I have been seeing a lot of sponsored posts on social media for “quick workouts”. Apparently, we don’t have time for exercise, so professionals have come up with brief workouts that promise great results. First, let me be clear, you get out of any exercise what you put in. Don’t expect maximal results in minimal time. Don’t believe that the professional is only doing the 12-minutes or less of exercise they claim is all you need to do. Now you will get health benefits from so short a bout of exercise, but forget about the body that is promised.
It is true that we can see significant improvement in our physical appearance with a modest investment in time. What is simply not true is that you can look like a physique competitor with little time invested in exercise. This said, we can be effective in the use of our exercise time. If I could offer some tips, I would begin by suggesting that one should invest as much time as one can in daily physical activity without ignoring the more important things in life (note: six-pack abs should top one’s priority list) or the disruption of one’s Spiritual, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social dimensions. On top of this, I would suggest the following:
–choose your exercises wisely,
— prioritize your workouts,
— schedule your workout time, and
–add small amounts of physical activity throughout the day.
Choose your exercises wisely. Get the most out of the available time. Opportunity costs when exercising.
When lifting weights, favor complex, multi-joint movements over single-joint, isolated exercises. Choose movements that use the most muscle mass—e.g., squats, bench, etc. Lift relatively heavy. Warm-up as necessary, but make sure the bulk of the effort is productive sets—i.e., target muscle growth and strength.
Do supersets (when time is limited). A superset is when two or more exercises are performed with minimal rest in between. The rest period is between supersets. These maximize the use of time without significantly affecting the outcome. The pairing of exercises is not necessarily important (though this can prompt heated discussion). I generally select exercises that don’t conflict, only because my priority is time management. The benefit of supersets is that one can more than double the volume of exercise that can be performed in a workout session.
Opt for the most effective strategy for cardiorespiratory (AKA “cardio”) exercise. In most cases, one is looking to burn calories, improved maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max), or both. Depending on goals and preferences, there are many options. Historically, most have gone the long, slow distance route—not the most effective time-wise, though, nonetheless useful. More recently, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is all the rage—and for good reason. HIIT can maximize improvements in VO2max and burn more calories in a given period of time. HIIT is (should be) hard, though, and may not be appropriate for all exercisers (though intensity variation should be relative to fitness and, thus, even the least fit among us can perform intervals). HIIT is met with some frustrating misrepresentation, however. I am of the professional opinion that not all of what is labeled “HIIT” is the same.
Among the “quick workouts” that prompted this post are the “HIIT” workouts that are much less than 20 minutes (usually “12-minute” or less) and claim to build muscle, burn fat, and improve VO2max. These are, now, commonly referred to as “Tabata” after the research done by Dr. Izumi Tabata and colleagues (Tabata et al., 1996). Tabata et al. examined the effectiveness of a series of eight interval bouts of 20 seconds of ultra-intense exercise (at an intensity of about 170% of VO2max) followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated continuously for 4 minutes. The researchers called this the “IE1 protocol”—which is now just referred to as the “Tabata protocol”.
In the original study, speed-skating athletes using this method trained four times per week, plus another day of steady-state training, and obtained gains similar to a group of athletes who did steady state training (70% VO2max) five times per week. The steady state group had a higher VO2max at the end (from 52 to 57 ml/kg/min), but the Tabata group had started lower and gained more overall (from 48 to 55 ml/kg/min). Also, only the Tabata group had gained anaerobic capacity benefits. It is important to note that in the original study from 1996, participants were disqualified if they could not keep a steady cycling pace of 85 RPM for the full 20 seconds of work. It is also important to note that body fat changes were not a focus of the study.
“Tabata training” has now come to refer to a wide variety of HIIT protocols and exercise regimens that may or may not have similar benefits to those found in Tabata’s original study. An example of this is “burst training.” Burst training is simply a circuit of (usually) body weight exercises performed in sets with minimal rest and blocks that are separated by slightly longer rest periods. The challenge I have with such training is that technique tends to break down with fatigue—thus increasing the risk of injury—and, for most exercises, the intensity is not great enough (remember, the Tabata protocol is 170% VO2max). This is not to say this training is not effective. It is—particularly for improving body composition. There is reasonable evident that this type of HIIT has the effect of elevating metabolism (i.e., calorie burn) for many hours post-exercise. The likelihood of this exercise increasing VO2max is significantly less.
Prioritize your workouts. You have specific goals. These should be emphasized in your workouts. Do exercise specific to your goals first and spend most of your available time on these. If, for example, building muscle mass is your priority, spend the bulk of your available exercise time lifting heavy weights. Keep cardio to the minimum and do it at the end of the workout (in case time runs short).
If scheduling large blocks of time is a challenge, split the workouts up. Prioritize the most important exercise for when you are less likely to run into conflicts. For me, I prioritize weights and schedule the majority of these workouts in the morning. I do cardio and accessory lifting in the afternoons, when I am more likely to be forced to miss a workout.
Schedule your workout time. Continuing from the preceding paragraph. It is important to schedule your training sessions. Block off specific chunks of time and don’t skip workouts. Plan what you are going to do when you go to the gym and do it! Don’t waste time. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted from doing what is planned. Put it on the daily calendar. And have a long-term plan for your exercise—i.e., planned progression.
Add small amounts of physical activity throughout the day. Enough can’t be said for the benefits of adding small amounts of physical activity throughout the day. This includes: parking farther from the store/work, taking the stairs rather than the elevator or escalator, walking to a colleague’s office rather than e-mailing (not to mention the social benefits that go along with this), walking short trips to the store, post office, etc., and choosing biking or walking over driving. In addition, the benefits of physical activity are cumulative. So, cardio doesn’t have to be performed in a single session.
Consider the benefit of parting an extra 100 yards from your destination. This is 200 yards round-trip. Do this 365 times—i.e., just once a day—this is a total distance of 73,000 yards (~41.5 miles). At an approximate rate of 100 kcal per mile, this is 4150 kcal burned. Assuming 3500 kcal per pound of fat, this is equivalent to about 1.2 lb lost (or not gained) a year. This doesn’t sound like much, but multiply that over the years of your life and do it more than once a day…. (Consider parking ¼ mile from work: ½ mile of extra physical activity times 250 work days equals about 3.6 lbs. Get the point?)
So, quick workouts are not so likely to get you to a significant level of achievement. Physical fitness gains take more effort, not less. You can be smart with your time, though. Optimize your physical exercise and activity, and get the most out of your efforts. Don’t look for quick fixes. Look for the effective fixes.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow!
Carpe momento!