11 ms·

Canadian researcher behind one-minute workout has a shorter option

101 points by helloworld 8y ago

keiferski 8y ago
The reason this matters is that “lack of time” often crops up as an excuse when scientists try to figure out why so few of us get as much exercise as we know we should. Gibala and others have been whittling away at this excuse for more than a decade now, designing ever more time-efficient workouts. The solution to the "I don't have enough time" problem is not to make shorter and shorter workouts, but to encourage a cultural shift away from constant media distractions and pointless hyper-productivity posturing. No one is too busy to spend 30 minutes exercising 3 times a week. Ditto for the obesity crisis - the solution isn't to make less caloric foods, it's to change the culture of excessive portion sizes and sedentary lifestyles.
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  I feel like the actual solution is to gamify it in such a way that it keels you competing with friends for the sake of winning. Fitbit's ranking system has definitely increased the amount of exercise I get.
  - Insanity 8y ago
    I don't really compete with anyone, but I am using google fit since two months ago. I was swimming and going to the gym since a couple of years ago before that, but I feel more motivated now just for getting the stats. It's silly, but not unlike trying to get green squares on GitHub.
    - mateuszf 8y ago
      From a different point of view you are actually competing, but with yourself :-)
      - nradov 8y ago
        Garmin uses the phrase "Beat Yesterday" in their fitness tracker advertisements. Every day try to get a little faster.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    Back when I cycled in a group Strava had a similar effect, you could see how many miles your friends had gotten in and would want to beat it (same with the mini time trials (strava segments) but they got dangerous with people doing stupid things to 'win'. These days I ride alone and the only number I care about is my total for last week.
  - ctchocula 8y ago
    I agree with this. I did running a few years ago, but stopped because it got too boring and I didn't notice any improvement. However, I recently got into Pokemon Go, which has an egg hatching concept. It rewards you with Pokemon with better stats, but you need to walk/run/bike 5km in order to get it to hatch. This has given me new motivation to run again.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    You can also gamify exercise with your friends by playing soccer, or basketball, or Ultimate. It has the added benefit of being fun.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Sign up for an actual "game" like a local 5km running race. If you want to place well in the race that's good motivation to get out and train every week.
- xwvvvvwx 8y ago
  Ditto for the obesity crisis - the solution isn't to make less caloric foods, it's to change the culture of excessive portion sizes and sedentary lifestyles. Agree that our sedentary lifestyles are a significant contributing factor to obesity, but you have it backwards about portion sizes. Calorie dense (palatable) foods trigger our the reward centers in our brain more than non-palatable foods, and actually make us more hungry. This is an evolved survival strategy. If you look at hunter gatherer diets, they will eat huge portions of extremely high calorie foods when they are available (e.g. drinking whole glasses of honey). They don't put on a lot of weight because they are more active, and don't have daily access to high calorie foods. This means that large portions (and by extension obesity) are caused by the easy availability and low cost of high calorie foods. Telling people to eat less doesn't work because the systems that trigger hunger and fat retention work at a subconscious level and are in general more powerful than the conscious mind. The food environment that we have built up around us is a bad one for human beings. If you want to learn more about how our hunger and fat regulation systems work then I can highly recommend "The Hungry Brain" by Stephan Guyenet [1]. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Brain-Outsmarting-Instincts-Overeat/dp/125008119X https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Brain-Outsmarting-Instincts-Ov...
  - keiferski 8y ago
    I really don't think it needs to be that complicated. French cuisine, for example, is full of butter, fat, wine, and other theoretically unhealthy foods. Yet the French have dramatically lower rates of obesity than the Americans, and recent increases in the French obesity rate are mostly due to Americanization / a drift from traditional French food culture. I obviously don't have the data, but I think it's simply because meals are traditionally "sacred" in French culture (that is, you don't eat snacks in between meals) and because portion sizes are much, much smaller than the American equivalent.
    - kortilla 8y ago
      What about the relative levels of appetite suppressants (e.g. smoking) between the two cultures?
- wattengard 8y ago
  Considering that a 30 minute workout often incorporates, getting dressed (5 min), driving to the gym (20 min), working out (30 min), driving home (20 min), taking a shower (15 min), being so exhausted that the rest of the night is down the drain.... The 30 minute workout is a myth...
  - tomp 8y ago
    buy an exercise mat (£5), search "low impact HIIT workout" on YouTube, follow the video just before your normal daily shower time (presumably you shower at least 3 times a week?)... it's just a matter of priorities, really.
  - A2017U1 8y ago
    My mid-range apartment has a gym, it's 30 seconds away from the front door and I shower at home without fear of foot fungus. I still don't exercise anywhere near as much as I should. Perhaps the tyranny of distance is the myth?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - BattyMilk 8y ago
    If you're time starved and trying to work out like this, you're doing it wrong. There are much more time efficient ways to get some exercise. Rather than driving 20 minutes each way to the gym, just put on some shoes and run/walk from your front door. You've saved 40 minutes and a bunch of money. Plus, if your goal is to lose weight, you've a far more effective workout. Walk/run/bike to work. I've completed 2 Ironman triathlons and 75% of my training was done on my commute (my shortest route to work is 8 miles but I can take different routes and make it as long as I want) with hardly any impact (other than exhaustion) on my personal or professional life.
    - tapland 8y ago
      Walking is not effective for weight loss. Then there would be nothing left of me while working as a checker at a warehouse (35000 steps/day)
- collyw 8y ago
  The reason I cycle almost everywhere is because its the fastest way around a dense city and it saves me time in most cases.
- weavie 8y ago
  This is very much embodying the spirit of Kaizen, that of making continuous small improvements. To someone who does no exercise at all the thought of doing a whole 30 minutes of exercise is just too overwhelming for them that they will just keep putting it off and never get started. But maybe if it is just 1 minute, that would be enough for them to stomach and get them started. Once they have got 1 minute under their belt, they will be much more likely to go for 5 minutes and from that 30 minutes. I quite often find that mantra of 'one more minute' really helps me to deal with arduous tasks and fight distraction. When I want to give up on something because it is too tough or boring and I just want to surf reddit instead, I tell myself, ok, just do 1 more minute of this and then give up. Often it is all I need to get over the hump and keep going.
  - dsego 8y ago
    You need to set yourself up for success. If I'm postponing going out for a run, I may just put my running outfit and shoes next to my bed so it's in my sight when I wake up. If I'm getting fat I may just stop buying sugary foods to limit access. And so on, making it easy to do the right thing and harder to slip.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    You are definitely not wrong, and some people will just be overwhelmed to think that they will start in the gym in "full throttle" (and some trainers encourage this - I suppose they like high attrition) but it seems to be that 1 min is too short.
- erfgh 8y ago
  I have two small children that I raise while both me and my wife are working 40 hours per week. Trust me, there is no time for the exercise that you describe. Also, what you say is misleading. Exercising for 30 minutes means that you also need to prepare, have a shower afterwards and it also means that you will require more sleep. If you add all those up it means that those 30 minutes are closer to an hour, if not more. I know; I was a 30-40 km per week runner until my second child got born.
  - pqs 8y ago
    If you do strength training at home, as I do with two kids too, you don't need much preparation. I just take off my t-shirt, do some pull ups, push ups, squats, etc. following a well thought plan, and most of the time the shower is not needed. You don't even need to do all the exercises in the same time slot. You can do pushups as you watch your baby, a few pull ups while your watch your son wash his teeth, etc. Not changing, not much preparation. I apply this method and it is amazing how stronger and leaner I am now. And doing pushups, some cardio is also done. I do cardio while bicycling to the office (no clothes changes needed again; maybe just the t-shirt in summer), and walk up the office and home stairs (4 floors in both cases) two steps at a time.
    - BerislavLopac 8y ago
      > following a well thought plan This is a much bigger hurdle than it might seem; at any rate the biggest one for me personally. I have absolutely no idea how to create an exercise plan for myself, which exercises should I do and in which combination. And additionally, even if I had such a plan, I have no idea how to measure my progress, or whether and how to modify the plan depending on the progress.
      - conistonwater 8y ago
        There are pre-prepared plans that you can follow, like https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend...
      - 8y ago
- dare0505 8y ago
  It's not only about having "enough time". These "short time" approaches are amazing for "making" time. Every major habit I started, I first started doing a few minutes a day, then it naturally came to me to EXTEND it to a longer period of time. This is an aspect it seems many people forget.
- mauvehaus 8y ago
  And yet, here we are, discussing it on the internet, and arguing about whether the researcher is right or whether there's a different/better solution. I'm not claiming you're wrong, but I'm not going to raise my hand and claim that I don't spend more time fooling around online than I ought to either.
- mymythisisthis 8y ago
  Stop prioritizing cars!!! More bicycles and walking. F cars!
  - Fricken 8y ago
    I can see why you're being downvoted. Netherlands, that cycling paradise is the only 1st world nation where obesity rates are on the decline. https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/dutch-turn-around-obesity-epidemic-trend-329090.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/dutch-turn-around-obes...
    - nradov 8y ago
      I don't think Netherlands is the only 1st world nation to cut their obesity rate. Japan has also done it. https://mic.com/articles/84521/japan-has-cut-obesity-to-3-5-in-a-controversial-way-that-wouldn-t-fly-in-america https://mic.com/articles/84521/japan-has-cut-obesity-to-3-5-...
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Lack of time because we must sit tweeting and posting selfies 7 hours a day. Everyone has 24 hours, if you cannot take 1 hour from that for arguably the most important thing for your health...
- darawk 8y ago
  But let me ask you this: if you haven't posted to instagram in the last hour, are you really alive? And isn't being alive the most important aspect of health?
  - ahje 8y ago
    Indeed! You can't really post a picture showing how awesome your life is when dashing up the stairs. It's quite possible to get an hour of good exersize walking the dog though and that is definitely something you can brag about. #zenlife (please, don't hurt me)
pizza 8y ago
Don't remember where I heard it but once someone remarked that if President Obama could make time for an hour a day for exercise, then most people (which is to say, people not buried under their work or facing other difficult challenges) probably can come up with a better excuse than simply not having the time.
- lordnacho 8y ago
  The thing is a managerial schedule has a lot of autonomy. The president decides when all the meetings are. Even ambassadors will move their appointments around to see you if you're POTUS. Similarly for a lot of these tough-guy manager stories, they aren't doing anything that requires deep thinking like debugging TCP stacks.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dsego 8y ago
    I don't buy this. Just make yourself unavailable and make it non-negotiable.
    - notfromhere 8y ago
      In a managerial role you can mold your schedule to your life, rather than your life to your schedule. You can have non-negotiable meetings and shift things around all you want if you have that kind of authority. But a lot of every day folks don't have the kind of work autonomy to have their schedule match their preferences
- kumarvvr 8y ago
  Even when he works out, he is probably working indirectly, like perhaps he has aides with him, doing, scheduling or what have you. It's unfair to compare the average Joe to the POTUS. The POTUS has an army of aides to help him in his duties and he is expected to maintain good health. A better way to approach the problem is to help people identify where there is a waste of time happening and guiding them to reduce that. Personally I feel that smartphones have robbed us of our free time. They have seriously reduced our attention spans, have been feeding us endless information, most of which is useless and have made us borderline addicts. To maintain a healthier lifestyle and find more time per day, I would seriously consider ditching the smartphone and make do with a feature phone.
cominous 8y ago
The problem is, that even after a 1-minute workout, I need to take a shower and change my clothes if I want to stay 8+ more hours with other people.
- alien_ 8y ago
  Yes, that's why you should incorporate it in your morning routine right right after waking up, while still wearing the pajamas and then take a shower.
- rlue 8y ago
  Is that also true for a 20-second dash up the stairs, as suggested in the original article?
- lm28469 8y ago
  My question might sound aggressive but I've always been fascinated by seemingly smart people making that kind of point. Are you saying that having to take a shower is enough of an annoyance that you'd skip on a life time of benefits in almost every measurable health / well being metrics ?
lordnacho 8y ago
I've often wondered if would help me to do an all-out 1K row right before bedtime, each day. I guess it would take 3:30 or so, maybe 3:00 if I really smash it. The times I've done that I've felt extremely tired afterwards, and had to have a good long rest.
- maaaats 8y ago
  How would regularly performing at max without a warmup affect tendons etc.?
  - lordnacho 8y ago
    Is there evidence this is bad for you?
baxtr 8y ago
His newest study finds that dashing up a staircase for just 20 seconds, repeated a few times a day, can measurably improve your fitness. Well, but doing this “a few” times, let’s say 3x, results in... 1 min. Where’s the news?
sharmi 8y ago
This was initially as a response to wattengard. But I realized more people would benefit from this, so posting as a top comment. I just wanted to post some options to workout from home. So it cuts down atleast on the time to drive out the gym and driving back. And if done in the morning also avoids the extra shower :) Please note that other than having used these videos, I have no other affiliation to both these options. Both are free resources. FitnessBlender[1] has >500 workout videos. The best part is, these videos are tagged by their difficulty from level 1 to level 5. You can jump into any workout at any level. If it is overwhelming or underwhelming, you can adjust accordingly. At my weakest even a level 2 workout was killing. Then I had moved upto a level 4 or short level 5 workout. You can do all the exercises with a dumbbell or bodyweight. Lost nearly 20kg using this. Then I got careless and let slip. Now I am starting back at level 3. I used to make my own workout plan, putting together the workouts that I liked. They also have paid workout programs that makes all the planning much easier. 100Pushups.net[2] and its associated pullups, situps running etc. These are just text resources that give you a detailed plan on how to progress from a single pushup(or none) and slowly build up until you can ultimately do 100. (The tracking app was added later and I have not used it.) It is purely bodyweight. You do need a pullup bar. I tried it for a short period and started seeing results in a very short period. But somehow working out with the video was a lot more motivating and I pushed myself more, than working out alone following some plan on paper. So I went back to FitnessBlender again. Yet, I feel, if you are good at pushing yourself, then this would be a good option. Other please, share at-home workouts that have worked for you. [1] https://www.fitnessblender.com/videos https://www.fitnessblender.com/videos [2] http://www.100pushups.net/ http://www.100pushups.net/
AllegedAlec 8y ago
It's not a 'lack of time' why people don't exercise, they don't make time to do it. I totally understand why: it's so much easier and convenient to not do it, and for a very long time, you don't notice it all that much if you don't if you fail to do any exercise; it's only afters a long time of being sedentary and then having to do something slightly intensive you notice that all your strength and stamina is gone. It's not lack of time; it's that people do not actively feel how badly their bodies deteriorate when they do not exercise, since it goes so slowly, and they do not do any exercise, so they also never really find out until it has become a real problem. If people would feel how bad it was not to exercise, they would be much more accommodating in their immensely busy schedules and actually take time out of their day to do so.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  Once you cross certain threshold in fitness, and keep that level for some time, it becomes painfully obvious when you stop and almost immediately start losing all that hard gained strength, stamina, flexibility etc. Relatively high fitness level is such a great feeling from oneself, it also positively affects your mind and mood. Every time I stop for whatever reason (ie travelling, sickness) I hate it, and also remember how hard it is to get back.
sygma 8y ago
I wonder if this is what a Minimum Viable Workout (MVW) would look like. I’m not trying to make my exercise life more efficient (I think time spent in the gym without a phone helps me disconnect), but because sometimes the effort barrier is too high for me and I fall into periods of inactivity. So I would find it appealing to maintain a baseline of fitness with a “no excuses” MVW.
drieddust 8y ago
> Still, the stair-climbing protocol isn’t just about time, he says. It should also “remind people that ‘exercise’ does not have to involve changing into spandex, going to the gym and making an hour time commitment.” The volunteers in the new study, he notes, didn’t don workout gear or shower afterwards; it was just a brief moment in their normal daily routine. I completely agree to this one. Ritual of going to Gym becomes a big procrastion.
vijay_nair 8y ago
Four years ago I went looking for the fastest way to cut down my weight and ended up comparing different modes of running on Wolfram Alpha. Turns out increasing the incline was the most effective at burning energy, almost 3X or 300% at 30° incline¹ which is bonkers. I couldn't mod my treadmill to get any significant amount of incline but quickly landed on the idea of using my staircase and thus began a 4 hour regimen (10:30 pm to 2:30 am) of running up and down 25 steps 120+ times. It was highly effective (96 kg to 83 kg) but I blew out my knees and right ankle after 4 months of this, forcing me to stop. It also was a problem when my neighbour's wife kept peeking through their door to let me know they didn't appreciate all that clacking at 1 in the morning. 4 years later I'm holding onto the same level I reached back then (84 kg) and I'd love to do it again and get it down by another 10 kg in an intense two-month sprint. But I get cold feet every time I think about it. I'm taking Vit. C now to boost collagen so my joints should fare better the next time I try it. The lawyer and his wife have also moved out which is another annoyance taken care of. Whether I can resist the urge to push hard after seeing the results is the question. ¹https://imgur.com/a/DAvovYA https://imgur.com/a/DAvovYA
- lm28469 8y ago
  It sounds very tough on your joints, did you consider swimming ? Cycling ? Rowing machines ? It's not all about the numbers, the only diets / workouts that work are the ones you can keep as a lifestyle.
  - vijay_nair 8y ago
    Swimming ticks all the right boxes for me but the nearest pool is a bit far from here and I wasn't sure about the quality of water and general upkeep. If those variables can be controlled swimming is definitely the best way to get a full-body workout without taxing the joints. Just the fact that I don't end up a sweaty mess with an extra load of laundry after each workout is a major win for me. Only problem is I don't trust the people running the pools here. Edit: Tried cycling for a few years but it ended up not being safe early in the morning with a few politically-motivated murders on my route. My current workout is just lifting weights + mountain climbers¹. Hasn't rocked my world but they do help me maintain status quo. ¹https://youtu.be/nmwgirgXLYM?t=40 https://youtu.be/nmwgirgXLYM?t=40
sifoobar 8y ago
I wish this was a joke, but here we are. Luckily I have a better alternative for you; find a meaningful physical activity that you enjoy doing instead, and sit back and watch your priorities take care of the rest. I have a wooden man [0] and a sand bag in my living room, which means the barrier to training is basically non-existing. And its a kind of training I enjoy, because it leads somewhere and strengthens the body in a non-artificial way. I'll do five minutes here, ten there; with the occasional late night 2 hour session. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbUoSxee0I&t=21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbUoSxee0I&t=21s
bunderbunder 8y ago
I think I might prefer the opinion of this other Canadian researcher: it's way too hard to incorporate physical activity into your regular activities. https://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2019/01/23/it-is-still-way-too-hard-to-be-physically-active/ https://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2019/01/23/it-is-still...
Scumbarge 8y ago
My two cents on the "enough time to work out" topic: I work eight hours a day on grunt level marketing stuff, in an open office. I used to do power lifting, but between this job, online programming classes, and trying to maintain a relationship with my wife, this dropped off. Something that helped me immensely was just bringing a couple 25-pound dumbbells to work, leaving them by a pile of junk behind the building, and ducking out for a "smoke break" every 2 hours or so, during which I spend 5 intense minutes systematically annihilating every muscle group I can. The "best" workout is the one you can consistently do. Pros: Takes maybe 20 minutes a day and I'm doing it on company time, but I don't feel bad about it because I don't smoke and it clears my mind to focus on more PPC drudgery. Cons: None. Bring dumbbells to work tomorrow and hide them behind your junk pile.
- kuhhk 8y ago
  Someone left their dumbdells at my old office, and it became community use. Approximately every hour, I'd get up, stretch, do some pushups, and dumbell workouts. Didn't need to hide it, nobody cared.

101 points by helloworld 8y ago

The reason this matters is that “lack of time” often crops up as an excuse when scientists try to figure out why so few of us get as much exercise as we know we should. Gibala and others have been whittling away at this excuse for more than a decade now, designing ever more time-efficient workouts. The solution to the "I don't have enough time" problem is not to make shorter and shorter workouts, but to encourage a cultural shift away from constant media distractions and pointless hyper-productivity posturing. No one is too busy to spend 30 minutes exercising 3 times a week. Ditto for the obesity crisis - the solution isn't to make less caloric foods, it's to change the culture of excessive portion sizes and sedentary lifestyles.

ClassyJacket 8y ago
I feel like the actual solution is to gamify it in such a way that it keels you competing with friends for the sake of winning. Fitbit's ranking system has definitely increased the amount of exercise I get.
- Insanity 8y ago
  I don't really compete with anyone, but I am using google fit since two months ago. I was swimming and going to the gym since a couple of years ago before that, but I feel more motivated now just for getting the stats. It's silly, but not unlike trying to get green squares on GitHub.
  - mateuszf 8y ago
    From a different point of view you are actually competing, but with yourself :-)
    - nradov 8y ago
      Garmin uses the phrase "Beat Yesterday" in their fitness tracker advertisements. Every day try to get a little faster.
- noir_lord 8y ago
  Back when I cycled in a group Strava had a similar effect, you could see how many miles your friends had gotten in and would want to beat it (same with the mini time trials (strava segments) but they got dangerous with people doing stupid things to 'win'. These days I ride alone and the only number I care about is my total for last week.
- ctchocula 8y ago
  I agree with this. I did running a few years ago, but stopped because it got too boring and I didn't notice any improvement. However, I recently got into Pokemon Go, which has an egg hatching concept. It rewards you with Pokemon with better stats, but you need to walk/run/bike 5km in order to get it to hatch. This has given me new motivation to run again.
- Fricken 8y ago
  You can also gamify exercise with your friends by playing soccer, or basketball, or Ultimate. It has the added benefit of being fun.
- nradov 8y ago
  Sign up for an actual "game" like a local 5km running race. If you want to place well in the race that's good motivation to get out and train every week.
xwvvvvwx 8y ago
Ditto for the obesity crisis - the solution isn't to make less caloric foods, it's to change the culture of excessive portion sizes and sedentary lifestyles. Agree that our sedentary lifestyles are a significant contributing factor to obesity, but you have it backwards about portion sizes. Calorie dense (palatable) foods trigger our the reward centers in our brain more than non-palatable foods, and actually make us more hungry. This is an evolved survival strategy. If you look at hunter gatherer diets, they will eat huge portions of extremely high calorie foods when they are available (e.g. drinking whole glasses of honey). They don't put on a lot of weight because they are more active, and don't have daily access to high calorie foods. This means that large portions (and by extension obesity) are caused by the easy availability and low cost of high calorie foods. Telling people to eat less doesn't work because the systems that trigger hunger and fat retention work at a subconscious level and are in general more powerful than the conscious mind. The food environment that we have built up around us is a bad one for human beings. If you want to learn more about how our hunger and fat regulation systems work then I can highly recommend "The Hungry Brain" by Stephan Guyenet [1]. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Brain-Outsmarting-Instincts-Overeat/dp/125008119X https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Brain-Outsmarting-Instincts-Ov...
- keiferski 8y ago
  I really don't think it needs to be that complicated. French cuisine, for example, is full of butter, fat, wine, and other theoretically unhealthy foods. Yet the French have dramatically lower rates of obesity than the Americans, and recent increases in the French obesity rate are mostly due to Americanization / a drift from traditional French food culture. I obviously don't have the data, but I think it's simply because meals are traditionally "sacred" in French culture (that is, you don't eat snacks in between meals) and because portion sizes are much, much smaller than the American equivalent.
  - kortilla 8y ago
    What about the relative levels of appetite suppressants (e.g. smoking) between the two cultures?
wattengard 8y ago
Considering that a 30 minute workout often incorporates, getting dressed (5 min), driving to the gym (20 min), working out (30 min), driving home (20 min), taking a shower (15 min), being so exhausted that the rest of the night is down the drain.... The 30 minute workout is a myth...
- tomp 8y ago
  buy an exercise mat (£5), search "low impact HIIT workout" on YouTube, follow the video just before your normal daily shower time (presumably you shower at least 3 times a week?)... it's just a matter of priorities, really.
- A2017U1 8y ago
  My mid-range apartment has a gym, it's 30 seconds away from the front door and I shower at home without fear of foot fungus. I still don't exercise anywhere near as much as I should. Perhaps the tyranny of distance is the myth?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- BattyMilk 8y ago
  If you're time starved and trying to work out like this, you're doing it wrong. There are much more time efficient ways to get some exercise. Rather than driving 20 minutes each way to the gym, just put on some shoes and run/walk from your front door. You've saved 40 minutes and a bunch of money. Plus, if your goal is to lose weight, you've a far more effective workout. Walk/run/bike to work. I've completed 2 Ironman triathlons and 75% of my training was done on my commute (my shortest route to work is 8 miles but I can take different routes and make it as long as I want) with hardly any impact (other than exhaustion) on my personal or professional life.
  - tapland 8y ago
    Walking is not effective for weight loss. Then there would be nothing left of me while working as a checker at a warehouse (35000 steps/day)
collyw 8y ago
The reason I cycle almost everywhere is because its the fastest way around a dense city and it saves me time in most cases.
weavie 8y ago
This is very much embodying the spirit of Kaizen, that of making continuous small improvements. To someone who does no exercise at all the thought of doing a whole 30 minutes of exercise is just too overwhelming for them that they will just keep putting it off and never get started. But maybe if it is just 1 minute, that would be enough for them to stomach and get them started. Once they have got 1 minute under their belt, they will be much more likely to go for 5 minutes and from that 30 minutes. I quite often find that mantra of 'one more minute' really helps me to deal with arduous tasks and fight distraction. When I want to give up on something because it is too tough or boring and I just want to surf reddit instead, I tell myself, ok, just do 1 more minute of this and then give up. Often it is all I need to get over the hump and keep going.
- dsego 8y ago
  You need to set yourself up for success. If I'm postponing going out for a run, I may just put my running outfit and shoes next to my bed so it's in my sight when I wake up. If I'm getting fat I may just stop buying sugary foods to limit access. And so on, making it easy to do the right thing and harder to slip.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- raverbashing 8y ago
  You are definitely not wrong, and some people will just be overwhelmed to think that they will start in the gym in "full throttle" (and some trainers encourage this - I suppose they like high attrition) but it seems to be that 1 min is too short.
erfgh 8y ago
I have two small children that I raise while both me and my wife are working 40 hours per week. Trust me, there is no time for the exercise that you describe. Also, what you say is misleading. Exercising for 30 minutes means that you also need to prepare, have a shower afterwards and it also means that you will require more sleep. If you add all those up it means that those 30 minutes are closer to an hour, if not more. I know; I was a 30-40 km per week runner until my second child got born.
- pqs 8y ago
  If you do strength training at home, as I do with two kids too, you don't need much preparation. I just take off my t-shirt, do some pull ups, push ups, squats, etc. following a well thought plan, and most of the time the shower is not needed. You don't even need to do all the exercises in the same time slot. You can do pushups as you watch your baby, a few pull ups while your watch your son wash his teeth, etc. Not changing, not much preparation. I apply this method and it is amazing how stronger and leaner I am now. And doing pushups, some cardio is also done. I do cardio while bicycling to the office (no clothes changes needed again; maybe just the t-shirt in summer), and walk up the office and home stairs (4 floors in both cases) two steps at a time.
  - BerislavLopac 8y ago
    > following a well thought plan This is a much bigger hurdle than it might seem; at any rate the biggest one for me personally. I have absolutely no idea how to create an exercise plan for myself, which exercises should I do and in which combination. And additionally, even if I had such a plan, I have no idea how to measure my progress, or whether and how to modify the plan depending on the progress.
    - conistonwater 8y ago
      There are pre-prepared plans that you can follow, like https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend...
    - 8y ago
dare0505 8y ago
It's not only about having "enough time". These "short time" approaches are amazing for "making" time. Every major habit I started, I first started doing a few minutes a day, then it naturally came to me to EXTEND it to a longer period of time. This is an aspect it seems many people forget.
mauvehaus 8y ago
And yet, here we are, discussing it on the internet, and arguing about whether the researcher is right or whether there's a different/better solution. I'm not claiming you're wrong, but I'm not going to raise my hand and claim that I don't spend more time fooling around online than I ought to either.
mymythisisthis 8y ago
Stop prioritizing cars!!! More bicycles and walking. F cars!
- Fricken 8y ago
  I can see why you're being downvoted. Netherlands, that cycling paradise is the only 1st world nation where obesity rates are on the decline. https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/dutch-turn-around-obesity-epidemic-trend-329090.html https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/dutch-turn-around-obes...
  - nradov 8y ago
    I don't think Netherlands is the only 1st world nation to cut their obesity rate. Japan has also done it. https://mic.com/articles/84521/japan-has-cut-obesity-to-3-5-in-a-controversial-way-that-wouldn-t-fly-in-america https://mic.com/articles/84521/japan-has-cut-obesity-to-3-5-...

onetimemanytime 8y ago

Lack of time because we must sit tweeting and posting selfies 7 hours a day. Everyone has 24 hours, if you cannot take 1 hour from that for arguably the most important thing for your health...

darawk 8y ago
But let me ask you this: if you haven't posted to instagram in the last hour, are you really alive? And isn't being alive the most important aspect of health?
- ahje 8y ago
  Indeed! You can't really post a picture showing how awesome your life is when dashing up the stairs. It's quite possible to get an hour of good exersize walking the dog though and that is definitely something you can brag about. #zenlife (please, don't hurt me)

pizza 8y ago

Don't remember where I heard it but once someone remarked that if President Obama could make time for an hour a day for exercise, then most people (which is to say, people not buried under their work or facing other difficult challenges) probably can come up with a better excuse than simply not having the time.

lordnacho 8y ago
The thing is a managerial schedule has a lot of autonomy. The president decides when all the meetings are. Even ambassadors will move their appointments around to see you if you're POTUS. Similarly for a lot of these tough-guy manager stories, they aren't doing anything that requires deep thinking like debugging TCP stacks.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dsego 8y ago
  I don't buy this. Just make yourself unavailable and make it non-negotiable.
  - notfromhere 8y ago
    In a managerial role you can mold your schedule to your life, rather than your life to your schedule. You can have non-negotiable meetings and shift things around all you want if you have that kind of authority. But a lot of every day folks don't have the kind of work autonomy to have their schedule match their preferences
kumarvvr 8y ago
Even when he works out, he is probably working indirectly, like perhaps he has aides with him, doing, scheduling or what have you. It's unfair to compare the average Joe to the POTUS. The POTUS has an army of aides to help him in his duties and he is expected to maintain good health. A better way to approach the problem is to help people identify where there is a waste of time happening and guiding them to reduce that. Personally I feel that smartphones have robbed us of our free time. They have seriously reduced our attention spans, have been feeding us endless information, most of which is useless and have made us borderline addicts. To maintain a healthier lifestyle and find more time per day, I would seriously consider ditching the smartphone and make do with a feature phone.

cominous 8y ago

The problem is, that even after a 1-minute workout, I need to take a shower and change my clothes if I want to stay 8+ more hours with other people.

alien_ 8y ago
Yes, that's why you should incorporate it in your morning routine right right after waking up, while still wearing the pajamas and then take a shower.
rlue 8y ago
Is that also true for a 20-second dash up the stairs, as suggested in the original article?
lm28469 8y ago
My question might sound aggressive but I've always been fascinated by seemingly smart people making that kind of point. Are you saying that having to take a shower is enough of an annoyance that you'd skip on a life time of benefits in almost every measurable health / well being metrics ?

lordnacho 8y ago

I've often wondered if would help me to do an all-out 1K row right before bedtime, each day. I guess it would take 3:30 or so, maybe 3:00 if I really smash it. The times I've done that I've felt extremely tired afterwards, and had to have a good long rest.

maaaats 8y ago
How would regularly performing at max without a warmup affect tendons etc.?
- lordnacho 8y ago
  Is there evidence this is bad for you?

baxtr 8y ago

His newest study finds that dashing up a staircase for just 20 seconds, repeated a few times a day, can measurably improve your fitness. Well, but doing this “a few” times, let’s say 3x, results in... 1 min. Where’s the news?

sharmi 8y ago

This was initially as a response to wattengard. But I realized more people would benefit from this, so posting as a top comment. I just wanted to post some options to workout from home. So it cuts down atleast on the time to drive out the gym and driving back. And if done in the morning also avoids the extra shower :) Please note that other than having used these videos, I have no other affiliation to both these options. Both are free resources. FitnessBlender[1] has >500 workout videos. The best part is, these videos are tagged by their difficulty from level 1 to level 5. You can jump into any workout at any level. If it is overwhelming or underwhelming, you can adjust accordingly. At my weakest even a level 2 workout was killing. Then I had moved upto a level 4 or short level 5 workout. You can do all the exercises with a dumbbell or bodyweight. Lost nearly 20kg using this. Then I got careless and let slip. Now I am starting back at level 3. I used to make my own workout plan, putting together the workouts that I liked. They also have paid workout programs that makes all the planning much easier. 100Pushups.net[2] and its associated pullups, situps running etc. These are just text resources that give you a detailed plan on how to progress from a single pushup(or none) and slowly build up until you can ultimately do 100. (The tracking app was added later and I have not used it.) It is purely bodyweight. You do need a pullup bar. I tried it for a short period and started seeing results in a very short period. But somehow working out with the video was a lot more motivating and I pushed myself more, than working out alone following some plan on paper. So I went back to FitnessBlender again. Yet, I feel, if you are good at pushing yourself, then this would be a good option. Other please, share at-home workouts that have worked for you. [1] https://www.fitnessblender.com/videos https://www.fitnessblender.com/videos [2] http://www.100pushups.net/ http://www.100pushups.net/

AllegedAlec 8y ago

It's not a 'lack of time' why people don't exercise, they don't make time to do it. I totally understand why: it's so much easier and convenient to not do it, and for a very long time, you don't notice it all that much if you don't if you fail to do any exercise; it's only afters a long time of being sedentary and then having to do something slightly intensive you notice that all your strength and stamina is gone. It's not lack of time; it's that people do not actively feel how badly their bodies deteriorate when they do not exercise, since it goes so slowly, and they do not do any exercise, so they also never really find out until it has become a real problem. If people would feel how bad it was not to exercise, they would be much more accommodating in their immensely busy schedules and actually take time out of their day to do so.

saiya-jin 8y ago
Once you cross certain threshold in fitness, and keep that level for some time, it becomes painfully obvious when you stop and almost immediately start losing all that hard gained strength, stamina, flexibility etc. Relatively high fitness level is such a great feeling from oneself, it also positively affects your mind and mood. Every time I stop for whatever reason (ie travelling, sickness) I hate it, and also remember how hard it is to get back.

sygma 8y ago

I wonder if this is what a Minimum Viable Workout (MVW) would look like. I’m not trying to make my exercise life more efficient (I think time spent in the gym without a phone helps me disconnect), but because sometimes the effort barrier is too high for me and I fall into periods of inactivity. So I would find it appealing to maintain a baseline of fitness with a “no excuses” MVW.

drieddust 8y ago

> Still, the stair-climbing protocol isn’t just about time, he says. It should also “remind people that ‘exercise’ does not have to involve changing into spandex, going to the gym and making an hour time commitment.” The volunteers in the new study, he notes, didn’t don workout gear or shower afterwards; it was just a brief moment in their normal daily routine. I completely agree to this one. Ritual of going to Gym becomes a big procrastion.

vijay_nair 8y ago

Four years ago I went looking for the fastest way to cut down my weight and ended up comparing different modes of running on Wolfram Alpha. Turns out increasing the incline was the most effective at burning energy, almost 3X or 300% at 30° incline¹ which is bonkers. I couldn't mod my treadmill to get any significant amount of incline but quickly landed on the idea of using my staircase and thus began a 4 hour regimen (10:30 pm to 2:30 am) of running up and down 25 steps 120+ times. It was highly effective (96 kg to 83 kg) but I blew out my knees and right ankle after 4 months of this, forcing me to stop. It also was a problem when my neighbour's wife kept peeking through their door to let me know they didn't appreciate all that clacking at 1 in the morning. 4 years later I'm holding onto the same level I reached back then (84 kg) and I'd love to do it again and get it down by another 10 kg in an intense two-month sprint. But I get cold feet every time I think about it. I'm taking Vit. C now to boost collagen so my joints should fare better the next time I try it. The lawyer and his wife have also moved out which is another annoyance taken care of. Whether I can resist the urge to push hard after seeing the results is the question. ¹https://imgur.com/a/DAvovYA https://imgur.com/a/DAvovYA

lm28469 8y ago
It sounds very tough on your joints, did you consider swimming ? Cycling ? Rowing machines ? It's not all about the numbers, the only diets / workouts that work are the ones you can keep as a lifestyle.
- vijay_nair 8y ago
  Swimming ticks all the right boxes for me but the nearest pool is a bit far from here and I wasn't sure about the quality of water and general upkeep. If those variables can be controlled swimming is definitely the best way to get a full-body workout without taxing the joints. Just the fact that I don't end up a sweaty mess with an extra load of laundry after each workout is a major win for me. Only problem is I don't trust the people running the pools here. Edit: Tried cycling for a few years but it ended up not being safe early in the morning with a few politically-motivated murders on my route. My current workout is just lifting weights + mountain climbers¹. Hasn't rocked my world but they do help me maintain status quo. ¹https://youtu.be/nmwgirgXLYM?t=40 https://youtu.be/nmwgirgXLYM?t=40

sifoobar 8y ago

I wish this was a joke, but here we are. Luckily I have a better alternative for you; find a meaningful physical activity that you enjoy doing instead, and sit back and watch your priorities take care of the rest. I have a wooden man [0] and a sand bag in my living room, which means the barrier to training is basically non-existing. And its a kind of training I enjoy, because it leads somewhere and strengthens the body in a non-artificial way. I'll do five minutes here, ten there; with the occasional late night 2 hour session. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbUoSxee0I&t=21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSbUoSxee0I&t=21s

bunderbunder 8y ago

I think I might prefer the opinion of this other Canadian researcher: it's way too hard to incorporate physical activity into your regular activities. https://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2019/01/23/it-is-still-way-too-hard-to-be-physically-active/ https://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2019/01/23/it-is-still...

Scumbarge 8y ago

My two cents on the "enough time to work out" topic: I work eight hours a day on grunt level marketing stuff, in an open office. I used to do power lifting, but between this job, online programming classes, and trying to maintain a relationship with my wife, this dropped off. Something that helped me immensely was just bringing a couple 25-pound dumbbells to work, leaving them by a pile of junk behind the building, and ducking out for a "smoke break" every 2 hours or so, during which I spend 5 intense minutes systematically annihilating every muscle group I can. The "best" workout is the one you can consistently do. Pros: Takes maybe 20 minutes a day and I'm doing it on company time, but I don't feel bad about it because I don't smoke and it clears my mind to focus on more PPC drudgery. Cons: None. Bring dumbbells to work tomorrow and hide them behind your junk pile.

kuhhk 8y ago
Someone left their dumbdells at my old office, and it became community use. Approximately every hour, I'd get up, stretch, do some pushups, and dumbell workouts. Didn't need to hide it, nobody cared.