You've lifted twice a day and... ?

[Grunt76]

What you need to do is stimulate growth, and then let it happen. By training again at night, even light, you are possibly preventing this from happening. Unless it's VERY light, and very far from failure. And even then, I think if your postworkout nutrition is sound, a second weights workout would be much better spent on kicking another bodypart than playing the fine line between creating a refeed effect and catabolism.

[Mason]

What you need to do is stimulate growth, and then let it happen. By training again at night, even light, you are possibly preventing this from happening. Unless it's VERY light, and very far from failure. And even then, I think if your postworkout nutrition is sound, a second weights workout would be much better spent on kicking another bodypart than playing the fine line between creating a refeed effect and catabolism.

It will be no more than 20 lbs for each exercise and by no means will it be to fatigue-failure. I just guess I have to see how it goes for me.

[Grunt76]

Hey CROWLER bro, did you do your experiment?

[Fearhk213]

Good thread. I've done a few stretches at training twice a day. I saw an in increase in fat-loss for one. Of course that was directly related to diet but it definately helped. I tried to limit my time in the gym to 45 mins. give or take since I knew I'd be there later. Which is very interesting from what's been said about the hgh thing. When my workouts were quicker, in 45 min range rather than around 1 1/2 hours (which I'm known to do),I always felt my workouts and pumps were better. I wouldn't lose my pump, growth was good, and I just generally felt better. I felt like I had sufficiently worked the trained muscle without frying my nervous system. When going in for the second session I felt I could hit that muscle at 100% and not about 70%. I thought it interesting when I'd do two body parts in one sessions rather than over two sessions I inevitably take longer to do the same amount of sets (probably a mental thing). I definately found spending no more than 45 min on a major muscle group rather than an 1hour to do the same routine is definately the better workout. If I could get in twice a day consistently I'd stick with it, but the school schedule doesn't allow for that.

I do think it's wise to mostly stick to doing major and minor groups (ie: chest/am and tri's/pm). Although the occassional Chest and Back would be good. I think I'd be total wreck if I did the chest/back am and legs pm on a consistent basis.

I just thougth of something. Since nutrient timing is an issue do you think some of the benefit to training twice a day is because the 1st muscle trained doesn't have to wait going through 1 or 2 more body parts before you're feeding it? I'm sure pre-workout nutrition could affect this as well, but what are ya'lls thoughts on this?

[exnihilo]

Yes. It is widely known that 2 exercise sessions in one day stimulate growth hormone release in MUCH greater amounts than one single session.

Moreover, when training sessions last above 45 minutes, cortisol release increases rapidly, as shown by ample research.

So it isn't as black-and-white as it seems on the surface...

Growth hormone release from exercise is a joke, supraphysiological doses of growth hormone have negligible anabolic properties.

This is actually useful for highly technical lifters such as olympic lifters, as the majority of training is technical in nature and you tend to perform better when "fresh" in technical endeavors.

For bodybuilders, I think there is a limit to how much you can break down your workouts into smaller and smaller pieces. I think there is a dose-response curve for exercise stimuli, and at certain points on the curve doing one third the work three times will add up to less than doing all the work in one sitting (this has been shown under certain circumstances in studies).

Edit: Just a note since I missed the portion of the discussion about workout duration... I notice that how I feel leaving the gym is highly correlated with my lift increases the next time I go in. If I leave the gym with a huge endorphin rush, I do great next time up. If I leave feeling drained, I do ****ty. Just a correlation, but it's significant enough that I try for it each workout. I find that 45-60 minutes of training with 2-4 minute rest periods and 3-5 warmup sets for each exercise, with 2-4 exercises (depending on what exercises I'm doing) tends to give me that feeling.

[phil216]

What you need to do is stimulate growth, and then let it happen. By training again at night, even light, you are possibly preventing this from happening. Unless it's VERY light, and very far from failure. And even then, I think if your postworkout nutrition is sound, a second weights workout would be much better spent on kicking another bodypart than playing the fine line between creating a refeed effect and catabolism.

I can not agree more with the your first sentence, That put a very big smile on my face!!!!!1

[mpkonig]

now....working out twice a day.....how about doing cardio 2 times a day....say like at 6am do 1 hour....and then at like 6pm do an hour?? throw in a lifting session around 1pm.....would that be good for a person on a cutting cycle...or is that over doing it...? All the cardio is low intensity walking with some resistance added to it (eliptical)

[cromwell]

did it for college atheletics, also when i was younger I often did am weight and then pm cardio
eating enough was even harder, and it was already very hard
I'm 40 now , so **** that noise! Even if I used AAS it would be too much for my recovery system
If you are young enough and tailor it intelligently, It can be very successful provided that
1) you have time
2) your nutrition and supplementation is very good
3) adequate rest and sleep.....especially importantfor two a days!
4) after 6 years in the Corps, 4x a week once a day is just fine with me! Talk about 2 a days..try the military!

[njmuscle66]

I can understand POSSIBLY splitting up cardio and weight training sessions to put yourself in the gym twice a day. ( I dont even do that precontest any more) I think the current training mantra currently is .........less is more. Most of my program designs utilize full body training. Train the body as a whole-rest it as a whole. The average trainer unless chemically enhanced would be grossly overtrained and just because you can do more sets for a bodypart you have to consider the idea of dimminishing returns. Hit the body hard with compound exercies for 8-10 total work sets and get out of the gym

[cromwell]

I can understand POSSIBLY splitting up cardio and weight training sessions to put yourself in the gym twice a day. ( I dont even do that precontest any more) I think the current training mantra currently is .........less is more. Most of my program designs utilize full body training. Train the body as a whole-rest it as a whole. The average trainer unless chemically enhanced would be grossly overtrained and just because you can do more sets for a bodypart you have to consider the idea of dimminishing returns. Hit the body hard with compound exercies for 8-10 total work sets and get out of the gym

I agree, my comment was pretty much geared towards athletes who often spend an inordinate amount of time training. Powerlifters also stucture their training differently and I know some that do some session splitting. For joe average bodybuilder, I would say less is more for sure! Some people like the seperate cardio thing precontest...I think that is rather related to individual metablolism and eating habits. Also nutritional information and supplementation is much better than it was say 10 years ago...so trends will change. All that being said...whatever works best keep it ....the **** that does'nt work fix it . A little bit of wisdom from powerlifter Dave Tate. If you track things it is actually not that hard to do

[BigVrunga]

I just started doing 2x per day workouts last week. There's a good gym in the building I work in, so its easy to hit a few sets during my lunch break. I usually spend 30 minutes at the gym in the afternoon and 60-90 minutes in the evening - too early to gauge the effects but Im finally getting all my muscle groups worked. I was putting less emphasis on forearms, abs, etc because I never had enough time.

BV

[cromwell]

I just started doing 2x per day workouts last week. There's a good gym in the building I work in, so its easy to hit a few sets during my lunch break. I usually spend 30 minutes at the gym in the afternoon and 60-90 minutes in the evening - too early to gauge the effects but Im finally getting all my muscle groups worked. I was putting less emphasis on forearms, abs, etc because I never had enough time.

BV

lucky bastard If I actually had better access to a real gym, Iwould do just that
It really does not cut into recovery like people think
How many old school bb's and stong men had physical day jobs and trained....more than people think
There is some truth to the old adage;
You're not overtrained-your underfed and underrecovered(is that actually a word?)
Anyway, I am off to ride my bike 5 miles to bally's also known as the metrosexual "we frown on deadlifting" gym
Of course today is squating day, so I will have to wait until the gel haired fellows get done pumping up their 13inch arms with those 55ib curls in the power cage
Or, maybe I won't wait
Go Edmonton!

[Bas4Lizzife]

i like it. when i'm on cycle and bulking its especially good. its summer, im not in school, i just started prop and tren and i dont work til 10pm on any day of the week. so i have a chest/back; delts/arms; quads/hams split spread out over 5 days and split am/pm so i can hit each muscle group for 40 minutes with about 12 sets, go home and stuff my face, nap, whatever and go back in 6-8 hrs later

[Grunt76]

i like it. when i'm on cycle and bulking its especially good. its summer, im not in school, i just started prop and tren and i dont work til 10pm on any day of the week. so i have a chest/back; delts/arms; quads/hams split spread out over 5 days and split am/pm so i can hit each muscle group for 40 minutes with about 12 sets, go home and stuff my face, nap, whatever and go back in 6-8 hrs later

That's the life bro.

[BigVrunga]

Hell yeah it is.

[somewhatgifted]

If you added getting groped by numerous women in thong bikinis and taking turns giving them spankings then yes id say that is the life.

[Grunt76]

If you added getting groped by numerous women in thong bikinis and taking turns giving them spankings then yes id say that is the life.

you mean you dont usually get that?

[cromwell]

If you added getting groped by numerous women in thong bikinis and taking turns giving them spankings then yes id say that is the life.

Now we're talking!. God I love having Testosterone. I wonder how all those Hipster kids do wihtout?

[Achilles13]

Strength and fatloss was unreal. If I had the time to do it again, I would in a heartbeat.:squat:

[BigCasino]

Strength and fatloss was unreal. If I had the time to do it again, I would in a heartbeat.:squat:

Can you be more specific Achilles? Were you on cycle. What was your schedule like. I'm seriously considering giving it a shot, but time is not something I have a lot of to fluck around with, so I want to make sure it's a chance worth taking based on feedback from you fellas. Very helpful thread