With our busy lives, we want things faster and better, including our exercise. The 7-minute workout is a short, high-intensity exercise that promises great results in little time. The question is, can you really get the workout you need in 7 minutes? We decided to put it to the test.
The anytime, anywhere workout
Using very little equipment, the workout is made up of 12 exercises, each done for 30 seconds in a specific order, to work the whole body.
The original creators of the routine were trainers working with athletes who needed a quick workout to maintain their fitness levels when they couldn’t follow their regular routine. The creators recommend that people do the workout three times in a row to achieve best results, effectively making it a 21 minute workout.
All you need is a chair and a wall
In 12 exercises which deploy only body weight, a chair and a wall, the workout fulfils the latest mandates for high-intensity effort. It essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort, all of it based on science.
“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training, but in much less time.”
The intervals really matter
Interval training though, requires intervals – the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises.
The key is alternating the exercises in a specific order
More importantly however, the effectiveness of this workout is accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasises muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the brief interval, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically speaking, catch their breath, and this is why the order of the exercises is so important.
The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.
So what do you think? Would you prefer to do a short, high-intensity workout such as this as opposed to a longer, slower workout?