Thinking Of Working Out Twice A Day?
The law of diminishing returns exist in all fields.
Be it dieting, training or building a business.
By spending more time and exerting more effort you're not necessarily going to reap any reward.
Hell, you might even do more harm than good and see yourself regressing...
Going to the gym every day is great, so going twice a day must be even better... right?
Can you make double the gains by training twice a day?
Will YOU personally benefit from upping the ante and working out twice a day?
That all depends...
If you're trying to stack on muscle mass you're not going to benefit by lifting weights hard and heavy twice a day.
There's a number of bodybuilding articles and coaches that advise training your targeted muscle group twice in the same day - once in the morning with heavy weights for low repetitions to build raw mass, and again the evening with lighter weights for higher repetitions to 'shape' the muscle.
This is BS.
In this case training twice a day will hinder both your recovery and your progress.
Building muscle mass does come down to lifting heavy and applying progressive overload, but 'shaping' the muscle with a second workout in the evening is not possible.
shape, tone, definition... whatever you want to call it... it comes down to your body fat level.
Decreasing your body fat is the #1 way to increase the shape, separation and vascularity of the muscle mass you've built.
On the other hand if increasing your cardio endurance or burning more calories (to decrease your body fat percentage) during a cutting phase is your goal then you're in luck.
Weights in the morning and cardio in the evening is my personal preference when working out twice a day.
I personally find my focus and energy to be at their peak in the early hours of the morning, as such this is when I choose to perform my heavy compound lifts.
Later in the afternoon I'll throw in 20 minutes of HIIT cardio or an abdominal circuit to get the heart rate up.
If I do the reverse and opt to do cardio in the morning I find the numbers I'm lifting in the evening are never quite as high.
This is my personal preference... prefer to do cardio in the morning and weights in the evening? Go ahead!
If you're working out twice a day you cannot afford to neglect your recovery
The biggest mistake I see guys making when training twice a day is the lack of recovery they're doing.
If you want to train intensely twice a day you must take care of your body.
When it comes to recovery I recommend...
- Start each day with a 5 minute cold shower
- Foam roll once a day
- Spend 5 minutes hitting dynamic stretches before each workout
- Use a sauna (infrared) 2 - 3 times per week
- Have an epsom salt bath 2 - 3 times per week
- Use EMS 2 - 3 times per week