An adult should have at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. Most people can hardly find time to fit this into their daily schedule.
Working out twice a day is an even more alien concept. But if you only knew the surprising benefits of working out twice a day for weight loss, you will have a total change of mind and consider it.
There are a few things you have to consider before you take to this mode of exercising:
- Make sure each session does not exceed 30 minutes
- Implement rest and recovery time
- Eat well to make up for the energy being used and drink lots of water
- It shouldn’t be an excuse to eat unhealthily
- Do longer workouts earlier in the day
Benefits of Working Twice A Day for Weight Loss
1. Helps You Stay Active
Being inactive is one of the highest contributors to weight gain and can lead to heart diseases, according to a study in the International Journal of Obesity.
Most of our day is spent seated at work or at home. Working out twice a day results in more time spent active and less time spent sedentary.
Take note, however, do not start training twice a day of you have been taking a break from training. Start with training once then ease into it.
2. May Fit Better in Your Schedule
If you have a crazy, unpredictable schedule, it can be hard to set aside a whole thirty minutes – one hour for exercise. A more manageable routine is two break your exercise time into two.
For instance, swap your thirty-minute session for two sessions of 15 minutes each. This will work for busy people and parents who cannot just get 30 minutes for themselves.
Implement the following if you take this approach:
- Have a six-hour break between your workouts to allow your body rest and recovery
- Start with the more intense workout earlier in the day and lower intensity later in the day to also initiate recovery.
3. May Lead to Faster Muscle Growth
If our goal is to increase your muscles, working out twice will get you there faster because it increases your muscle mass and strength.
Every time you work out, you induce protein synthesis – a process that involves the tearing, repair, and building of new muscles. If you work out twice a day, you get this double effect on your muscles. This is why most bodybuilders work out twice a day.
You must bolster your training efforts by eating proteins in between workouts because proteins are important to muscle formation.
4. Promotes Rapid Weight Loss
You burn more calories in double intense exercise sessions than you would have in one low-impact session. Since weight loss really is about how many calories are taken and how many are rid of, this mode of exercise makes it easy to cut weight.
5. May Keep You Motivated
Working out twice can actually help you look forward to your workout sessions. Most people find the idea of working out for an hour daunting. It sounds like too much work and can be very demotivating.
Breaking it into smaller chunks makes it more manageable and attainable. This way you can push yourself. The sense of accomplishment that comes with completing one session will keep you motivated enough for the next session.
6. Promises More Intense Workouts
In a typical workout, you might start out strong but the intensity wanes as the workout continues. Exercising twice a day, on the other hand, ensures you start out strong, and end strong. You focus all your energy on that one short session.
Most researchers and trainers agree that when it comes to working out, it is about the intensity, not the duration.
This means you would rather have two intense workout sessions 10 minutes each instead of an hour workout session where the last twenty minutes are spent dragging through the remainder of the workout.
7. Elevates Metabolism Throughout the Day
After every work out session, your metabolism increases and the body keeps burning calories for the next two hours, researchers at the University of New Mexico say. This phenomenon is referred to as the after-burn effect.
Working out twice a day would total 4 more hours of high metabolism during which more calories are burnt. These extra calories enhance weight loss.
Even as you work out twice, keep a healthy diet so as not to gain back the calories you burn during the intense two workouts. Also, make sure to eat enough proteins so the body can do its restoration and repair work well.
8. May Lead to Better Quality Sleep
Working out in the morning and in the evening will help you sustain a high metabolism even as you sleep. This study in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition says that resistance training boosts resting metabolic rates for almost 16 hours. Having workout twice increases these hours into the night, thus improving your metabolism as you sleep.
Workout some hours before you sleep also improves the overall quality of your sleep.
9. Allows You to Target All Muscle Groups
Working out twice allows you to explore a variety of exercises and work on different muscle groups at different times. You can work on the arms in the morning, and later in the day work on your legs. This way, your workout on the individual muscle group is more comprehensive.
Avoid working on the same muscle groups twice a day, however. This study emphasizes rest after muscle workout and recommends a 48-hour gap before you work on the same muscles. This will lower the risk of injury and overtraining.
If you want to do strength and cardio training on the same day, it is more achievable if you do them at different times. Start with the cardio which is more intense, and finish it off with the strength training later in the day. Try not to do two cardio sessions or strength training sessions on the same day.
10. Morning and Evening Workouts Are Both Beneficial
A series of recent studies have posited that working out in the evening is better than working out in the morning. Working out in the morning activates gene cells that inspire higher fat metabolism in the muscle cells.
Working out in the evening on the other side takes up less oxygen and energy and is easier to complete. This means that you are able to work out more in the evening than in the morning. Splitting your work out into two, with one later in the evening, enables you to reap the benefits of both morning and evening workout.
11. Good Alternative for Beginners
If you are new to exercising, you might not have attained the right level of fitness to complete either a 30-minute or a one-hour session.
Before you get there, you can break your workout into two and accumulate fitness minutes until you are fit enough to go the full session with ease.
12. Helps You Break Through Plateaus
Reaching a peak of weight loss is as common just as it is frustrating. When you hit this plateau, you need to do something more to create a negative calorie deficit.
Exercising twice a day boosts your metabolism, burns calories and helps you sleep better. A combination of all these will help you break through plateaus.
Final Word
If in the course of your exercising you experience pain, lethargy, and extreme fatigue, stop training twice a day.
Training twice a day can have a great impact on your body, but this will greatly depend on your goals and how well you program your workout. Make sure you don’t over-train, which is a huge concern when it comes to training twice a day.
For you to reap all the amazing benefits above, you must do short workouts. Luckily, I have a sequence of 28 stunningly simple home workouts you can use while exercising twice a day for weight loss.
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