Exercise tips for weight loss: How long should you spend at the gym?

Tip: Longer is not necessarily better

We've all seen those gym-bunnies who just never seem to leave the gym. They are in there for hours at a time, sometimes twice a day. Some are in great shape - they are usually professional or semi-pro athletes or models - but most just look very ... normal.

These people stay in the gym for ages because they think that if a 30-minute workout is good, then a 90-minute workout must be three times as good. Is that true? In most cases, NO!

There are a variety of factors that come into play here

The first is that structuring a workout to make it take longer usually means you're just resting more.

When it comes to losing weight this is exactly what you want to avoid. You need HIGH intensity training. Taking six-minute breaks between sets of curls with little pink weights is not helping. You can train yourself to the point of feeling sick with exhaustion in 20 minutes, so there's no need to train for two hours.

Also, the good hormones involved with exercise usually start to taper-off after around 60 minutes of resistance training, so after that you may not be getting the full bang-for-your-buck anyway.

Train hard, train smart, train in as little time as possible.

Added to all of this, who really has hours and hours to spend in the gym? I certainly don't, and it's unnecessary anyway.

Train hard, train smart, train in as little time as possible.

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