Don’t count the time at the gym, make the time count
Arnold Schwarzenegger used to say, ‘’Do the least amount you need to do, for the maximum results, rather than doing the most you can do to annihilate your muscles’’. What he meant was that slaving away for hours in the gym is not necessary and when considering how many hours in the gym one should spend, there are limits that you should apply. For example, it is possible to slog it out for three hours, yet you could get a better workout in half of that time, by simply making the workout more intense. Also, spending too much time at the gym will lead to things getting stale and you could get bored.
Furthermore, I would recommend that you do not workout EVERY day and instead, you should aim to rest on at least one day per week – preferably two. Depending on my cycle of activity, I workout on three or four days per week, with a rest day in between each. So my training goes like this:
- Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday = four days.
- Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday = three days.
- I then simply repeat the cycle.
When I was training for the Mr Universe, I was working out for six days per week, but only because I had built up to that level of training over many years. Most people are not training for competition and a lot of amateur bodybuilders over do it. They have no idea how much they are slowing their progress down, by training too often and not resting enough!
And now, here’s the simple answer to the question: “How many hours should I work out in the gym daily?” Answer: “Don’t count the time at the gym, make the time count”.
And finally, if you were to demand a definitive answer to this question, I would say that 1.5 hours is more than enough.
In this video, Doctor Berg discusses how to recover correctly, for the best workout results.
