Many people think that to have a great body and be fit, it's essential to exercise everyday for long periods of time. Well it's not! Actually, it's BETTER to work out less to achieve great results.

First of all, the body can only handle so much exercise before the workouts become ineffective. With strength training, once the muscle fibers are torn there is not much else to do but recover. Working muscles out when they are already sore will delay the results.

For cardio, the purpose is to burn energy in either the form of glycogen (sugar) or fat. The body will burn through the stored sugars first, which is basically any food you have been eating. After about 20 minutes your metabolism will switch over to burning stored fat. Unfortunately, your body won't allow you to burn all of your glycogen and fat so eventually you will start to burn away muscle tissue, which is completely counterproductive. Keep your cadrio workouts under 45 minutes.

The best kind of workout is a routine that revs up your metabolism. The best way to achieve this is to do interval sessions where you have periods of intense exercise and then easier recovery stages. This speeding and slowing of the heart not only improves the heart's recovery time but also it is also more tiring then a session where you only do one thing at a steady pace.

With strength training circuits and upper to lower splits are great for raising the heart rate and shifting the blood from one area of the body to the other. On top of all that, they are efficient workouts (especially when paired with compound exercises) that will give you the most benefits in less time.

When you exercise keep in mind that it is more important to have an effective, well designed program than it is to work out for long periods.