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The “Two a Day Workout Plan,” often referred to as “two-a-days,” is a fitness regimen where an individual engages in two separate workouts within the same day. This training method is popular among athletes, bodybuilders, and fitness enthusiasts who want to increase their training volume, build muscle, and accelerate their progress.
The approach requires careful planning, adequate recovery, and proper nutrition to be effective and sustainable. In this article, we will explore the benefits, potential risks, and best practices for structuring a two-a-day training plan, along with various workout splits to consider.
Will Working out Twice a Day Make a Difference?
One of the primary benefits of two-a-days is the ability to increase your overall training volume. By splitting your workouts into two sessions, you can dedicate more time and energy to specific muscle groups or exercises. This approach allows for more targeted training, which can lead to better muscle growth and improved performance.
For example, you might focus on strength training in the morning and cardio or mobility work in the second session, maximizing your total workout time without compromising intensity.
When it comes to building muscle mass, the principle of progressive overload—gradually increasing the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your workouts—is key. Two-a-day workouts can help you achieve this by allowing you to work different muscle groups more frequently.
For instance, you could target your upper body in the morning and lower half in the evening, providing each muscle group with adequate stimulation for growth. Over time, this increased training frequency can lead to greater muscle mass and strength gains.
Working out twice a day can make your sessions more efficient by allowing you to focus on shorter, intense workouts. Instead of spending hours in the gym trying to fit everything into the same workout session, you can split your training into two more manageable parts. Training twice a day not only helps maintain high intensity throughout your workouts but also reduces the risk of burnout and mental fatigue.
For athletes, two-a-days offer the opportunity to work on different aspects of performance in each session. For example, a basketball player might focus on strength and conditioning in the morning and skill-specific drills in the second workout session. This separation allows for more focused practice and can accelerate skill development, ultimately leading to improved athletic performance on the field or court.
The two-a-day plan can also serve as a form of stress management. Regular physical activity is known to reduce stress by releasing endorphins, the body’s natural mood elevators. Splitting workouts into two-a-day sessions can provide multiple opportunities throughout the day to manage stress and improve mental clarity. Additionally, the discipline required to maintain two-a-day workouts can build mental toughness, which can be beneficial both in and out of the gym.
Is It Overkill to Work Out Twice a Day?
One of the biggest concerns with two-a-day workouts is the risk of overtraining. Overtraining occurs when the body is subjected to more physical stress than it can recover from, leading to fatigue, decreased performance, and even injury.
Symptoms of overtraining include persistent muscle soreness, irritability, sleep disturbances, and a weakened immune system. To avoid overtraining, it’s crucial to listen to your body, prioritize recovery, and ensure that you’re not pushing yourself too hard in each session.
With the increased training volume that comes with two-a-days, there is also a heightened risk of injury. Intense workouts can place a significant strain on your muscles, joints, and connective tissues. According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine, if you’re not careful with your form, warm-up, and cool-down routines, you may be more prone to injuries such as muscle strains, sprains, and overuse injuries. To minimize this risk, make sure to incorporate proper technique and recovery strategies into your routine.
Working out twice a day places greater demands on your body in terms of nutrition. You’ll need to consume more calories, particularly from protein and carbohydrates, to fuel your workouts and support muscle recovery. Inadequate nutrition can lead to fatigue, muscle breakdown, and impaired performance. A well-balanced diet, rich in nutrients, is essential for those following two-a-day workouts to ensure they meet their body’s energy and recovery needs.
Another challenge of two-a-day workouts is the time commitment. Fitting in two workout sessions per day can be difficult, especially for those with busy schedules. Balancing work, family, and social commitments while working out twice a day can lead to burnout if not managed properly. It’s important to assess whether you have the time and energy to commit to working out twice a day without negatively impacting other areas of your life.
The psychological demands of working out twice a day can also be significant. The pressure to perform, along with the physical demands, can lead to mental fatigue and reduced motivation over time. You may not want to deal with changing into workout clothes, warming up, doing the workout, cooling down, and more twice a day.
It’s important to monitor your mental well-being and ensure that you’re maintaining a healthy balance between training and rest. Incorporating rest days and recovery periods into your routine is essential for both physical and mental health.
How Do You Structure a Workout Twice a Day?
Plan Your Session Strategically
The key to successfully implementing a two-a-day training routine is strategic planning. Each session should have a specific focus to avoid redundancy and ensure that you’re maximizing your training efforts.
For example, you might dedicate your morning session to strength training and your evening session to cardio or mobility work. Alternatively, you could focus on different muscle groups in each session, such as upper body in the morning and lower half in the evening, or different intensities in full-body workouts.Â
Prioritize Recovery
According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, training-related injuries are largely due to excessive and rapid increases in workouts without adequate recovery time. Recovery is crucial when working out twice a day. This includes getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and incorporating stretching and foam rolling into your routine.
Active recovery methods, such as yoga or light swimming, can also help reduce muscle soreness and improve flexibility. Additionally, make sure to give yourself adequate rest between sessions to prevent overtraining and injury to each body part.
Manage Workout Intensity
Not every session should be an intense workout. It’s important to vary the intensity of your workouts to avoid overtraining and burnout. Allow at least six hours or more in between your workouts, depending on the intensity. For example, you could do a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) session in the morning and a lower-intensity steady-state cardio session in the evening.
If you’re doing full-body workouts, blend challenging movements with easier ones. This variation helps manage fatigue and ensures that you’re not constantly pushing your body to its limits.
Fuel Your Body
Nutrition plays a critical role in training twice a day. Make sure to consume a balanced diet that includes sufficient protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats to support your energy needs and muscle recovery.
Timing your meals and snacks around your workouts is also important to ensure that you have enough fuel for both sessions. Consider having a pre-workout meal before each session and a post-workout meal or snack afterward to aid in recovery.
Listen To Your Body
Furthermore, pay attention to how your body responds to the increased workload. If you start to feel overly fatigued, sore, or mentally drained, it may be a sign that you need to scale back. You can do light cardio or light dumbbell workouts or go for a walk instead of having an intense session.
You can also just take a break from your two-a-days plan. Rest days are essential even when you’re training twice a day to allow your body to recover and prevent overtraining. It’s better to take a day off and come back stronger than to push through fatigue and risk injury.
What Is the Best Twice a Day Training Split?
Push-Pull Split
One effective two-a-day workout split is the push-pull method. In this split, you dedicate one session to push exercises (e.g., chest, shoulders, and triceps) and the other to pull exercises (e.g., back, biceps, and hamstrings). This allows you to focus on opposing muscle groups in each training session, promoting balanced muscle development.
Example Schedule:
- Morning: Push workout (e.g., bench press, shoulder press, tricep dips)
- Evening: Pull workout (e.g., pull-ups, rows, bicep curls)
Upper-Lower Body Split
An upper-lower body split is another popular option. In this approach, you focus on upper body workouts in one session and exercises for the lower half in the second session. This allows for targeted muscle work and adequate recovery time between sessions.
Example Schedule:
- Morning: Upper body workout (e.g., bench press, bent-over row, shoulder press, chest press)
- Evening: Lower body workout (e.g., squats, lunges, deadlifts, walking lunges, seated calf raises)
Cardio and Strength Split
For those looking to combine cardio and strength training, a cardio-strength split can be highly effective. This approach allows you to build endurance while also focusing on muscle development. You can alternate between cardio and strength training days or do one workout in the morning and the other in the evening.
Example Schedule:
- Morning: Strength workout (e.g., weight training, resistance training)
- Evening: Cardio workout (e.g., running, cycling, swimming)
Functional Training and Mobility Split
If your goal is to improve overall functional fitness and mobility, you can structure your workouts around functional training and mobility work. This split is ideal for athletes or individuals looking to enhance their movement patterns and flexibility.
Example Schedule:
- Morning: Functional training (e.g., kettlebell exercises, bodyweight circuits)
- Evening: Mobility workout (e.g., yoga, stretching, foam rolling)
Sports-Specific Training Split
For athletes or individuals training for a specific sport, a sports-specific split can be beneficial. This approach allows you to focus on sport-specific skills in one session and general conditioning or strength in the other.
Example Schedule:
- Morning: Sport-specific drills (e.g., agility work, skill practice)
- Evening: Strength or conditioning workout (e.g., weightlifting, endurance training)
Exercises to Include in Two-a-Day Workouts
Two-a-day workouts mean doing multiple workouts in one day. Your two workout sessions don’t have to be of the same intensity or length; for example, you can do a longer workout in the morning, and reserve shorter workouts for the evening.
Or you can do cardio for one workout, and then do a weight training session for your second workout. Doing so can work well enough for fat loss, muscle growth, and general strength gain.
Whether you’re a twice-a-day workout beginner or a seasoned one with a flair for an intense exercise session, here are some workout ideas that you can incorporate into your two-a-days training plan to further enhance muscle growth and get a step ahead in your fitness goals.
Bent-Over Row
Place a barbell on a rack set to hip level. Grasp the bar with your hands at shoulder width, and pull the bar out of the rack. Step back, and set your feet at hip width; hold the bar at arm’s length against your thighs.
Take a deep breath, and bend your hips back—keep your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Bend until your torso is nearly parallel to the floor. Draw your shoulder blades together as you pull up the bar to your belly button.
Bench Press
Lie on the bench and arch your back, pulling your shoulder blades down and together. Grasp the bar just wider than shoulder width, and pull it out of the rack.
Take a deep breath, tighten your glutes, and lower the bar to your sternum, tucking your elbows to your sides at 45 degrees on the descent. When the bar touches your body, push your feet onto the floor and press the bar up at the same time.
Lateral Raises
Stand with your feet hip-width apart, weights at your sides. Keeping a slight bend in the elbows, lift the arms straight up and out to the sides to shoulder height. Lower and repeat, resting for 20 to 60 seconds between sets.
Reverse Flies
Include this move in your upper/lower two-a-days split. Stand and hold weights, tipping from the hips so that the back is flat and the palms face each other. Keeping a slight bend in the arms, squeeze the shoulder blades to lift the elbows straight up to the torso level. Lower and repeat. Rest 20 to 60 seconds between reps.
Side Lunge with Triceps Extensions
Start with your feet together and hold a weight in the left hand with the elbow bent, the weight at the chest. Step out to the right into a side lunge. The left leg should be straight, the right knee bent with the hips back, and both feet pointing forward. As you lunge, extend the left arm in a triceps extension. Complete 30 seconds on each side.
Dip
Suspend yourself over parallel dip bars with your hand just outside shoulder width. Lean slightly forward and lower your body until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Push yourself back up.
Squat Press
Shorter workouts are intense sessions that can be done within 15 to 20 minutes and give you a great burn. This exercise is one that you’ll want to include in such sessions. To do this, hold weights at shoulder level, feet shoulder-width apart. Squat and, as you stand up, press the weights overhead. Repeat for 30 seconds.
Front Squat
Include this workout in your two-a-days plan to build muscle effectively. For this move, it’s vital to work up to a weight that’s 80 to 85% of your one-rep max and use that load for your 5 sets of 2.
To do this, set a barbell on a power rack and grasp it with hands shoulder-width apart. Roll your elbows under the bar so that they point forward, and lift the bar off the rack with arms parallel to the floor. Step back into your squat stance. Lower your body into the squat and come back up.
Pull-Up
Hang from a bar with your hands shoulder-width apart and your palms facing away. Pull your ribs down and keep your core tight. Draw your shoulder blades back and together and pull yourself up until your chin is over the bar. If your body weight isn’t challenging enough, attach extra weight with a belt or hold a dumbbell between your feet.
Final Note
Working out twice a day can be a powerful strategy for increasing training volume, enhancing muscle gains, increasing fat loss, and boosting overall fitness levels. However, success with this approach requires careful planning and a balanced approach. While splitting your workouts into two sessions can lead to better focus and improved performance, it’s essential to manage the potential risks of overtraining and injury.
The key to twice a day workouts is balancing intensity with adequate rest and recovery. Not every workout should be high-intensity, and it’s important to incorporate lighter sessions and active recovery to prevent burnout. Proper nutrition also plays a critical role in fueling your workouts and supporting muscle recovery, ensuring that your body can handle the increased workload.
Before jumping into a two-a-day regimen, it’s important to assess whether this approach aligns with your fitness goals, experience level, and lifestyle. For those with the time, commitment, and knowledge to structure their workouts effectively, working out twice a day can deliver significant results. However, for beginners or those with limited time, it’s better to try it out for a few weeks and if it doesn’t work out, a more traditional workout routine may be more sustainable.
Ultimately, training twice a day can make a substantial difference in your fitness journey, provided you approach it with intention and mindfulness. By listening to your body, prioritizing recovery, and staying consistent, you can unlock the full potential of two-a-day workouts and achieve your goals.
If you feel any discomfort or are unsure during your workouts, always seek out the guidance and advice of a certified personal trainer.
