Source:LiveScience
Still on fitness, I’ve been trying (the operational word is try!) to kind of work out bit by bit. I must admit that this takes more than I think of – given my busy unmanaged schedule, my excessive diet, and sometimes lack of internal motivation. I think this drove me into finding new ways of working out. I have been apprehended by going to the gym by idk what but that is so out. Thank God for the internet in that case.
So I’ve been reading and reading and found this great discovery by a group of sports medicine doctors. Say hello to the Scientific 7 Minute Workout. Aside from having solid scientific foundations and recommendations, this has been featured in a New York Times article! Hello cathecolamines, and goodbye fats!
Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice.
An article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal does just that. In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which 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,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.
Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.
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. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises 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. Source
In a nutshell, “Proper execution requires a willing and able participant who can handle a great degree of discomfort for a relatively short duration.” Intensive exercise regimens rely on uncomfortable routines in as little amount of time. “There also may be a greater impact on subcutaneous fat loss with high-intensity intermittent circuit-style resistance training protocols than with traditional steady state sustained-effort aerobic work or traditional resistance training. This is thought to be from the increased level of catecholamines and growth hormone found in the blood both during and after high-intensity resistance training exercise with shortened rest periods (<30 seconds)” The science behind it is an interesting read imho.
It is amazing how everyday research and technology has its way of truncating (like URLs!) our lives into minutes! Even The Huffington Post and Lifehacker recommends it! For someone who has been out of shape for a relatively long time, I think it’s best to start with this regimen. PLUS you can always have the option to do some more reps in a day. The key is turning it to a habit, I believe. Just keep in mind the science, and get your groove on!
There are some apps that can help you with “7 minutes”
Of course, if we (yes, including me) want to improve some more and go past plateaus, we should always on the look out for more intense full-body work outs and maybe target some muscles as we go along. I might be getting too ahead of myself, so I’d stop talking about it.
I’ll feature more of the regimens I find every now and then. I find this oddly motivating but hey if it is helping one likely unhealthy soul (like me) at a time, I’ll do it gladly!
