Exercise throughout the day?
 

I was wondering if you see better benefits from doing a straight block of exercise verses breaking it up throughout the day? I just use an exercise bike at home but as I'm building up to working out I have only been doing 5 minutes at a time and wondered if that even does anything for your body! lol

Yesterday I was able to do 12 minutes straight and later in the day 8 minutes straight (for a total of 20 minutes) so I know I'll be able to work myself up to doing more at one time but I was still wondering: When exercising do you only see benefit by working hard at one time or do you still see benefit from doing small sessions throughout the day?

Thoughts?

Any activity that you do is going to benefit you, so doing 5 minutes whenever you can squeeze them in, is beneficial. I've read that doing 3 10-minute exercise sessions is just as good as a straight 30 minutes, but I haven't heard that it's any better. What I have found from my own personal experience is that if I workout in the morning and then I keep active throughout the day by taking walks with my dog and maybe even working out again (I'm a bit obsessive about it), it makes me feel like I'm really making some good progress.

I've actally heard the opposite- that 30 minutes all at once is better than breaking it up. I think it had to do with the fact that it gets your HR up and it stays up longer (i.e. you don't have 2 extra warm-up/cool-down periods thrown in that time frame). And of course, higher HR means you're working harder and burning more calories.

With that said, do what you can do! Like luckymommy said, I think any exercise is going to benefit you! I think the logic is probably different if you're maxing out after X minutes and you can't do more. Then by all means wait a few hrs and do it again! Breaking it up seems like a great way to increase the endurance you'll need for longer rides. Besides, two-a-days are pretty bad-a$$!

Another idea is to do what you can on the bike then switch exercises. Like, could you hop off the bike after your 12 minutes and do pushups or ab work or use resistance bands or go on a walk or do something so that you can continue with your workout.

Just some ideas :).

@luckymommy, this is my thinking as well that any exercise is better than no exercise but I've often wondered if it was a waste of time as well lol

@tuende, great advice unfortunately I had major surgery in Oct to which I still can not bend over or lift/carry more than 10lbs at a time and my Drs said no heavy exercise and no calastetics lol so I'm quite limited to the bike until 1 year post surgery. Actually when I started the bike last week I was DONE at 2 minutes because from the time I was out of the hospital until March I was laid up at home doing NOTHING for myself and from March-now I've been getting use to doing things for myself that I hadn't been doing since Oct.

I was quite excited that I was able to do 20 minutes yesterday within 2 sessions but I am actually JEALOUS when I'm watching my husband do pushups while I'm cycling away on my bike lol crazy eh?!

Oh wow... that complicates things! Sounds like you're off to a great start- you're already doing 10 times as much bike riding than you were at first! Keep working on it- I bet this exercise is great for your body and your mind as you recover- definitely not a waste of time. This October you'll be ready to GO!