Two-a-Day Workout Plans for Fitness and Weight Loss

If you feel like you have hit a fitness or weight loss plateau, two-a-day workouts may be the answer to helping you reach your goals. While it's not something you want to do for the long term, two-a-day workouts have a variety of benefits. You can fit in all your workouts, get double the afterburn, burn more calories, and just maybe bust through that stubborn weight loss plateau.

When it comes to exercise, there are so many ways to schedule it so it best fits both your schedule and your needs. If you think of the recommended exercise guidelines, which suggest you do cardio at least 5 days a week, strength training all your muscle groups at least 2 times a week, and stretching after every workout, it seems like you need hours a day just to fit it all in. That isn't always true. Two-a-day workouts allow you to knock out several aspects of your workout routine, for example, cardio and strength training, in two shorter sessions versus one long session.

To help you come up with the best plan, here are the pros and cons of two-a-day workouts, as well as some sample workouts to help you meet your fitness goals.

Advantages of Two-a-Day Workouts

Short bouts of exercise have been proven to be just as effective, if not more so, than one long continuous workout. Not only that, when you work out twice a day you get twice the afterburn, the calories you burn after your workout as your body works to bring you back to your pre-exercise state.

More benefits include:

• Overall health benefits - The more time you spend working out, the more calories you burn overall which means you will lose weight. Maintaining a healthy weight has many health benefits, including heart health and less strain on your joints.
• You can fit in more types of exercise - There are plenty of ways to set up two-a-day workouts, as you'll see below, but one advantage is doing different types of training throughout the day. You may do cardio in the morning and then strength training later in the day, for example.
• Losing those last few pounds - While two-a-days might not be something you want to do all the time, they can be great for a couple of weeks to help you burn more calories to lose those last few stubborn pounds.
• Generating more energy- Sometimes, an afternoon or evening workout session, whether it's cardio, strength, or flexibility, can boost your energy if you're flagging by the end of the day.
• Increase your performance - Another benefit is that you can increase your performance. By splitting your workouts, you can implement more training volume, which means you can reach your goals more quickly.
• Muscle gains - Research has found that working out twice a day helps increase protein synthesis leading to a higher rate of muscle growth.

Disadvantages of Two-a-Day Workouts

Of course, two-a-day workouts do have some drawbacks depending on the workouts you're doing and how hard you're working. Just some to keep in mind include:

• Overtraining - If you do too much intense exercise more than once a day, you risk overtraining, burnout, and even injury.
• Fatigue - Most of us have a certain circadian rhythm, feeling more energetic in some parts of the day than others. If you're trying to implement an extra workout, you may find it hard to get up the energy after already working out once.
• The sweat factor - Depending on what you're doing, two-a-day workouts involve changing into workout clothes, warming up, doing the workout, cooling down, sweating, etc. That may be a lot to experience twice a day.
• Increased appetite - Of course, one thing that can happen when you work out more is that you may want to eat more. Your body does need fuel for all that exercise, but you may need to keep an eye on your diet when you add more exercise time.

How to Schedule Two-a-Day Workouts

The real keys for safe, effective two-a-day workouts are, first, the types of workouts you choose and, second, making sure you have some recovery days in there to allow your body to rest, heal, and grow stronger. Make sure you allow four to six hours between your workouts to give your body time to rest. The type of workouts you do should be catered to your fitness goals.

• For building muscle mass, you can do an upper body strength training for workout one, and a lower body strength training for workout two.
• For weight loss, you do a cardio workout for workout one, and a HIIT or strength training for workout two.
• For general fitness and health, you can switch it up. One day do cardio for workout one and strength training for workout two. On a different day, you can do cardio and yoga, strength training and swimming, for example. The goal is to get your body moving twice a day.

Tips for Better Workouts

• Try the more intense workouts in the morning - If you're doing something hard, such as high intensity interval training, try doing that workout first and a less intense workout later in the day.
• Give yourself plenty of time between workouts - Give yourself several hours between workouts and make sure you eat right to give your body the energy it needs.
• Hydrate - Another way to combat fatigue and keep your body fueled is to make sure you drink enough water throughout the day. If your workouts are intense, you may even want to try a sports drink to keep your electrolytes in balance.
• Start simple - If you've never done two-a-days, ease into it. You might stick with your usual morning cardio or strength routine and then do something short and easy later in the day, like boosting your stability on a balance board, to allow your body to get used to working out more.
• Schedule your rest days - You don't necessarily want to workout twice a day every single day, that gives your body no time for rest. Try scheduling a rest day or a light workout in between your two-a-day workouts. Also, try changing into a pair of slides to help you recover after workouts.
• Look for signs you're overdoing it - If you feel tired or your performance is flagging, that may be a sign you're doing too much. If that's the case, give yourself some time off to allow your body to recover.

There are so many ways to split workouts, there's almost no limit to what you can do. Below you'll find for two-a-day workout plans according to your fitness goals.

Two-a-Day Cardio Routine

This type of training is often what runners do to prepare for half-marathons or full marathons. They might go out for a run in the morning and then do another run later in the day to build up endurance and mileage.

For the average person, multiple cardio sessions have a different purpose. You may simply want to break up your cardio because you don't have time for a full 30 minutes or an hour.

In that case, you may want to do shorter bouts of exercise, 10 to 20 minutes three or so times a day. This approach to cardio may help reduce fatigue and boredom, all while allowing you to get the benefits of cardio.

Just make sure you're not doing several bouts of very intense exercise, as that can lead to overtraining and injury.

Two-a-Day Strength Training

This is often the choice of bodybuilders or athletes looking to increase strength and size, but regular exercisers can also benefit from this type of training as long as you're working different muscle groups.

Probably the easiest way to split your workouts is by doing upper body during one workout and lower body in the next. You might do lower body in the morning since that's often more taxing than upper body workouts.

Sample Two-a-Day Strength Training Plan

In this plan, you'll do split workouts two times a week with at least one day of rest in between. The last workout is a circuit workout that combines both cardio and strength so you have something completely different than the other workouts. Again, doing this for a week or two is fine, but you don't want to overdo it on the two-a-day workouts.

• Day 1: Workout 1 - a.m. Lower Body Power and Strength Workout and workout 2 - p.m. Upper Body Power and Strength Workout
• Day 2: Rest or Light Cardio
• Day 3: Cardio. Some options include Cardio Endurance Workout and 30-Minute Interval Workout
• Day 4: Workout 1 - a.m. Lower Body Superset Workout and workout 2 - p.m. Upper Body Supersets
• Day 5: Recovery workout - Yoga, stretching, or foam roller
• Day 6: Cardio and Strength Circuit Challenge
• Day 7: Rest or light activity

Strength and Cardio for Fitness and Weight Loss

This is probably the most accessible plan for the average person looking to lose weight, get fit, and build strength and endurance without overdoing it. Because there are a variety of workouts, some intense and others light, you work on multiple areas of fitness while allowing your body to recover each day.

Day 1

Workout 1 - High Intensity Cardio

For your first workout, you'll do a short, intense cardio circuit workout. After a warm-up, you'll do a series of exercises, one after the other, each one for 30 seconds. Completing one circuit, including the warm-up, will take you a little more than 10 minutes.

You can complete another circuit for a longer workout or, if you want to do something a little different, do your second circuit just before Workout Two, which is your upper body workout.

Precautions

See your doctor if you have any medical conditions and skip or modify any exercise that doesn't feel good.

Workout 2 -Upper Body Training

With your cardio out of the way (unless you decide to do the cardio circuit as a warm-up for your workout), this routine focuses on the upper body, giving the lower body a rest.

This is a straightforward routine in which you'll do two or more exercises for each muscle group, doing each for three sets of 12 reps. These moves will be immediately followed by a 'Toast' exercise, a move designed to target the same muscle group with no rest to increase the intensity and the calorie burn.

Use enough weight that you can only complete 12 reps. The heavier you go, the more rest you may need between sets.

Precautions

See your doctor if you have any medical conditions and skip or modify any exercises that cause pain or discomfort.

Equipment

Various weighted dumbbells, resistance band, a bench or chair.

Day 2

Total Body Stretch

Day 3

Workout 1 - Steady State Cardio

Choose any activity you like—running, walking, cycling, or any cardio machine and work at a moderate intensity for 20 or more minutes.

Workout 2 - Lower Body Training

After a steady cardio workout, your legs should feel fresh and ready to go for this lower body workout. This routine includes four circuits, each with three different exercises for the lower body. Do one exercise after the other for each circuit, rest and then repeat.

For a shorter workout, do just one circuit of the exercises.

Precautions

See your doctor if you have any medical issues and skip or modify moves that bother you.

Equipment

Various weighted dumbbells, resistance band, a step or staircase, an exercise ball.

End with a lower body stretch.

Day 4

Rest or Light Activity

Day 5

Workout 1 - Moderate Intensity Cardio

Workout 2 - Yoga or stretching

Day 6

Cardio/Strength Circuit

For today's workout, you'll combine cardio and strength into one killer circuit workout, so you'll only do one workout today. This workout includes five segments, each with a cardio move, a total body strength move, an upper body move and a core exercise. You can go through the entire workout once for a short workout or repeat the circuit as many times as you like.

Do each move one after the other with no rest in between if you can.

Precautions

See your doctor if you have any medical issues and skip any moves that cause pain or discomfort.

Equipment

Various weighted dumbbells, an exercise ball, Gliding Disc or a towel if you have hardwood floors.

Day 7

Rest

However you set up your 2-a-day workouts, pay attention to your energy level and performance. It can be hard on the body doing more than one workout, so ease into it and listen to your body.