Workout duration and frequency are fundamental elements of exercise design. Both can and should be adjusted as you progress toward your fitness goals. If you've been exercising for a while, you should be capable of longer, more frequent workouts than you were when you first started out. If you want your body to keep progressing, you need to stimulate it with continuously more challenging workouts. As a general rule, adjust only one element of your program at a time.
Progression
The principle of progression dictates that to keep improving your strength, endurance or cardiovascular capacity, you must continually overload your muscles and cardiorespiratory system. That doesn't mean working to the point of collapse; in this case, overload means subjecting your body to gradually increasing stimuli. Increasing your workout duration and frequency are both ways of applying that principle to your workout. However, doing both at once is usually too much because increasing the overload too quickly can lead to injuries, overtraining and burnout.
Principles of Exercise Programming
One way of mapping out your workout plan and which variables you can safely change, is breaking it into principles of exercise programming. These include frequency, intensity, time and type. Frequency, or how often you work out, is usually measured in sessions per week. Intensity, or how hard you exercise, can be measured a number of ways, including percentage of heart rate reserve, maximal oxygen consumption or a rating of perceived exertion. Time refers to the duration each workout lasts. Type means which kind of exercise you're doing.
Making Adjustments
After making adjustments to your routine, give yourself enough time to monitor your body's response before you adjust another element. For example you could add an extra workout each week, increasing your frequency. Once you're certain that your body has tolerated the adjustment well with no adverse affects and has adapted to the increased workload, you could then increase your workout duration.
Considerations
Although you must challenge yourself to meet fitness or weight loss goals, remember that the ultimate goal is to build yourself up, not break yourself down. Part of creating a sustainable exercise program is striking a healthy balance in your life. Most people can't plan to exercise for eight hours a day, and you shouldn't work out every day of the week. You need at least one rest day for your body to recover from the demands you're placing on it.
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