How to better to train half an hour every day or to beat yourself up two days a week?

Changing our lifestyle habits and starting to move more is key not only to maintaining a healthy weight, but also to taking care of our health and reducing our risk of suffering from some diseases. However, our lifestyle does not always make it easy for us to dedicate a lot of time to physical exercise. That is why, sometimes, we may wonder what our best option is: dedicate enough time one or two days a week that we have free or exercise for half an hour a day every day? What are our short-term daily exercise options If our intention is to exercise every day, but dedicate a short period of time to being able to practice it in a gap that we have during the day, we have several different options that we can choose from? High-intensity interval training HIIT workout (High-Intensity Interval Training) has more and more advocates and practitioners. And it is that this high-intensity, but short-term workouts allow us to spend little time a day to exercise and, at the same time, do it very intensely. The fact that they are short workouts does not make them less beneficial, at least in this case. And it is that they not only help us lose fat, but it has been found that they can reduce cardiovascular risk factors, improve vascular function, and reduce oxidative stress. Not only that, but it could lower blood pressure as well as improve insulin sensitivity. In short, it is an exercise that, despite being short - we can do HIIT workouts of even seven minutes - has many benefits. Exercise snacks The term says almost everything, and it is the exercise snacks that consist of performing short periods of exercise throughout the day. In fact, they are exercises that arose in the labor context. The idea is to be able to take advantage of dead moments when we have, to do a few minutes of exercise. These exercises have to be, at a minimum, moderate to intense. The idea is to do about six or ten minutes of training throughout the day, repeating three to five times. We can perform simple exercises, without the need for material, but always maintain a high intensity and at least six minutes. This type of exercise, despite requiring little time a day, helps us control blood glucose levels. The biggest advantage of this exercise is that it takes us away from a sedentary life and helps us to move more throughout the day. They are especially beneficial if we make them at mealtime, but we can choose other times during the day when we have a small gap. Longer duration exercises fewer days per week Most commonly, when we refer to exercising for a longer duration on fewer days, we tend to think of aerobic exercises. And it is that when we can only train two days a week, and we want to dedicate a lot of time to it, it is common to choose cardio workouts that make us train at a moderate intensity, but for a very long time. This type of training includes group classes - which we usually do only a couple of days a week -, going for a run, swimming, and other cardio activities. They are exercises that help us work our lung capacity and improve the cardiovascular system. This type of activity can help us, therefore, to increase our respiratory capacity, lower our blood pressure, improve the absorption of calcium from our bones, as well as to burn calories. On the other hand, we have the option of doing strength training two or three days a week. In this case, we will also need to dedicate a long time to training on the days that we do it. In any case, the evidence has found that you can gain muscle by training two days a week. To do this, the idea is that we do a full-body workout so that we make sure that we train all our muscle groups in both weekly workouts. Strength training improves our body posture, helps us burn more calories even at rest, and helps prevent injuries and muscle pain. Which option is better when training? The reality is that this depends on our needs, what we are looking for in training, and our lifestyle. The ideal, if we could, would be to combine short but intense training sessions on days when we have less time with other more moderate but long-lasting physical activities one or two days a week. That would be ideal if we could. Otherwise, the best training for us will be the one that suits our needs and availability of time. The idea is to take advantage of the time we have to exercise. Whether we choose short intense workouts every day of the week or opt for a long workout twice a week, we will reap benefits, increase our daily physical activity level and improve our health.