If you’re after specific fitness results, you may be wondering if working out twice a day will help you achieve them twice as fast. Once a holdover from high school athletic training, two-a-day workouts are now all over social media and even included in some popular lifestyle programs. But should two days be part of your training? Does training twice a day double the performance or double the risk?
Are there benefits to training twice a day?
As for the benefits of two-a-day workouts, “there really aren’t any unless you’re an elite athlete,” says Trevor Thieme, CSCS. “If you have enough gas in the tank to tackle two daily workouts, you probably won’t be going hard enough at either to optimize your progress toward your goals.”
To be clear, this doesn’t mean you should never exercise more than once a day. “If you’re too busy to complete your entire workout at once, some days, go ahead and split it up,” says Thieme.
You can also do some moderate cardio on the same day as your strength training, or vice versa – although it would probably be better to do them on different days altogether if you’re serious about endurance and/or strength gains.
But divide and conquer isn’t your only option when you’re pressed for time. “You should also consider doing a higher-intensity, shorter workout rather than a longer one split into two,” suggests Thieme. “When you get right down to it, training intensity trumps training duration.”
What are the disadvantages of training twice a day?
Unless you split a workout into two parts to accommodate your schedule, exercising twice a day is more likely to hinder your progress than speed it up.
1. It increases the risk of overtraining
To adapt to the training stimuli your workouts provide, your body needs plenty of time to recover between them. “Pushing yourself too often can put you on the fast track to overtraining,” warns Thieme. “Not only can this put you off in a workout, but it can also increase your risk of injury.”
2. Reduces physical performance
Burnout caused by overtraining will include a reducing your performance during training. Worse, the effects of overtraining can spill over into your everyday life and include mood swings, insomnia and loss of appetite.
3. It negatively affects muscle growth
Building muscle mass is a process of creating micro-damage in your muscles, which triggers repair and adaptation processes that leave you stronger and healthier than before. But overtraining gets in the way muscle repair, recovery and growth. If you’re not building muscle efficiently, you’ll have a harder time reaching your goals.
Should beginners exercise twice a day?
In general, it is not recommended for beginners to exercise twice a day. “There’s almost no reason to do twice a day,” says Thieme. “Also, most people struggle to find time to do one workout a day, let alone two.”
When you’re just starting out, focus on being consistent, not overzealous. Adding a second workout to your day can really hinder your goals.
Thieme explains that beginners run the same risk of overtraining as everyone else. That’s because overtraining “happens when you push yourself too hard, too often for your fitness level, whatever that fitness level may be. Regardless of your fitness level, overtraining will put the brakes on your gains and increase your risk of injury.”
3 ways to achieve your goals faster
“When it comes to fitness, more is not necessarily better,” says Thieme. Instead of working out twice a day, consider the following workout ideas so you can train smarter, not harder, to reach your goals faster.
1. Focus on the quality of the workout, not the duration
How long exercise is much less important than how you work out “As long as your workouts are aligned with your fitness goals and you’re challenging yourself multiple times a week, you’ll reach your goals,” she says.
2. Prioritize rest
Rest days are just as important as your workouts and should be prioritized. Even if you’re already taking days off from the gym, you should watch for signs of overtraining such as increased fatigue, insomnia, decreased athletic performance, mood swings, and decreased motivation.
If you notice any of these symptoms, it’s time to reduce your training volume and intensity and activate post-workout recovery until your performance is back on track.
3. Increase your daily activity level
A daily workout does not make up for an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. That is why it is necessary to become more active in general.
“Focus on increasing your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which is all the calories you burn during the day outside of exercise,” says Thieme. “If your goal is weight loss, or even just being healthier overall, you need to give NEAT just as much attention as exercise.”
