How long should your workout last I How long should your workout be

YouTube, what's going on? Hope you're doing super well. In this video, we're going to talk about how long should your workouts be? How long do you need to work out in order to see optimal results? Do you need to work out for an hour? Can it be 30 minutes? Does it have to be 2 hours? Everything we're going to cover here in this video. So first and foremost, on this side over here, we're going to do some fill in the blanks with a little, uh, comparison and games. And then we're talking about what doesn't matter at all. And we're talking about Blank to blank minutes. Kind of the ending note for this video. So number one, the first thing, and I was gonna put this at the end, 'cause people tell you put things at the end of your YouTube videos to make sure people watch the entire video and da da da, whatever. I'm gonna put this at the beginning 'cause I need you to understand this and really internalize this. So if you're gonna watch one thing, definitely make it this. Watch the whole video 'cause I would enjoy that. But you have to remember, something is better than nothing. I think a lot of people, maybe yourself included, get upset if, for example, they have a workout plan that takes 60 minutes, but they only can do 20 minutes one day. 20 minutes is better than 0 minutes. And let's say, I don't know, let's say right now if you're in a position where you are, you know, you haven't worked out in a while, maybe you're 50 pounds, 100 pounds, 150 pounds overweight. Something is better than nothing. A 10-minute workout is better than a 0-minute workout. And this is what I really have to have you internalize, because what breeds results is not perfection, it's consistency. Consistency breeds results. Perfection breeds inconsistency. You can't, you can't be consistent if you're trying to be perfect 24/7, 'cause that's gonna lead to you going all in, then all out, having this all-or-nothing mindset and falling off track. And, well, if I'm not perfect, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it at all. If I can't get my 60-minute workout in, I'm not gonna do it at all. Where you probably could have gotten 30 minutes in. Half of that workout that you're supposed to do 60 minutes on is better than 0 minutes of that workout. You do understand this, right? Results are bred from consistency. So if you are— I would much rather you follow a B-minus plan with 75% consistency Rather than following an A++ plan with 45% consistency. Because which one are you going to see better results with? The one you follow with 75 to 80% consistency or the one you follow with 45% consistency? That's great that your workout's an hour or whatever it is, and that's the, that's the most optimal, or 5 days a week at an hour each. Great. But if you don't follow it, then it doesn't matter anyway. And that bleeds right into the next point. So number one, just remember, before we go into anything else, something is always better than nothing. A 10-minute workout is better than a 0-minute workout. Going right into the next thing, the only thing that matters is consistency and adherence. That's all that matters. That is what— people often look for the perfect workout program. Should I do this exercise or that exercise? Should I do these reps for these sets with this movement? It's— they look at all this stuff, which yes, it matters. And by the way, if you wanna learn how to kind of create your own workout routine, I'll put a video right up here. All that stuff matters, yes. But if you don't follow it, you can have the best plan on paper. If you don't follow it, that plan or any plan is not going to work for you. For example, for 90% of the clients I have worked with, we work out 3 to 4 times a week. That's it. No more. Some clients I do 5. I've never done 6. I've never done 7. I won't do 6 or 7. But 90% of my clients, we work out 3 to 4 days a week. Why is that? Because that's what is sustainable and that is what you can be consistent with because let's face it, Life is going to happen. For example, I recently had a conversation with one of my clients talking about this where she's a teacher and it was the end of school, the end of the school year, and she was like, man, this time last year I was trying to do 6 days a week workouts and still, you know, finish report cards and get to the end of the year and it was super stressful and I was beating myself up 'cause I wasn't working out the 6 days a week and I had no flexibility and I was getting down on myself and I just ended up quitting altogether. 'Cause my plan was to do 6 times a week, but I couldn't get there because life. And so she just quit altogether back then. Whereas right now we have her doing 3 days a week. If she has 1 day where she has to stay later at school, or if you have 1 day where you gotta go pick your kid up, or they have a soccer tournament, or whatever the case may be, it's fine. 'Cause you're working out 3 days a week, which is sustainable. And that's what matters. If you can follow— I would much— I'd much rather you follow a 3-day-a-week workout program with 95% consistency rather than trying to follow a 5 or a 6-day or a 7-day-a-week workout program with 45% consistency because you're gonna see better results from the plan that you can consistently adhere to. Those are the 2 things: consistency and adherence. So when it comes down to it, you have to be very honest with yourself and look at your schedule and say, what can I realistically fit into my schedule for a sustainable amount of time? Not just a month, not just 3 months, not just a year, longer than that, much longer, 5, 10, 15 years. What is going to be sustainable for me? And again, that's why I say 90% of my clients work out less than 4 days a week, anywhere from 3 to 4 days a week, because that's what I've seen. If you— unless your job is to just be a fitness model and work out 24/7 or be a bodybuilder, then yeah, maybe you're working out more than that, but If that's not your job and you're just a regular old cat like me, and you're just, you know, looking to get healthier and trying to fit this workout lifestyle into your regular lifestyle, you have to be realistic with yourself and ask yourself, what is— what can you be consistent with and what can you be— what, what can you adhere to the best? Because one last time, I'd rather you follow a B-minus plan that might not be the best on paper, but you follow it with 85% consistency Rather than trying to follow some 5-day-a-week bodybuilding split where you can only, you know, you only get 3 out of 5 days anyway. So it's not gonna work for you. So consistency and adherence. Now, going to number 3, quality over quantity. I don't care how long you work out in the gym. It's really honestly irrelevant, or gym or your house or wherever you're working out. It's irrelevant. What matters is the quality of your workouts. You are going to get— you would get much better results if you worked out for 30 minutes, 3 times a week with very high intensity, pushing yourself close to failure, lifting as heavy weights as you can, really pushing yourself, pushing the intensity. You would get better results with that as opposed to 6 days a week, 2 hours each day with eh. Intensity. And I can tell you from experience, I was that person who was working out 7 days a week, 2 hours a day with intensity because I thought grind was life and I couldn't take a day off from the gym. And, you know, days off are for wussies and all the other stupid things I thought when I was 18 years old. I was there. And my— when you get to that, you're working out so goddamn long, so many days a week. Your intensity can't be there. It can't. 'Cause you're not able to recover from that. You're always so fatigued, you're always so exhausted, you're not able to put forth real effort and intensity during your workouts. And I know for some people it's kind of a hard pill to swallow, and it was a very hard pill for myself to swallow. But when I actually backed down my workout days and backed down my workout timing, I saw I was able to recover better, I saw I was able to push harder during my workouts, I saw more changes in my body, in my strength. And so it's not about the quantity of the workout. I don't care how long you work out for. It's honestly irrelevant. The intensity is what matters. And by intensity, I don't just mean how much you're sweating or out of breath you are. By intensity, I mean, like, are you pushing yourself close to failure? For example, if you're doing a squat and you're supposed to do 6 reps, are those 6 reps, like, easy? You're like, all right, cool. Like, this is— I'm not really challenging myself. I'm just kind of doing what I know I can do. And like, it's whatever, I'll just get through it. Or is it that, or, you know, are those last 2 reps of that squat hard as shit? That's what you need, that intensity, that quality. And again, you know, going to following a real program, like, are you just kind of going into the gym and, you know, doing the machine here and doing the machine there and getting on the elliptical? And then it's kind of like, you know, following some random Instagram swipe workout or some random YouTube video workout. Nothing against those things. Something is better than nothing, like I said above. But there's a difference between following a real program and following a YouTube video or just some random Instagram swipe workout. Those are 2 totally different things that will produce 2 totally different results. So if you can narrow your focus a bit more, not just do random workouts and random Instagram workouts and this and that, narrow your focus, get a real program, get on a real plan. From there, you're probably going to see better results with less time of your workouts, which you can then allot to time with your family or work or sleep or whatever the case may be, which again makes it more sustainable. So those 3 things, guys: something is better than nothing, consistency and adherence, and quality— almost forgot— quality over quantity. So covering all that now, number 4, I just want to touch on this very quickly because I know some people ask— I get asked this a lot. It doesn't matter what time of day you work out. It doesn't matter at all. If you work out in the morning, if you work out at night, if you work out when you wake up, if you work out midday, I don't care. The most important thing is you just get the workout in. That's all that matters. So, whatever your schedule allows for, if you're night shift or you're, you know, you're working 9 to 5 or you gotta get up early, whatever the case may be, whatever fits in your schedule the best to allow for consistency and adherence. That is the biggest thing, 'cause like I said, as long as you consistently adhere to a plan, you are going to see tremendous progress. So it does not matter what time of day you work out. The only thing I would piggyback off this and say is it might matter because let's say, for example, you work out at 9 o'clock at night. Let's say you have to wake up at 5 AM the next day in order to go to work or get your kids ready for school or whatever the case may be. Well, if you work out at 9:00 at night, number one, you're already kind of cutting in on sleep time 'cause, listen, you gotta get, you know, 7 to 9 hours of sleep. But let's say you work out at 9:00, 9:00 to 10:00, right? Let's say at 10:00 you have, I don't know, a post-workout shake just to kinda give yourself some fuel so you're not going to bed starving, right? Now it's 10:30, let's call it it's 10:30. You gotta get up at 5:00. If you work out late at night, your cortisol spikes, your fight or flight system, your adrenaline system is heightened because You've just put your body through all of this stress, right? 'Cause lifting weights is a stress on your body, or cardio, or whatever. It's a stress on your body, and your body doesn't know you're working out and you wanna go to bed. Your body just knows, holy shit, this person's stressing me the hell out. I need to be heightened, be more aware of what's going on so I can have this fight or flight response. So, you work out, have a shake, whatever. It's now 10:30, your cortisol is still elevated, and you're still like in this fight or flight response. You don't go to bed until midnight because you're like, you have such high energy and you're freaking out and your cortisol's up, okay? So you don't go to bed until midnight, you gotta wake up at 5. Wake up at 5, you're like, holy hell, I'm tired as hell. I'm not gonna meal prep today. I am not gonna go get my steps today. I am not gonna stick to my diet today. Screw all of that, I'm exhausted. That would then make it non— almost not non-beneficial but non-optimal in a sense because It's gonna be much harder to stick to your diet, much harder to adhere to your workout program, adhere to your steps. Like, you're gonna put yourself behind the 8-ball that much more. So it doesn't matter necessarily what time you work out, but I would be conscious of late at night workouts 'cause that sometimes, that can mess with people's sleep. And if you mess with your sleep, sleep is one of the hierarchies of this entire journey, whether you're looking to lose fat, build muscle, whatever. Sleep is at the top of the most important things. And so if you're messing with your sleep, that could then potentially cause some issues down the road for you seeing results on a how to change your body and whatnot. So I should make that very clear. Now, finally getting to somewhat of an answer. Number one, like I said again, whether you do 30 minutes or 45 or 60 or 90, it's what you can consistently adhere to. That being said, a proper strength training program should take you anywhere from, I'd say, 30 minutes at the least and 90 minutes at the most. If you're going under 30 minutes, again, it's not bad and you can absolutely do it, but you probably aren't getting as much things as you might need to, again, just follow a comprehensive program. Now, that being said, you know, sometimes I have my clients all the time like, hey, if they're traveling or if they have a crazy busy day or whatever the case may be, I'll say, hey, do this quick 15-minute workout, get it in and keep it going. Like, nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Something is better than nothing. So keep that in mind, please. But when talking about what a comprehensive workout program is probably gonna take you, I'd say at the very least 30 minutes, at the very most 90 minutes. If you're going past 90 minutes, number one, you're not working out that hard probably. You're not having that much high of intensity. You're just kind of either dicking around or you're not lifting heavy enough weights or you're doing too much volume. You know, sometimes people think more is better. More isn't better. Better is better. So you don't have to think about doing more, like we said here, quality over quantity. You know, this goes into a different topic, but exercises. Some people do like 10 exercises for a lower body workout. Like, that's insane. That's nuts. Today I did 4 exercises, 3 main ones. I did a deadlift, a hip thrust, a lying hamstring curl, and calf raises 'cause my calves suck. That's all I did. It took me about 55, 60 minutes and it was intense and I lifted very close to my maximum weights and it was a great workout and I'm gonna see results from it. I'm gonna get stronger from it. You don't need the whole smorgasbord, the whole buffet of exercises. That's a whole separate topic, but I wanna make that very clear. So, 30 to 90 minutes, anywhere in between there. You know, again, it's more about what is— what can you consistently adhere to? I have clients come to me sometimes and say, Eric, I can get, you know, 3 days a week for 45 minutes. Perfect. That's what the program's gonna be. Some of them say, hey, I like to get 40-minute workouts for— I'm sorry, I like to get 4 times a week workouts for 40 minutes. As opposed to, let's say for example, you would might rather 4 times a week with shorter duration as opposed to 3 times a week with longer duration. That might be better for you. So it's just kind of like a give and take thing here, but you have to look at your schedule and honestly assess what's going on. And then from there you can kind of see what's going on and kind of make that, uh, you know, make that decision for yourself as opposed to— I'm sorry, as far as what is the most consistent you can be and the thing you can adhere to the best. And so, guys, that is the video for today. How long should your workouts be? I know it was kind of like a roundabout way, but I wanted to give you all of the information 'cause so many people are like, they have these lines in the sand. You gotta work out for at least an hour a day. It's like, well, no, you fucking don't. Like, it depends. It always depends. The answer is always, it depends. No matter what the question is, the answer is always, it depends. So I hope you learned something from this video. If you take one thing, remember, something is better than nothing. Second thing, consistency and adherence, and quality over quantity. All right? Hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, feel free to leave a thumbs up wherever the thumbs up is. Subscribe to the channel wherever the subscribe to channel is, and we'll talk soon. Okay? Thanks. Thanks, Eric.