It took them long to finish their workout. Took quite a while= took long=took a long time It took me quite a while to figure out the answer to this problem.

It means it took a lot of time but using the word “quiet” kind of implies that it took longer than expected. I think the Portuguese translation would be. “Demorou um pouco” ou ”demorou um bom tempo.” You can use it in a conversation for example: Sorry I’m late. I was cleaning and it took a while.

It means that they worked out for a lot of tiime