Is 7 minutes all it takes?

My boss is a fitness enthusiast and is always trying out new exercises and diet plans – she got me on to the 7-minute workout. This workout includes 12 exercises using your body weight, a wall (could be your office wall!) and a chair and is based on the premise that high intensity interval training (HIIT) provides many of the benefits of prolonged training in much lesser time. It has become a popular way of training to burn fat quickly.

This workout routine was first written about in the New York Times a few years ago, when it started making waves internationally. So much that the NY Times came up with their own version of the app! The original idea came from the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute in Florida and personal trainer Brett Klika.

This workout includes a series of 12 exercises with short rest periods in between:

How does it work?

These workouts focus on all major muscles and the good thing is that you don’t need to take a gym membership for you can do them at home and you need just a chair or a bench and wall! You need to perform each of these for 30 seconds, during which you can do reps and take breaks in-between for about 10 seconds before proceeding on to another exercise.

This 7-minute workout is not restricted to only 7 minutes and can range from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the workout you choose. There’s no ideal number of exercises as long as you make it count! The low-volume workout improves glucose metabolism, aerobic capacity, cardiopulmonary health & muscle endurance while decreasing body fat.

To get started, get a free mobile app that will tell you how to workout in 7-minutes and less or just follow YouTube videos. You can also follow this blog to get some additional and extremely helpful information to burn that belly fat.

Is it for you?

Many studies prove that 7-minute low-volume, HIIT may be as good as your regular 30-minute workout sesh! If you're someone who's been putting off going to the gym because you can't commit to strict timings, then this might be just right for you!

Does it really work?

I’m physically lean and no matter what I eat and how much I eat, I don’t ever gain kilos (yes, I’m blessed!), I still want to workout to improve my overall health. I make it a point to exercise after I go home after work and I’ve been doing this 7-minute workout regularly for about a year now. And trust me, the 7 minutes are not easy – in fact they could be the most uncomfortable 7 minutes of your day! But you will feel the workout and it’s as good as sweating it out on a cycle or a treadmill!

It might not bring a revolutionary change in the way you work out and you may not go from being a couch potato to a lean athlete, but it is a good form of exercise if you’re too busy or would like to workout at home. So, if you’re going to try it out, I would like to know how it was for you!

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