How You Can Use Two-a-Day Workouts for More Gains Without Burning Out

WHEN YOU HAVE a lofty goal you’re striving for, you may feel like your morning or evening training sessions aren’t enough. It’s tempting to just squeeze an extra spot on the calendar for a second round at the gym, upping your daily habit to a split of two a day.

Conventional wisdom might demand that you accelerate this ambitious plan. You may be pushing your training day volume too hard; Just because you’re spending the extra time doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make extra profit. You may be demonstrating your commitment to your goals, but you could also be pushing yourself to the limit, putting yourself at risk of injury, sloppy training, and even overtraining.

So are two-a-day workouts always a bad idea? Not if you’re smart with your strategy, according to men’s health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, CSCS He thinks that two a day isn’t just about crushing your body with extra training volume. “Actually, we can use them for many other purposes and get a lot of mileage out of them,” he says.

There are two situations where two a day can be particularly helpful, according to Samuel:

●Split a single workout into two sessions

●Training to Achieve Multiple Goals

“The key is that we want to be productive in both workouts,” says Samuel. You shouldn’t just focus on the amount of time you spend training. Instead, follow these rules for the most success in training twice a day.

3 Rules for Productive Two-a-Day Workouts

Keep your workouts short

Since your cumulative training time will be long, keep each session relatively short. “You don’t have to walk through a brick wall in both workouts, and doing two a day isn’t a license to do it,” she says.

Instead of focusing on time, split your individual training into two sessions and focus on increasing the intensity in each session.

Prioritize rest

“The point and goal of the two-a-day workouts is to allow you to be intensely productive in both sessions, and that can only happen if you’re rested,” says Samuel. If you only rested for half an hour, after all, you would barely recover.

Instead, give yourself at least four hours between training sessions. This could mean that you train in the morning and then again at night, perfect for someone with a 9-5 job.

Main objective in prime time

Samuel recognizes that you can train for multiple goals at once, but you’ll be more successful if you aim for one top priority. Identify your main goal and schedule your training session when you are most capable.

If you do your best first thing in the morning before the day’s doldrums wear you down, plan to include your A workout in that session. If you feel more alert after several meals and more time awake, prioritize the night.