If you train intensively and effectively, four hours a week is all the time you need to burn fat. That’s it. That is the total time you need to allocate each week to work out. Despite what most people believe, training excessively does not make you better, not at all.
It does not mean that training for a longer period does not work. It still works, but not just as effectively as training in high intensity. Countless of hours of scientific research showed that working out too much tends to put people further away from their goals. Not only is it draining us physically, but it is also draining us mentally. Working out intensively in a brief period results in an impressive physical result. It clears your mind, reduces stress, and gives energy so that we can be more focus on what we want to do today. It sounds good, doesn’t it?
To stimulate an adaptation response, your workouts should be challenging enough to give you the right amount of stimulation. You can lift weights three days a week and do aerobic training three days a week on alternating days when you don’t lift weight. You need to constantly challenge yourself to provide the precise amount of stimulation needed for muscle growth. Recovery takes place on the day you don’t lift weights, this is when miracle happens. Your muscles repair themselves and build more mass to keep up with your workouts.
In sports, just as in any other sports, more isn’t necessarily the better. The more you invest (time, energy, money) doesn’t always result in the more you get back. There is a point at which if you keep pushing your body, it can’t go further but starts working against you.
There are many people who don’t experience any results after training for some time. Instead of changing their routine, they train harder and longer because they don’t think that training intensively in a shorter period of time can give more benefits. They eventually get frustrated and give up under this false assumption.
Working out, however short or long, is better than not working out at all. If body transformation is not your goal, you can keep working out however you like as long as you enjoy it. People with certain disabilities often have to work out in special ways. Do whatever you like as long as it produces result. It you have been doing the same workout but see not results after a month, there must be something wrong with your workout.