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I'm going to irritate a lot of people here, but please read this first without making a comment
Go onto YouTube and type in fat burning workouts.
You will be met with tons and tons of videos with fancy thumbnails that promise results in as little as 15 minutes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, working out and exercising is amazing and I am so thrilled that you are doing this because if we can get you moving and fitter then I’m happy.
However, if you have a goal to get stronger and get toned overall then unfortunately 15 to 20-minute workouts will do absolutely nothing for you. I’ll explain why.
You see in order for us to tone our body and have that nice lean look we need to develop muscle mass and reduce unwanted body fat.
Of course, at a healthy level, we don’t want to be dropping too much fat.
Now, this is very individual and at the end of the day, being happy with your body and within yourself is the key.
I’m just giving a general recommendation here because we get loads of questions asking about working out and the best toning exercises.
In order to tone, we need to grow muscle tissue.
This is extremely difficult for a woman to do and in fact, it’s still pretty darn hard for a male to do also.
Ten to fifteen minutes is just not enough time to provide the body, the muscles, with a good amount of stimulus.
I’ve probably confused you so let me explain.
In order for muscle tissue to develop it needs to experience progressive overload and it needs to experience something it hasn’t experienced in previous sessions.
This is a very slow process and you also have to factor in recovery and nutrition.
If you are simply following a YouTube 15 minute workout a couple of times a week, you are burning calories and sweating a little.
Now don’t get me wrong you are stimulating a little bit of muscle but nowhere near enough.
The instructor isn't able to check in with you, your form, make sure you're contracting muscle properly, because, well, it's a video
If the goal is to tone, and develop muscle, then you need to have a plan that is thought out.
You need to ensure that the body part you are training gets enough work in that session.
That being said, you can easily get an efficient workout in and around 40 to 45 minutes. If you are experienced then you can even get a good workout in 30 minutes. Any lower I would not recommend because it’s simply not enough time to recover between sets and really drive the muscle.
So whilst YouTube workouts are great, please do not fall for the myth of 'fat burning' workouts or toning workouts, these do not exist.
The types of exercise you do differ very little from what a typical gym-goer would do.
Your exercises like heavy squats, presses, lunges, rowing movements etc, will be the exercises that you would need to do and work on on a weekly basis to get stronger and develop muscle tissue, please don’t forget that.
Muscle under tension, slowly getting stronger, and a lowered body fat will give you that tone
