Health Benefit of the Super-Mini Workout

Health Benefit of the Super-Mini Workout

 

30 Jan 2019

Hate exercising, but know it’s a sound way to better health? But it means driving to the gym, changing into spandex, hating the repetitive exercise, working up a sweat, showering and happy the ordeal is finished. If so, Martin Gibila, a Kinesiology professor at McMaster University, has the perfect excuse for staying home. Just get started on the 20 second super-mini workout. Then feel good you’re not part of the global inactivity epidemic that’s causing obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart attack.

Twelve inactive volunteers were asked to climb three flights of stairs as quickly as possible three times a day for six weeks. This required about 20 seconds! I’d say they must have been fairly young to be so speedy. The result? A 5 percent increase in aerobic fitness.

Such super-mini workouts won’t replace the benefits of lengthier ones. But remember, even a small improvement is better than none at all. And it’s not lack of time to exercise that prevents it. It’s simply that many people loathe exercising.