Let’s Go Back to the Seven Minute Workout
When I first heard about the seven minute workout, I thought it was a great idea. But then I did it and couldn’t freeze. It looked too simple on paper, and yet the side trims at the end were killer. I couldn’t keep up with it, even though it was designed to give you a day’s workout in just a few minutes, allowing everyone to stay in shape with a simple routine.
This month at the Lifehacker Fitness Challenge, we return to classic home workouts from Lifehacker history. The Seven Minute Workout was a blockbuster hit in 2013, first published in the May / June issue of ACSM’s Health and Fitness Journal and brought to the public’s attention shortly thereafter in an article in the New York Times .
The New York Times explained that this workout “essentially combines a long run and a visit to the gym for about seven minutes of constant discomfort – all based on scientific evidence.” The hack was born .
So, I tried it again today. I am stronger now than I was in 2013, so I secretly hoped that I would be better in training than when I first tried it. It was a little easier, but still frustrating in many ways.
Let’s say you’re trying to do a 30 second push-up. If you can do, say, 15 push-ups, you could get muscle failure before time runs out. Do you rest the rest of the time? Or should you force yourself to do a few more reps? The timing was still a little strange.
The whole workout was challenging for my upper body and core, but easy for my legs. 30 seconds of lunges and 30 seconds of squats on the wall is far from the level of effort of 30 seconds of push-ups and 30 seconds of push-ups. The workout authors are both men, and I can’t help thinking that if it was developed by women or a mixed team, it would be more balanced for those of us with less upper body muscles.
I know some people love the idea of short workouts, but I have a big problem with them: if something makes me sweat, I’ll want to change into my workout clothes, including a washable sports bra. So then add five minutes of dressing to either end of your seven minute workout and maybe even a shower. That being said, the short duration of the workout makes me feel stupid rather than effective.
But maybe it’s just me. So tell me: if you’ve ever tried a seven minute workout, have you stuck with it? If you are a devotee, I want to hear why you like this. And whether you have tried it before or not, what do you think of it now?