Workout Length

I've read that it's best to keep your workouts no longer than 45 minutes to 1 hour because it allegedly increases growth hormone production as well as having other benefits. Is there any truth to this?

I ask about this because my sessions are generally 1.5-2 hours long. I do a nice warm up plus the FSP (which take about 30 minutes at least because I'm still working on a lot of the basics), followed by the WOD (around 30 minutes), plus any deadlifting and squatting I have to do, and then plus some misc. work and flexibility (if I have any that day, often AIS or PNF). I snack on raisins while training and drink plenty of water, too.

Thanks for putting up with all the new threads... do you think I should make a new thread that just says, "Patrick's Questions Thread"? :wink:

I know. You've got the pre-warmup to get you ready for the warmup to get you ready for the pre-workout, followed by the workout, which precedes the post-workout. Then we go into a little 60min warm down. Which consists mostly of running up hills, but you get to walk back down... Backwards... On your hands... With ankle weights.

Nick_EOD said:

I know. You've got the pre-warmup to get you ready for the warmup to get you ready for the pre-workout, followed by the workout, which precedes the post-workout. Then we go into a little 60min warm down. Which consists mostly of running up hills, but you get to walk back down... Backwards... On your hands... With ankle weights.

Haha! EURO-TRAINING, EURO-TRAINING :D

No seriously, My workouts are about 2 hours long, that means about 10 minutes for warmup, 65 minutes for FSP, 30-40 minutes for the main workout.

Dedicated gymnasts workout 4-5 hours a day at a time.

I generally split up my barbell lifting to seperate from my gymnastics workouts. However, I used to do it at the very end since it only consisted of lower body lifts.

my workouts usually lenght 2 hrs...

something like 10-15 min warming up, 45-60 min FSP, and the rest for the main workout and cooling down..

Blairbob said:

Dedicated gymnasts workout 4-5 hours a day at a time.

I generally split up my barbell lifting to seperate from my gymnastics workouts. However, I used to do it at the very end since it only consisted of lower body lifts.

Cool, I'll add up some skill work ^^

Euro training indeed! Haha!

Good to hear, guys.

Generally I'm in the gym for 2-3 hours. Honestly, sometimes people ask me to spot or to watch a skill or help for a progression or god forbid we start talking about gym politics/business which I generally only try to talk about between turns on event, rest periods, or when stretching out.

In all seriousness my workouts usually take about 1.5-2 hrs. Occasionally a little more or less. If I have the time in the day, I will split it up into 2 workouts, usually around an hour each. I find I like this more, but I usually dont have close to the free time to accomplish it.

Some studies say that the benefits start to drop off after about 90min of training, but I am sure many factors play into that, so I wouldn't call it a universal rule.

As long as you have glucose and protein getting in your body on a regular basis throughout the workout you can pretty much go as long as you want without any detrimental effects.

Wait... Are you supposed to to extra work after the WOD?

I used to do just a FSP Warmup and the WOD, no additional work...

You can if you want. If you are performing the WODs correctly you should have plenty of juice 20-30 minutes later at the most for skill training or a reasonable bit of extra work in certain areas, or you can do a separate session. Proper nutrition all around and during the workout is a big part of being able to do that with excellent results, but even without it you should get halfway decent results if you aren't killing yourself during the WODs.

slizzardman said:

As long as you have glucose and protein getting in your body on a regular basis throughout the workout you can pretty much go as long as you want without any detrimental effects.

Good to hear. I've been snacking on raisins (I LOVE those things) during the WOD, but I think I might start getting a 10-15g shake right after the warm up and FSP (takes about 35-50 minutes generally).

Since I'm already talking with you, I'll go ahead and ask a question about fasting. I'm planning on fasting every Saturday to increase my ability to use fat storage for energy. I have a training session on Saturday, but it's not a heavy strength one. More like short endurance with a bit of kicking drills. I'll have creatine monohydrate and essential amino acids soon, do you think taking a bit of creatine and EAA's before and creatine afterwards would negatively effect my fast?

By the way, T-Nation just released an article about fasting that I found interesting (http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_art ... d_less_fat). You already know all that's in it, obviously, but it's nice to know that other coaches are starting to use these previously shied away from training methods.

You don't even have to be on a full fast, just hit like 30-40% of the calories you need for the day and have most of that come from protein and veggies, with the food centered on and after the workout.

I HIGHLY recommend sugar and protein before and during and after the workout, as always. This is especially important when fasted. I would sip diluted protein all day long, this makes a huge massively ridiculous and awesome difference. Seriously. You will lose NO muscle at all as long as you keep your blood saturated with amino acids. This only requires like 7g per hour with maybe 2g of glucose (or whatever other carb you want to use), so you aren't going to need a lot. I would do this in lieu of specific shakes, though you can use those on top of this protocol if you are worried. It won't hurt you to do so.

Okay, I'll try to do that. I don't want to slow down my leaning out, but I'll do 30% of standard kcal. I don't have a glucose supplement, but I suppose bananas and raisins will supply enough of that, right?

Absolutely.

A bite here and there with a sip of your drink here and there is perfect.You're just using the carbs to eliminate gluconeogenesis.

Excellent! About 7g protein and 2g glucose/vegetables an hour as long as it doesn't exceed 30-40% of my usual requirements...

This only requires like 7g per hour with maybe 2g of glucose (or whatever other carb you want to use), so you aren't going to need a lot. I would do this in lieu of specific shakes, though you can use those on top of this protocol if you are worried. It won't hurt you to do so.

Okay, you say about 7g of protein and about 2g glucose an hour, but also focused around the workouts. I'm a bit confused. 30% of my protein and carb requirements would be 75g protein and about 20g carbs. If I'm awake for about 15 hours a day (and I usually am) then 7g protein and 2g carbs would force it to 105 protein and 30 carbs. :?

Sorry if this is a bit specific, but my eating is already so mechanical that I automatically lean towards doing everything eating-wise very specific. As long as you don't mind answering my questions, I don't mind implementing your answers! :wink:

30% of normal calories, not specific macronutrients. You want all your protein, and you want to supplement with your carbs, and you don't want much of any non-essential fat. Whatever you cook with, like olive oil, and any omega 3 supplements you may take are plenty. This is a day when you want your body to be using ITS fat, not dietary fat. Dietary fat can't go anywhere but into fat cells, it can't be made into carbs or protein. The glycerol backbone of triglycerides can, but that's not even 10% of total fat calories so it is literally negligible and not worth arguing over or mentioning unless someone is just trying to be annoying.

slizzardman said:

30% of normal calories, not specific macronutrients. You want all your protein, and you want to supplement with your carbs, and you don't want much of any non-essential fat. Whatever you cook with, like olive oil, and any omega 3 supplements you may take are plenty. This is a day when you want your body to be using ITS fat, not dietary fat. Dietary fat can't go anywhere but into fat cells, it can't be made into carbs or protein. The glycerol backbone of triglycerides can, but that's not even 10% of total fat calories so it is literally negligible and not worth arguing over or mentioning unless someone is just trying to be annoying.

OH! It all makes sense now.

In that case, it will be protein power and bits of banana and raisins all day. Apparently it's a bit hard to calculate what "grammage" you're getting in portions of bananas, but I'll just take a REALLY really small nibble every hour. Probably won't even finish off one banana considering that a medium sized one holds roughly 20-24 grams of carbs... lol Thanks!

A bite is fine, don't get crazy with it lol! Your body will handle the carbs fine. They'll let your body sort of skip over using its own glycogen to a large extent.

slizzardman said:

You don't even have to be on a full fast, just hit like 30-40% of the calories you need for the day and have most of that come from protein and veggies, with the food centered on and after the workout.

I HIGHLY recommend sugar and protein before and during and after the workout, as always. This is especially important when fasted. I would sip diluted protein all day long, this makes a huge massively ridiculous and awesome difference. Seriously. You will lose NO muscle at all as long as you keep your blood saturated with amino acids. This only requires like 7g per hour with maybe 2g of glucose (or whatever other carb you want to use), so you aren't going to need a lot. I would do this in lieu of specific shakes, though you can use those on top of this protocol if you are worried. It won't hurt you to do so.

Sliz, I remember you speaking extremely highly of IF in the past. You also seem to be very enthusiastic about the above protocol. Would you mind explaining how you feel about it now?

I ask because I only get BCAAs before and after training and don't eat my first PWO meal for at least 3-4 hours afterwards.

I still love IF, and I also love every other day dieting (30-40% of daily calorie needs every other day). It works, plain and simple.

I also do more or less exactly what I recommend, though right now I'm experimenting with a scoop of milk protein every 2 hours or so just to see what, if any, difference there is. It is also a little more convenient for me than having two water bottles all the time, but I'll have to see what I think as time goes on.

As I've learned more about the biochemical nature of metabolism, it's really an even better protocol than I thought for recomposition. It can be very hard to get enough calories if you are really active, which is why IF is really designed around bodybuilding schedules. If you're needing more than 4000 kcal per day you will probably do better just eating all day long, or having a longer feed window.

I still love IF, and I also love every other day dieting (30-40% of daily calorie needs every other day). It works, plain and simple.

I also do more or less exactly what I recommend, though right now I'm experimenting with a scoop of milk protein every 2 hours or so just to see what, if any, difference there is. It is also a little more convenient for me than having two water bottles all the time, but I'll have to see what I think as time goes on.

As I've learned more about the biochemical nature of metabolism, it's really an even better protocol than I thought for recomposition. It can be very hard to get enough calories if you are really active, which is why IF is really designed around bodybuilding schedules. If you're needing more than 4000 kcal per day you will probably do better just eating all day long, or having a longer feed window.

I love IF, too, and it's very convenient, but since my strength sessions (Mon, Wed, and Fri) are about 1.5-2 hours long (at least), I'm thinking about not doing IF on those days (so I could eat peri-workout) and then doing IF with 30-40% of regular kcal on all other days.

I'm concerned that 10gBCAA pre and post workout just isn't enough for that long of a session...

I get about 3000 kcal maximum on my heavy days, though. Nowhere near 4000... that's a ton of food.

Patrick Smith said:

I still love IF, and I also love every other day dieting (30-40% of daily calorie needs every other day). It works, plain and simple.

I also do more or less exactly what I recommend, though right now I'm experimenting with a scoop of milk protein every 2 hours or so just to see what, if any, difference there is. It is also a little more convenient for me than having two water bottles all the time, but I'll have to see what I think as time goes on.

As I've learned more about the biochemical nature of metabolism, it's really an even better protocol than I thought for recomposition. It can be very hard to get enough calories if you are really active, which is why IF is really designed around bodybuilding schedules. If you're needing more than 4000 kcal per day you will probably do better just eating all day long, or having a longer feed window.

I love IF, too, and it's very convenient, but since my strength sessions (Mon, Wed, and Fri) are about 1.5-2 hours long (at least), I'm thinking about not doing IF on those days (so I could eat peri-workout) and then doing IF with 30-40% of regular kcal on all other days.

I'm concerned that 10gBCAA pre and post workout just isn't enough for that long of a session...

I get about 3000 kcal maximum on my heavy days, though. Nowhere near 4000... that's a ton of food.

Dude, you should be getting protein + carbs the entire time you are working out. You may want to consider sipping skim milk or 1% milk as your absolute cheapest option, closely followed by my protein + carb mixture.

Workout length is largely irrelevant if you are consuming food the entire time. Do not consider what you consume during the workout to be breaking your fast, you are simply doing what needs to be done. You should really have your workout INSIDE your eating window on that day, or at the very least have your eating window start immediately PWO.

slizzardman said:

Dude, you should be getting protein + carbs the entire time you are working out. You may want to consider sipping skim milk or 1% milk as your absolute cheapest option, closely followed by my protein + carb mixture.

Workout length is largely irrelevant if you are consuming food the entire time. Do not consider what you consume during the workout to be breaking your fast, you are simply doing what needs to be done. You should really have your workout INSIDE your eating window on that day, or at the very least have your eating window start immediately PWO.

Wow, I really had it wrong. No wonder progress has been minimal. Dang.

I can have my workout within my eating window no problem. It would just have to be a large percentage of my daily kcal (maybe 50% + x amount of BCAA's) and that my eating window would be 12 hours instead of 8. I don't think that's a big problem, though, since the other four days of the week would be the standard 16/8 fasted days with cardio.

What's your protein + carb mix? Do you have a specific type of mixture or is it just a combo of greens and powder?

Where does fat intake come in during peri-workout nutrition? I generally have fat intake about 95-100g (plus really low carb - only cruciferous vegetables) and around 70g on heavy days.