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Other/Mixed Minimum length workout to be effective?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
steve-in-kville

steve-in-kville

Level 5 Valued Member
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
My last Rite of Passage light Day took 10 minutes. I did five back bends, 3 singles with chin ups and then rolled a five for five minutes of snatches. That's five left and five right each minute. Then I wrapped up with five back bends.

Didn't take long at all and felt effective.
 
Hello,

steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
It may depends on what you are looking for.

For strength, yes, it could be enough. Dan John's Easy Strength for instance is very short. It can be done daily.

For endurance / aerobic training (Z2), 20 minutes could be a little too short (30 minutes+ could be better if done daily).

Therefore, it may depends on:
- what you re looking for (strength / aerobic conditioning)
- the volume / length of one session (1h of strength training per day could be draining)

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
Anything is better than nothing, and someone trying to convince you otherwise has lost their mind.

From what I've seen with the health/fitness recommendations, smaller is fine as long as the total amount adds up.
 
Anything that you can do for 20+ minutes is considered cardio. That might be the reason of confusion.

Any strength exercise done daily for 15 minutes would easily bring results that would erase any doubt about the required length of a practice.
 
Well, workout for cardio and workout for strength are different things, of course. I mean, in an hour-long strength workout, how much time is spent recovering from one set and preparing to do another? Depends on what you're doing, of course, but there's a lot of downtime when I go to the gym.
Running long distance, yeah, I'd say 15-20 minutes might be short. Strength exercise, I'm not so convinced.
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
Well, that's garbage. Especially if you're not starting in great shape to begin with, anything may put you on the road to better.

I will OFTEN do a single EDT session of 15 minutes, alternating between two exercises (ex, pull-ups + military press, push-ups + pull-ups, squats + hanging knee-ups, Kb snatch left + Kb snatch right, KB press left + KB press right, etc)
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
I'm reminded of the quote - don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
I would say bologna.

It really depends on your goal and the intent of the workout.

Are you looking to get a training effect or adaptation from a zone 1/2 aerobic session? More than likely, 20 mins won't cut it. That does not mean though that it was not beneficial in some other way. There have been plenty of times where I've done a 10 to 20 mins very low intensity session in the afternoon after a hard session in the morning (or in the morning to prep for a hard session in the afternoon) with the purpose of getting some blood moving and nothing more. Maybe not creating a stimulus and adaptation per se but certainly providing a benefit.

On the other hand, there was a point in time where we had a three year old and a newborn, I was working more than full time (albeit mainly from home), and had some other things going on where availability to train and recover was pretty limited. I decided that it was better to find a way to train but do so in a manner that fit the situation as opposed to not train due to the lack of "idealness". I ended up doing a minimalist program, Daily Dose Deadlift, and in a lot of cases was able to get through a quick warm up and full training session in 20:00 or less. This program was a great fit for my situation and did in fact provide results in strength; it also set me up so that, when my situation became a bit better for a more comprehensive program to be done, I wasn't coming into it untrained.
 
So this thread inspired me this morning.

Visiting family and only have a 70ish lb sandbag with me. This is a GN complex and used a Brute Force bag, highly recommend.

4 times through a complex of
Front SQ x5
Press x5
Clean x5
Push press x5

Took about 11:30 and def a very solid workout in under 12minutes.
 
steve-in-kville said:
I had read some time back that any type of workout that is done must be at least 20 minutes long, or it will not have any positive results in strength or fitness. This may have come from a running/outdoor magazine, so obviously we are referring to the cardio end of things.

What say you?
Click to expand...
Not everything you read is worth engaging with.

More constructively, here's some interesting discussion: and paper Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve... : Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews
 
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