You can see significant improvement in your strength with just two or three 20- or 30-minute strength training sessions a week. For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: Aerobic activity.
It's actually the specific length of time you need to optimally recruit, stimulate and fatigue the right muscle fibers. Research shows that a 20-minute strength training workout performed twice a week at the right intensity level will provide all the health benefits people want from a workout.
Spending your whole day in the gym isn't necessary to build muscle. Weight training for 20 to 30 minutes, 2 to 3 times a week is enough to see results.
A study on one popular CrossFit workout called the “Cindy” — in which a person does a series of pull-ups, push-ups and squats in as many rounds as possible — found that it burned an average of 13 calories per minute. The workout lasts 20 minutes, so exercisers burned an average of 260 calories in total.
While weightlifting can support weight loss, paying attention to your nutrition is another important factor. Weightlifting burns calories, but you'll need to pair it with a suitable diet to achieve noticeable weight loss ( 5 ). You can reach a calorie deficit by exercising regularly and eating slightly fewer calories.
For example, weight training is more effective than cardio at building muscle, and muscle burns more calories at rest than some other tissues, including fat ( 3 ). Because of this, it is commonly said that building muscle is the key to increasing your resting metabolism — that is, how many calories you burn at rest.
Yes, 20 minutes of exercise is better than nothing. Any and every bout of physical activity/exercise contributes to a fitter, healthier - and, very likely, happier - you!
If you're a beginner, expect to see muscle gains roughly six to eight weeks into a strength training program. One of the biggest factors in expediting your gains, says Wilson? Protein. “Your daily protein intake plays an important role in muscle growth,” she explains.
Walking for 20 minutes, three times per week is a good start to a fitness program if you're new to exercise or coming back from an extended break.
For weightlifting and bodyweight strength training, 45–60 minutes per session may suffice. Meanwhile, cardiovascular and calisthenic training may be better if performed for 30–60 minutes.
In general, a strength-training session should last 40–60 minutes, plus foam rolling and a quick warm-up beforehand. As for cardio, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends logging 150 minutes of moderate-to-intense activity per week.
Do strength training exercises for all major muscle groups at least two times a week. Aim to do a single set of each exercise, using a weight or resistance level heavy enough to tire your muscles after about 12 to 15 repetitions.
Increased energy: Twenty minutes of exercise can get the body revved up and improves blood flow, which helps kick start metabolism and lifts mood.
Cardio after training is beneficial because it cools you down and helps you loosen up after the intense session. You can do it for 10-30 minutes, depending on your fitness goals. If you're trying to lose weight, then you'll want to burn extra calories so lean towards 20-30 minutes of cardio after weight lifting.
After a month of exercise:
Most of the improvements in strength and function are from more efficient nerve connections into the muscles, so that the firing patterns of your muscles is more selective and responsive. The blood vessels into the muscles have grown and become more efficient (angiogenesis).
“There is overwhelming evidence that even a short 10-minute workout performed at moderate to high intensity can make a huge difference in your health and fitness level,” says Olga Hays, an American Council on Exercise-certified wellness promotion specialist at Sharp HealthCare.
Research has shown that weight training can be just as effective as aerobic training (aka cardio) in fat loss, with the added benefit of increasing lean muscle building and retention rates (not losing muscle) more than cardio (2). This is a significant finding for anyone who is looking to get as ripped as possible.
Weight training is also an important component of burning off belly fat. Since muscles burn off more calories than fat does when the body is at rest, having more muscle tone can help you to burn off more fat.
Any exercise can help you get a better night's sleep. However, strength training for sleep can be more effective because it uses more adenosine, which becomes adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, during your workouts. As ATP is depleted during exercise, it breaks back down into adenosine, which causes drowsiness.
Opinions differ on this but many experts agree that if your goal is weight loss the best strategy is some combination of weight training and cardio. Particularly if you want a lean, cut look your focus should be on increasing cardio and decreasing calories. If you weight train, opt for a 25/75 combination with cardio.
According to a recent study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, 15 minutes of resistance training can elevate your resting energy expenditure for 72 hours after exercise just as effectively as 35 minutes can. That means you'll burn off your gut and build muscle faster than you ever thought possible.
"It is absolutely fine to only lift weights to promote fat loss," Chag told POPSUGAR. (If you despise running, take a moment to celebrate. Now back to burning fat.) However, if you're trying to burn fat faster, you won't want to cut out cardio completely.
Anything between about 5–40 reps per set (between about 40–85% of 1RM) has been shown to be effective to build muscle. More or fewer reps than that and the muscle-building effect per set decreases somewhat. For practical reasons, it is a good rule of thumb to aim for about 8–15 reps per set for muscle growth.
Summary: Lifting weights with a fast tempo is superior to lifting weights with a slow tempo because this leads to a larger increase in strength, which ultimately leads to more muscle gain over time. As a general rule, aim for a 1—1—1 weightlifting tempo for all of your exercises.