When it comes to exercising, what's better quality or quantity?

[SammieNYC]

Basically, is it better to do let's say 1 hour of intense work out or 2 hours of not so intense?
I always thought and did the former but, recently this guy told me the latter gets better results. I don't see how that makes sense.

Quality

Quantity

[Anonymous]

"The person working hard in a not-so-great program/routine will see more progress than a person with a great program not working hard"

Of course, you should try to achieve both (because there's no reason you can't). But if you wake your body up and hit it with some hard work, you're bound to see some kind of results. When you start getting into the territory of bodybuilding and trying to sculpt precise changes, that's when you need to really start developing a perfect routine and a great balance.

But yeah, in the beginning it's a bit of both. Just don't make the newbie assumption that the more you work, the faster results come. Your body has a limit on what it can repair and synthesize into gains, so you can't just expect to workout 2 hours a day, 5 days a week and get a supermodel body in 2 months. You'll burn out or injure yourself before that happens.

[SammieNYC]

I'm not trying to change my body... This question wasn't really about me. I just always thought that quality is way more important, that's how you build up your stamina and get good results. Now, I'm just confused...

[Opinion Owner]

Well I guess I answered this question more in terms of "quality vs. intensity", or form in place of quality is what you hear much more. And answering like that, it's a mix of the two that gives you the best results. You need to have good form so you avoid injuries and make your targeted body areas do the work you're throwing at it. But you also have to challenge your body enough so that it has to adapt to the new workload.

I see people in the gym, usually it's the casual gym goers and the housewives, sitting on a machine and just going through the motion with hardly any (if any) weight. You're not really doing much of anything at all doing that, you have to actually tax your body to make it change.

[SammieNYC]

Yeh, I agree. Someone told me that if you want to bulk up, you do heavier weights and smaller reps and if you want to just tone your body you do lighter weights but, more reps. Is that true?

[Opinion Owner]

Yeah, pretty much. When you keep adding heavier weights, your body has to synthesize more muscle to adapt to it. When you do high reps/low weights, you're basically maintaining what muscle build you already have. But then for changing muscle tone, that requires altering your body fat percentage and a whole other topic altogether lol

[cantsaylol]

Posture is most important, it's the quality that counts not quantity

[SammieNYC]

What do you mean by posture?

[cantsaylol]

@sammienyc
When it comes to physical activities, it's all about postures and forms, using ur muscles how it's built to be used.
U can't just lift, there are correct forms while lifting, it's more effective and safer. Same goes for anything physical. Also breathing is crucial as long with hydration

[SammieNYC]

Ohh of course.

[geeky_artist]

Depends on what exercises you are doing. Cardio, quantity is better and will help you keep in shape. But if you're looking to tone as well as stay in shape, light to medium weight training is great and in that case quality is soooo much better than quantity. My trainer told me that doing 20 min of good weight training is just as good as 1-2 hours of running.

[Climber]

Depends what you want to achieve. Excercising at low intensity is good for fat burning. excercising at high intensity is good for endurenace and strength.

[BertMacklinFBI]

quality fosho, HIIT proves that by 1000% lol.

[TripleAce]

+1 on this for sure. Very true

[genericname85]

depends on what you mean by "quality" xD if you like do exercises wrong, you´ll hurt yourself. also for cardio quantity is better, for muscle mass /strength it doesn´t matter.

[SammieNYC]

No, assume the person knows what he/she is doing.

[genericname85]

then it still depends on what you want to achieve.

[thewanderingme]

quality, but how much intensity you need depends on what you're trying to achieve.

[SammieNYC]

Not gaining or losing, just staying in shape.

[thewanderingme]

half an hour light exercise should do

[Anonymous]

Having fun while excercising is the best and most rewarding :) (Also I'd say quality before quantity)

[kheserthorpe]

Both accomplish other things.

[SammieNYC]

I thought so too. Not trying to gain or lose anything. Just keeping in shape.

[kheserthorpe]

Well that's a fairly vague target so probably either. It also depends on what you mean by 'less intense'. an hour of hard exercise is almost certainly better than 2 hours of walking.

but comparing 20 minutes of HIIIT with a warm up and cool down added vs 90 minutes stead state, they achieve different adaptations.

[SammieNYC]

So it would differ for a person trying to lose weight and a person trying to gain muscle?

[kheserthorpe]

No, I'd probably focus on intense weight lifting for both. Weight lifting is actually better associated with real life weight loss than steady state aerobic.

If you're really fit and doing like 10+ hours a week of cardio, sure it starts really chewing up calories, but otherwise...

The most useful adaptations of steady state longer exercise are driving down resting heart rate, by making your heart larger, hence able to deliver more oxygen at peak. HIIT does this, but not as well. And it tends to focus a little more on how -forcefully- your heart can beat vs. how big it is. So if you want great conditioning, you need both.

Tone up lose weight? Lean towards the intensity. Among other things, it fights off lean mass loss when dieting.

[cantsaylol]

Going heavy to gain muscle is a myth, u can gain muscle mass and size without going super heavy.
As long as u micro tear ur muscle tissues while u contract them, they repair and rebuild in a thicker and larger size

Push ups for example, u can gain size and definition with push ups as much as super heavy on bench press, study's proven this over and over

Going heavy u may lose posture and form, end up hurting ur self and with that said losing posture and form u won't be having an effective work out.