The 7-Minute Workout Too Good To Be True?

The workout is done at barf-inducing intensity, so the sedentary people who take it up will, mostly likely, crash and burn.



Hey, have you heard about the new “scientific” 7-minute workout? It’s making big news. Big enough that this is the second article I’ve been asked to write about it in just a few days.

I’ll sum up the current hype in one word: bullsh*t. 

If you want to get some background, here is The New York Times' half-assed reporting of the workout. Note that there is a big difference between reporting and investigation. If you want to go directly to the article, it was just published in the American College of Sport Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal.

So let’s start with picking a few holes before getting deep into the bullsh*ttery. First, NYT got everyone all worked up by attaching the word “scientific” to this workout. That one word made it seem like this was some kind of massive study done in a lab by researchers with Ph.Ds in disciplines like exercise science, metabolism and biomechanics, and conducted a double-blind study with controls, and published it in a peer-reviewed journal.

Yeah, not quite.

The official journal of the ACSM is called Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise. This article was published in the ACSM’s magazine, calledHealth & Fitness Journal. Pretty big difference there. And with no offense intended toward the authors of the piece, they’re not researchers (neither am I). One has a bachelor’s of science and the other a master’s. No Ph.Ds. No controlled study going on here. These guys are trainers who have read some studies and shared some client anecdotes.

Basically, these guys came up with a quickie way to sneak in a workout, and the NYT blew it out of proportion as all kinds of awesome. Then the internet took over, and now I'm here to tell everyone to just calm the hell down.

Let’s go back to the first article I wrote about this for Chatelaine.com.Chatelaine is a women’s lifestyle magazine I write a weekly fitness column for, and I kept things light in that piece, pointing out how a couple of the recommended exercises weren’t so hot, and that the basic premise that caught everyone’s attention -- the whole seven-minutes thing -- is something that is attractive to people who don’t have time to work out. And there is the problem. The workout is done at barf-inducing intensity, so the sedentary people who take it up will, mostly likely, crash and burn.

This isn’t the original authors’ fault at all. Again, I’m not dissing these guys or their article. They were pretty clear on their intentions. They work with elite performers who travel a lot and sometimes need to cram in a quickie workout with no equipment just to help keep their (already elite) level of fitness from slipping. Well, I do take issue with their statements about howhigh-intensity circuit training “can be a fast and efficient way to lose body weight and body fat.”

Bear with me while I pick that weight-loss statement apart. They referenced four articles to back up that claim:

-The first one makes zero mention of fat loss.
-The second one is not only over 20 years old, but it’s only a study of EPOC (how much metabolism stays elevated after exercise), and that study shows that while EPOC may be higher for circuit weightlifting than for traditional weights, aerobic training is better for EPOC. What’s more, in the grand scheme of fat loss, EPOC doesn’t matter.
-In this study, diet was not controlled for, and only barely reported. What’s more, the high-intensity group may have lost the most weight, but the minimal reporting showed lower calorie intake as well. 

-Finally, we have another study that makes no mention of fat loss.

Like I said in the Chatelaine piece, weight loss is about controlling calorie intake, because unless you live to work out for several hours a day, you simply cannot out-exercise a bad diet, no matter how intense it is. Suggesting there is a new miracle exercise method for fat loss is bogus. It’s about burning more calories than you eat, and it’s a helluva lot easier to restrain intake than to burn them off. I know that it’s easy for me to eat 1,000 calories in 10 minutes, but it takes me at least an hour of very fast running to burn those same 1,000 calories.

But all this doesn’t get into the real bullsh*t. Again, this is not the original authors’ fault. I’ll repeat that they didn’t promote this workout as some kind of miracle workout method for the masses. Rather, they warned: “Caution should be taken when prescribing this protocol to individuals who are overweight/obese, detrained, previously injured, or elderly or for individuals with comorbidities.”

NYT did a quickie reporting job, called it scientific, and didn’t provide proper warning or context about whom this exercise is for and what it’s intended to do, and that’s where the bullsh*t took over.

This 7-minute workout is not the answer to losing weight. It is not the answer to your health and fitness woes. It does not apply to the average person. If you’re a couch potato looking to get in shape, this is not the way. People want it to be. “Seven-minute workout” is extremely compelling. That’s why people gobble up crap like six-second abs, 8 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes, three times a week, or four-hour bodies. Everyone wants maximum results with minimal investment.

Therein lies the bullsh*t. I’m not saying don’t be smart; there are effective ways to train efficiently. But significant outcome requires significant effort. Seven minutes a day is no way to achieve an impressive outcome. And you should target an impressive outcome. This is the only life you have and coasting through it in a mediocre shell is not exactly carpe-ing your diems. Believing in a quick fix is a toxic mindset. It sells exercise as a punishment to be endured to achieve a specific end, and such a mindset is not sustainable long term. If you want to really be fit and have a high-performance body, you need to embrace intense exercise and healthy eating as something you love doing and make it part of who you are. Relish in kicking ass day after day, and the amazing body comes as a happy byproduct.

I used to be fat, slow and weak. Because I eschewed quick fixes and decided to transform my thinking to embrace fitness as a righteously awesome lifestyle, I transformed my body into something lean, fast and strong.

The quick-fix mindset doesn’t transform your body. The relentless quest to be awesome is what changes things for the better. And awesome doesn’t come from just seven minutes a day.