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How Long Should It Take To Recover From A Hard Workout

Question: I'm doing a whole-body, high intensity training routine of 12 - 15 exercises once per week that takes 45 - 60 minutes. I'm still making good progress but the problem is that I'm exhausted after the training session for several hours and it takes at least several days to recover and feel "normal". Am I doing anything wrong?

Answer: While there are clearly some advantages of making one day per week an incredible training day, your experience shows one of the down-sides of the approach. Pure and simple, it can be exhausting.

A somewhat longer training routine, such as a whole body routine, just doesn't leave me tired, it leaves me devastated.

The approach doesn't fit into the rest of my life. I can't take the rest of the day off and I don't want to be dragging for the next few days.

I've found that the shorter split routines work well even when I include the brief interval training protocol at the end of the session because I haven't made such a large systemic inroad as I would with a longer workout.

So, I can be absolutely spent at the end of one of those workouts, but feel fine 20 minutes later.

This isn't trivial because many of us are squeezing in our training between our work or other activities. In addition, I generally won't be tired the next day.

When you consider that we all are busy with other activities, this approach is a better fit with the rest of our life. Moreover, with this schedule, if you like to train, you get to do it more often. See what happens when you devise workouts taking about 20 minutes with one or two days rest between those workouts.

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