intensity. Of course you are not going to become Arnold Schwarzenegger with this approach. But you are not going to stay unhealthy either. Majority of us just want to be either strong or in shape or both.

[CptWhity]

Best fitness channel on youtube. He shows you the research and he keeps his shirt on most of the time lol.

[DrakeBrunette]

Well, what are your goals? Because you can get a decent workout in 15 minutes time if you're purely exercising to have a healthy body. It only gets complex when you're trying to attain specific aesthetic or performance results. And the time can be all over the place from (30 mins - 2 hours) depending on what you want, current level of fitness, age, injuries, equipment, time of day, nutrition, rest/sleep schedule etc. etc. etc....There is NO set standard for how long workouts should be as every Person, Workout and Goal is different!

[MHGFTW]

I see people come to the gym, do 20 minutes of running and 20 minutes of bike riding, and then leave. For those people 45 minutes is plenty. For me though, I need at least 1.5 hours.

[Stoic_Metalhead]

I recently started wondering this. I spend about 2 hours at the gym, but there's about 10 to 15 minutes of stretching, a warm up set with every compound lift, 1 minute breaks in between sets and not to mention starting off with light weight and then slowly going up.

[sudhanbhattarai]

I never waste time in gym and I always leave when I feel like I can't workout anymore. It's usually 1 hr and 15 mins and I follow Push/Pull/Leg. So far so good.

[kaichen]

What can you do in 45 min? Three sets each of three exercises, at best? I lift heavy weights and I need 2 or 3 minutes between sets. If you can squat 110 kg after a minute again, or deadlift 150 kg after, again, after only one minute, congratulations. But, at 36, I can't. I rather lift heavy weights than lift lightly and race against the clock.

[louis]

If you enjoy training like myself you don’t really think about time. Sometimes u feel like u can only go 30 minutes and sometimes you’ll end up doing 1 and a half hours in another. Just depends on your relationship with getting in shape

[tsorakin]

I don't see how 45 minutes is possible for an upper body workout + cardio

[mopsandmuscles]

I think duration will also be determined on what your goals are.

My goal was to shed weight, and build strength. I have a staff fitness room at work. I use it for during my unpaid lunch break. 30+ minutes (occasionally sneaking in an extra 10) a day every day I work. Since July I've dropped nearly 40lbs, and notice improvements in my body. I say, whatever time you have to workout, make the most of it, as long as you stick to a routine.

[ozzy]

I train at home and have found that one hour sessions of push/pull/legs/off split works great. Working only one muscle group at a time helps me better understand my progress.

[vigenige]

I workout 1.5-2h 5 times a week and I've made more progress than almost everyone at my gym

[stevenlopez]

By a long long long long shot, these are the best training/workout videos on YouTube!