How Long Should I Workout? How to Get More Results in Less Time

Did you know that long, slow, time-consuming, steady-state workouts are not the best use of your time and energy?

Watch to learn a format for working out that gives you more results AND more flexibility for a busy schedule.

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A nugget that I want to share with you today (from my book, The Resiliency rEvolution) has to do with simplifying and shortening your exercise routine.

If you want to learn more cool, helpful things around resilience, performance and health, the audio version of my book is now available! Order it from the link below.

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The 10/10/10

Many people assume exercise is something we must do in large spans of time, all in one session—30, 45, or 60 minutes. Who has such large chunks of time to set aside? So most of us don’t do anything at all.

Let me tell you, 10/10/10 is the most beautiful number combination you’ll ever lay eyes on. The good news is, research shows that physical activity accumulated throughout the day in three 10-minute bouts can be just as effective for improving fitness and decreasing body fat as exercising once for 30 minutes straight.

Experiments have compared groups of people who either exercised for 30 consecutive minutes or achieved 30 minutes of exercise through three 10-minute bouts throughout the day. At the conclusions of the studies, results for both groups were similar, if not better in the 10/10/10 group. [73] [74]

There are several benefits to breaking our workouts into 10/10/10 instead of exercising for thirty consecutive minutes. First, instead of getting only one EPOC after burn, we get three. This means we boost our metabolism 3 times during the day, plus we enjoy not 1 but 3 opportunities to burn extra fat and calories after we work out.

Second, “exercise snacks”—multiple brief bouts—can control blood glucose levels better than a single continuous workout. In chapter four, you’ll learn about the importance of food snacking throughout the day to be resilient. But it’s just as important to “snack” on short bursts of physical activity.

A recent study had participants do high-intensity cardiovascular intervals, alternating 1 minute of work and 1 minute of recovery for a total of 12 minutes. On a different day, the participants did 1 minute of high-intensity cardiovascular work followed by 1 minute of resistance training for a total of another 12 minutes. Then on another day, they did one continuous moderate workout for 30 minutes.

The results were striking: each of the “exercise snacks” lowered and regulated the participants’ blood glucose levels during the workouts, and then the beneficial effects lasted roughly twenty-four hours. From just twelve-minute bouts of work! [75] The participants not only saw better results from the exercise snacks than the continuous training, but they also enjoyed the snack format more than the longer sustained workout.

Third, we’re more likely to get consistent, regular exercise if we break it into the 10/10/10 format. [76] We should approach a regular exercise routine with the mindset that every little bit counts and that we’ll get it where and when we can. We’ll accumulate more minutes of exercise over the long run. 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, done consistently on a daily basis, really adds up over time. Obviously, this can be useful when trying to fit resiliency training or physical activity into a busy schedule!

Fourth, 10/10/10 gives us an opportunity to burn more fat and calories. If I asked you to exercise for 30 minutes without stopping, you’d pace yourself and work at a moderate intensity to make sure you’d last the full 30 minutes. But if I asked you to work out for just 10 minutes without stopping, you’d work much harder. You’d know it was a short period of time, so you could give it all you’ve got. And then if I asked you to do 3 of these 10-minute bouts while working really hard, it would add up to more fat and calories burned than one 30 minute session at moderate intensity.

10/10/10 is a great way to fit in exercise and has several advantages over longer workouts. I am a huge advocate of breaking things up because intensity matters.