2720: [Part 2] How Long Should Your Workout Be to Build Muscle? by Christian Finn of Muscle Evo

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[00:00:25] This is Optimal Health Daily. How long should your workout be to build muscle? Part

[00:00:31] 2 by Christian Finn of MuscleEvo.net and I'm Dr. Neil.

[00:00:36] Hey there, welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I read to you from some of the

[00:00:40] most popular health and fitness blogs online. Now, for a lot more blogs being narrated

[00:00:46] for you, check out Optimal Living Daily. You could search and find that podcast wherever

[00:00:50] you're listening to this. Now, as a reminder, today's episode is Part 2 of a longer post

[00:00:57] if you missed part 1 then I'd recommend going back and listening to that episode first. But

[00:01:02] if you're all caught up, let's get right to part 2 and continue optimizing your life.

[00:01:11] How long should your workout be to build muscle? Part 2 by Christian Finn of MuscleEvo.net.

[00:01:19] Should you limit the length of your workouts to 45 minutes?

[00:01:23] However, this hasn't stopped some trainers saying that there is an ideal workout length. In fact,

[00:01:29] you'll often come across claims from the exercise police that you shouldn't lift weights for more than

[00:01:34] 45 minutes. If you do, testosterone levels will plummet. Cortisol levels will rise and you'll be

[00:01:40] sucked into a cannabolic black hole from which you'll never escape. The idea that you should stop

[00:01:45] training after 45 minutes because you reach some kind of hormonal tipping point is one of the most

[00:01:52] ridiculous things I've ever heard. It's a claim that fails on a couple of levels, most notably

[00:01:57] the fact that it's not true. In fact, some workouts lasting more than 90 minutes have been shown

[00:02:03] to raise testosterone above resting levels for at least two hours after the workout has finished.

[00:02:09] What's more, the idea that the short term hormonal response to training has a big impact on MuscleEvo

[00:02:15] is something that's been called into question in recent years. In one study on the subject,

[00:02:20] researchers analyzed data collected from 56 men who took part in a 12-week resistance training

[00:02:27] program. If the post-exercise change into testosterone levels was important as far as building

[00:02:32] muscle is concerned, you'd expect to see two things. Guys with the largest post-training to

[00:02:38] testosterone response would build the most muscle. And, guys with the smallest post-training to

[00:02:44] testosterone response would build the least muscle. But when they looked at the data,

[00:02:50] the researchers could find no significant link between the exercise induced rise into

[00:02:55] testosterone levels and gains in muscular size or strength. What about longer workouts and

[00:03:02] cortisol? Cortisol is generally considered a catabolic hormone that you should take all possible

[00:03:08] steps to avoid. If the post-exercise rise in cortisol was putting the brakes on muscle growth,

[00:03:14] you'd expect to see men with the largest rise in post-exercise cortisol gaining the least amount

[00:03:20] of muscle. Instead, the opposite was true. There was a week but significant link between the

[00:03:26] rise in cortisol and gains in lean body mass as well as the growth of the type two muscle fibers.

[00:03:32] In other words, subjects with the biggest rise in cortisol levels were also the ones who gained

[00:03:38] the most muscle. Drilling further down into the results, subjects in the study were also

[00:03:43] divided into responders, those who built the most muscle and non-responders, those who built the

[00:03:50] least muscle. And the hormonal responses of those who made the fastest gains in size and strength

[00:03:55] were not significantly different to those who made the slowest gains or to put it another way

[00:04:01] the hormonal response of subjects in the top 16% in terms of muscular gains were no different

[00:04:08] from those in the bottom 16%. So why are people saying that 45 to 60 minutes is as long as your

[00:04:15] workout should last? Where did the myth get started? The idea seems to have originated with Bulgarian

[00:04:21] Olympic lifting coach Ivan Abajiv. Over a 20-year period, Abajiv turned a weightlifting team that

[00:04:28] struggled to win anything into one that won numerous European world and Olympic titles.

[00:04:34] Rather than train once a day for several hours at a time, the Bulgarians would train numerous

[00:04:39] times both in the morning and in the afternoon with each training session lasting from 30 to 45 minutes.

[00:04:46] The protocol was based on Abajiv's claim that elevated blood testosterone levels could only be

[00:04:52] maintained for between 30 and 60 minutes with the average being 45 minutes. Whether or not he actually

[00:04:59] believed this himself is hard to say. Nicknamed The Butcher for the extreme level of dedication and

[00:05:05] commitment he demanded from his athletes, rumor has it that Abajiv's need for control was vast.

[00:05:11] He once had a rebellious pupil sent to the military to work from dawn to dusk in a stone quarry.

[00:05:17] Keeping them in the gym all day may have had a lot less to do with testosterone than it did

[00:05:21] with imposing discipline and control on his athletes. Big beyond belief.

[00:05:27] Many of the principles employed by the Bulgarians were popularized in a book published in the

[00:05:32] early 1990s called The Bulgarian Powerburst System. Later additions had different titles,

[00:05:37] such as Big Beyond Belief. The books sold thousands of copies via its famous,

[00:05:43] I've got to get this off my chest before I explode advertisement and became one of the most

[00:05:48] successful self-published bodybuilding guides of all time. It went on to influence a number of

[00:05:53] external trainers. Many of whom simply regurgitated the fictitious, testosterone level drop after

[00:05:59] 45 minutes of lifting weights advice before checking whether or not it was actually true.

[00:06:04] That's not to say you should be training for hours on end. Plenty of people are wasting

[00:06:08] much of their remaining time on this planet doing endless sets of pointless exercises.

[00:06:14] But cutting your workout short simply because you've been in the gym for 45 minutes makes

[00:06:18] absolutely no sense at all. You just listen to part two of the post titled,

[00:06:27] How Long Should Your Work Out Be To Build Muscle? By Christian Finn,

[00:06:31] of MuscleEvo.net and I'll be right back with my commentary. Taking charge of my health has

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[00:07:44] me.com slash ohd. Dr. Neil here for my commentary. All right, so where does all of this leave us?

[00:07:53] It goes back to what I was saying in my commentary yesterday just because we start with one work out goal

[00:07:59] that doesn't mean that this goal is going to be the same forever. Maybe there are weeks where

[00:08:04] our priority is to lift heavier weights so we focus on fewer repetitions and longer rest periods

[00:08:10] to allow ourselves to lift those heavier weights. These workouts may end up keeping us in the gym

[00:08:16] for over an hour. Then after those weeks of past, we mix things up to faster more intense workouts

[00:08:22] with lighter weights. These workouts may have us in and out of the gym in 30 minutes. Then after

[00:08:28] a few more weeks of past, we might think about increasing the weight again and spending some more

[00:08:33] time in the gym during each workout. And this is all okay. In fact, mixing up our routines

[00:08:39] are what most fitness professionals would recommend. Change your training style every so often

[00:08:44] forces the body to adapt in different ways. This will also help prevent boredom and possibly even

[00:08:51] injury. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for coming back to listen every day.

[00:08:57] Thank you so much for sharing this show with someone. I hope you have a great start to your week

[00:09:01] and I'll see you back here tomorrow with your optimal life awaits.