Richard Diaz

Get Fit in 60 Minutes Per Day (or less)



Posted: Friday, May 08, 2009

by Richard Diaz
diaz human performance LLC

This is an interesting topic for me, it conjures up headlines from the gossip magazines you can't help but gaze upon while in the check out line at the grocery store. "Firm buns in 7 minutes" or "The best fat burning secrets revealed"! Most of us realize that these headlines are come-ons to get us to buy magazines, I hope no one expects that they are going to change the way they look in a matter of minutes. The question is how much time do we really need to commit towards exercise to see appreciable changes in our weight and health? I was asked to shed some realism to this topic and I think this approach is simple and as real as it gets.

So, what things do we need to include in a well rounded fitness program and how can we keep our commitment to fitness while juggling our busy lives? Most experts would agree that there are four components that require attention in order to achieve "fitness". They are:

You might be thinking, "tell me something I don't know! Well, if you're like many people, who have jobs or kids or both, what you may not know is how to find the time to fit all of this into your hectic lifestyle. The number one complaint among adults who don't exercise is that they don't have time. I believe the more appropriate reason is that those who fail to make the time just don't have a plan that has worked for them thus far. Exercise is not rocket science. The more complicated that you make the task, the less likely you are to succeed. My advice is to follow the K.I.S.S. principle (keep it simple stupid)

Develop a plan . Sit down and think about your daily schedule and honestly ask yourself, when would be the ideal time to set aside just 60 minutes. Try and make this time in your day remain constant. Don't try and squeeze in an hour instead of lunch one day, after work the next, and some early mornings on other days. Commit to a scheduled hour of exercise at the same time of day at least five days per week. If you need to lose weight, make that seven days per week.

If you make the argument that you get home too late and you wake up to early, I suggest you give up some of the down time you may be spending in the evenings staring at the television and get to bed earlier. If you hit the sack an hour earlier, you can gain that hour in the morning, it's as simple as that.

Find the discipline . Usually exercise discipline comes from lots of short term goals. Tell yourself, you're going to stick with it for two weeks without missing one session. This way it does not seem so daunting. It's no longer about changing your lifestyle which seems all but too late! It's just two weeks. Generally after these two weeks of dedication you'll feel empowered and you'll be more apt to continue for another two weeks.

Prepare yourself. If you have to get up real early, set your exercise clothes out the night before so you don't waste valuable time trying to get out the door. Next, make sure you have the right things available in the refrigerator so that you don't make poor food choices. It may be wise to start packing a lunch to take to work with you or even pre-preparing dinner meals so that you have the right food choices ready to go when you get home.

Now that you have a schedule and are well prepared to embark on your fitness quest you need to ask yourself some more pointed questions;

If you are overweight and out of shape, begin with walking. I recommend avoiding a treadmill if possible. Walking outdoors is better exercise than walking on a treadmill. Walking outdoors is "rate dependant work" where walking on a treadmill is "rate independent work". What this means is that in order to move forward, you must engage more muscles to accomplish the task, on a treadmill the belt moves without your help and you simply keep up with the movement which actually takes less effort.

Cardiovascular exercise is the heaviest burden on the clock; dedicate 70% of your hour to whatever exercise you take on to fill this important component of your fitness regimen. Regardless whether you're walking, jogging, or riding a bike, if your primary concern is weight management, be sure to put in the time.

Keep your strength training simple. If you belong to a gym you have plenty of options. Personally, I love training outdoors; even in our facility most of our functional strength training occurs outdoors. Consider the benefits; generally all you need to do is walk out your front door, develop a route that your comfortable with for safety sake, maybe even have a few different options, one with some hills and one that is reasonably flat and away you go. Think of the time you saved not having to get in your car and drive to a training site such as a gym.

Address your body as a whole instead of isolating muscles this approach to training is how body builders exercise. I don't recommend following this style of training. It is complicated, and it detracts from a functional theme which is what I believe is going to provide you what you really need. Over the past 20 years that I have trained people for fitness, they typically tell me "I don't want to bulk up, I just want to tone". To tone muscle it needs to be worked.

Perform the up's

The key to performing these exercises is "leverage". For example if you are vertically challenged and can not pull yourself up, you can use some simple cheats to assist you. We employ a very large rubber band that we attach to an overhead chin bar and place one foot into the bottom of the loop, much like a stirrup which helps to off set some of our body weight and compensates for our weakness. As you become stronger, you simply perform more repetitions or a smaller rubber band. With push ups you can work first from bended knees until you gain the strength to hold your entire body weight up.

Step ups are easy to manage in that you can work from a lower to a more challenging height and finally, add some external load. Sit ups are also an exercise in where you can limit your body weight by changing the lever point.

Each of these four exercises is highly effective and involves groups of muscles rather than isolating muscles and this should always be your goal. Attaching the body from a global perspective saves time and builds functional strength. In the beginning they are very challenging but if you employ the correct leverage you can manage the amount of actual work you have to perform. Over time as you become stronger (and you will) you can improve the level of difficulty and you'll find that even as simple an approach as I have portrayed you will derive significant improvements in your fitness.

The strength portion of your fitness hour can be extremely effective within just 15 minutes. Four exercises, performed four times for up to 15 repetitions each. If you do the math, that's 60 sit-ups, push ups, chin ups and step ups. If you take one minute to perform each set of 15 repetitions and take one minute rest between each set, you've exercised for 8 minutes. If you struggle and rest you can add 7 more minutes to complete the task.

So there you have it; a no cost, easy to remember, highly effective exercise program. It may lack the flashy headline drama and romance perceived in the tabloids but they're goal is to sell magazines; my goal is to help you get in shape!

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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Jami Wright
 3 years 14 days ago.
8 fans.
Good article, I do the ups in the evening on the commercials and during the day I find five minutes every hour to do cardio exercise.
» left by Anonymous
 3 years 14 days ago.
Great stuff!
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