Benefits of Two-A-Day Workouts

If you take full advantage of this by having two post-workout meals, you can start to see your gains skyrocket. When faced with a full hour's worth of exercise, most of us subconsciously conserve our energy early on, so we don't find ourselves dragging through the latter portion of the workout. By splitting the total day's training between two sessions, intensity levels start and finish higher, which is key to new strength and muscle gains!

Two-a-Day Workout Plans for Fitness and Weight Loss

And since you're fully ramped up for each workout, you'll burn more total calories than if the whole workout had been done at the same time. The greater calorie deficit will offset the extra food being eaten, and the overall affect is more muscle with more fat burn! While you don't have to be exact with the timing, you need to allow at least six hours between the two workouts.

If your workouts are much closer than this, you'll be too tired for optimal performance during round two. Because of this, most people find it easiest to hit the gym in the morning before work and then catch another session after work. Going on your lunch break and then again in the evening also works well, as long as you've waited at least six hours. You also have to make sure you limit your workouts to no more than 40 minutes in length, excluding the warm-up. And yes, it is very important for you to perform a proper warm-up and cool-down to speed up recovery, since you'll be back in the gym before the day is over!

The light, rhythmic exercise you get with a proper cool-down, such as minutes of an easy aerobic activity like running, will help the heart to return the pooled blood trapped in the pumped-up muscles, speed up the removal of lactic acid and other metabolic byproducts, and allow the muscles to lengthen again after the chronic contractions of a good lifting session. You'll quickly get tired of two-a-days if you're constantly fatigued, so a quick and efficient recovery is the key to this program's success.

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Simply doing two random workouts in one day will quickly lead to overtraining and burnout. There's a proper way to structure your program so that you meet the increased energy demands and take full advantage of this unique fat-burning and muscle-building opportunity. Due to the intensity of training, these programs are best saved for busting through plateaus, or for those times when you're extremely motivated to work out and the idea of going to the gym that much sounds appealing. To avoid overtraining, two-a-days should be cycled—two weeks on, one week off—or you'll burn out and, alas, plateau—the very thing you'd hoped to overcome.

While there are plenty of ways to design your program, one of the most effective is lifting heavy in the first workout, then lighter in the second. This lets you train your high-threshold muscle fibers—the ones with the most strength and growth potential—with a short, tough workout in the morning, while fitting in an evening workout that's easier but longer.

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How to Workout Twice a Day For Weight Loss (Ultimate Guide)

Sign In. Don't risk doing a workout improperly! But if you don't give them the opportunity to recover, you're just continuing to break your muscle fibers down over and over again. Not only will you potentially stop seeing improvements in, say, how much you can lift, but you can also end up with nagging aches, pains, and even injuries when your muscles are overworked.


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Over-doing it on cardio, especially high-intensity cardio like high-intensity interval training, or HIIT , where you're pushing yourself to your max is also a recipe for trouble. While you may also notice muscular consequences with excessive cardio, the bigger thing to watch out for here is more systemic overtraining: When you're constantly revving up your body with too much high-intensity work, your central nervous system can get so overwhelmed that it basically starts to pump the breaks a bit on some of its duties, which results in classic symptoms of overtraining , exercise physiologist Joel Seedman, Ph.

There are a few telltale sign to be on the lookout for that suggest you may be putting too much stress on your central nervous system. You'll notice that you're having poor quality sleep, or you're feeling like you just can't get enough sleep no matter what," says Seedman.

Will doubling up on workouts lead to faster weight loss?

You may also notice your moods or mental state changing, or your digestion not functioning as well as it should, he adds. Usually, I recommend every other day at most of high-intensity training, [or] you're just not going to be able to recover well. While there's no one-size-fits-all limit for how much working out will lead you into overtraining, two-a-day intense cardio sessions or strength sessions that hit the same muscle groups are certainly playing with fire.

Traditionally, two-a-days have been designed for athletes and people training for challenging events or very specific performance goals—an A. In fact, while exercise is really good for your health, its ability to facilitate weight loss is complicated and questionable at best , so keep that in mind before doubling down on exercise for weight loss reasons.

Generally, for overall health, the CDC recommends adults log at least minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity when your effort is about a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 or 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity about an 8 or higher on that scale of 1 to As for building strength, for most people, three days of total-body resistance training is a great approach, Seedman says.

Avoid Overdoing It

Or, you could do four days a week and switch off between upper-body training and lower-body training. Even if you're in good shape and are working out a "safe" amount for your body, there's likely a point where you may not see extra benefits from adding in more exercise on any given day. And if you can't push yourself as far the second time around, you're probably not getting the same benefits as you would if you'd gone in feeling fresh.

It's not that these second workouts are doing nothing, per se—and as long as you're still below a point of overtraining, it's definitely not worthless. Start doing these 8 things every day. Follow htlifeandstyle for more.

Should You Workout Twice Per Day, Should You Lift Weights Twice a Day

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