Are lots of 10 minute workouts as good a longer ones?

[Carolyn B]

I keep puzzling over this, so I thought I would see what others think:

I often read that doing lots of short workouts - like three 10-minute workouts a day - is just as good as one longer workout.

This just doesn't sound reasonable to me. I guess that you could build muscle strength that way- and maybe burn some calories (like with a few short walks each day).

But what about heart capacity and muscle endurance? It seems the only way to achieve either of those things is with longer workouts.

So I have decided that this advice from the fitness/health community is a desperate attempt to get people to doing something as opposed to doing nothing by convincing them that they are getting a result. Which ultimately seems deceitful if they are making people believe that this is a worthwhile or effective way to get fit.

Any thoughts?

 

[RapidBreath]

thats for extreme newbies.

I'm using that tactic with my brother. He is the anti-exerciser. He even avoids stretching. But with his health being so poor I do tend to push on him (so far not much results.) Right now I'm trying to get him used to an easy 1 mile walk and 12 minutes of light stretching a la Bob Green and Oprah from about 15 years ago. The idea is to not intimidate the exerciser into being too scared to start. I would not recommend this to someone who really wants to make progress. I don't really understand the whole 10 min workout stuff. It takes me 10 minutes to warmup before I'm really cooking. And how are you supposed to get fried as Cathe would say in just 10 min? My metabolism would just laugh and stay low.

 

[Gayle]

Hi Carolyn - What kind of 10 minute workouts are being recommended?

The effectiveness of such an approach would depend a lot on at least two things:

1. The actual workout being performed
2. The goal of the individual doing the workout

Crossfit workouts can very often be less than 10 minutes in length, but they're meant to be performed at a pretty intense level of exertion. The amount of work over time performed by the individual in many of these workouts is substantial. So in the case of these workouts, yes, a conditioned individual can build strength and aerobic capacity in that short amount of time.

For example - Consider trying to do a half-"Cindy", which would be:
5 Pullups
10 Pushups
15 Squats
As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes

If you're doing the WOD as intended, which is a fast as possible with no breaks for 10 minutes, then you'll be pretty spent. Three of those in one day would be a workout that your whole body would feel the next morning.

 

[Carolyn B]

Hi Gayle,

That does look like it would tire a person out!

Most of the recommendations I see in fitness and women's magazines are much milder - like walking 10 minutes at lunch or parking your car away from the office so you have to walk to and from it. Better than nothing - definitely! - but not really a workout to build capacity.

 

[Gayle]

Most of the recommendations I see in fitness and women's magazines are much milder - like walking 10 minutes at lunch or parking your car away from the office so you have to walk to and from it. Better than nothing - definitely! - but not really a workout to build capacity.

ITA. Unless someone is completely and totally sedentary, they won't see much of a result from that. If they did, I don't think they'd see results for long.