Can I Spend Too Long At The Gym

Hey folks,

Was just reading one of those, “If i were a movie star with all day to train then I’d be huge” posts and it got me thinking.

I’m not married, no kids, lots of spare time, and I could probably spend at least an hour & half if not 2 hours a day in the gym… But do I really want to? Am I going to make much bigger gains than doing my current 45 minute workouts?

I’ve read a few articles saying if you spend longer than an hour in the gym you start breaking muscles down & cortisol starts going nuts & stuff.

I’ve tried to search on T-Nation but find nothing.
Cheers,
Jon

What I would do is have a 45 minutes main workout and a 15-20 minutes extra workout to raise GPP or lagging body part.

Yes, its true that your testosterone level will greatly decrease if you stay in the gym for too long.

Fahd

Maybe you could spend those extra 45-75 minutes a day looking for a wife and kids…

:slight_smile:

F**k looking for a wife and kids.

Spend that time looking for a piece of ass.

It depends how many sets/reps you are doing. What are your goals? When I am getting ready for a powerlifting contest I rest about 5 minutes between sets. Then my workout may take up to 2 hours.

beef

dont the metal melitia guys spend 4 hours working out. and look at the size of them

a lot of pler’s workout for hours, like beefcake said, but it’s not a constant 2 or 3 hours, long rests inbetween sets, it’s needed for your atp to restore. remember in meets during the lifts there can be a long time in between lifts. And again it’s about what’s your goal. My new girl does afull body workout every 4th day, she runs the others, and spends almost 2 hours in the gym, no complaints here.

I’ve been putting some thought into this myself, I think that it all comes down to the adaptability of the human body. I would definitely agree with most of the stuff you read about keeping the workouts under an hour because most of those articles are written for people just starting out. I think it all has to be balanced with your recovery/nutrition modes but I would assume that as your training age increases you body could handle workouts that were a little longer without negative side effects- but I wouldn’t just double the time of the workouts right away. I’ll leave it to the smart guys to figure out if longer is better, but I think it can be manageable.
Personally in my experience my body will usually respond better from throwing that extra hour into my sleep time than into my training time.

my workouts are ussually at least 2 hours, hour and a half if i’m in a hurry…ten minute warmup doing steps, rest is lifting, five times a week…it’s the way i’ve done it since the begining and always have had great results…

I’m a HIT lifter. 25-40 minutes, twice a week. I used to do the hour-plus thing 5x and even 6x a week and had almost nothing to show for it but way too many overtraining symptoms.

I personally spend a lot of time exercising. It’s not uncommon for me to hit the 2 hour mark. A lot of people fret on overtraining and I think that overtraining is a major issue but each individual has to test their self to see what their body can handle. But…it’s not like I’m in the gym supersetting for 2 hours.

I stretch for 20 minutes, warm up for 10, take long breaks during certain exercises. I have more of a powerlifter mentality where I lift a heavy percentage of my max for a few reps and I need a good amount of time to rest. I am not the type who goes for the pump, and does what seems like endless sets and reps. If I did that for 2 hours I’d surely overtrain.

If you are doing high rep, low intensity (by low intensity I mean 50-70% of your 1 rep max you are lifting at), and short rest time workouts, then yes 45 minutes to an hour will be enough.

beef