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Me, doing the seven-minute workout in BI's office.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
Thinking about splurging on a new gym membership for the new year?
2015-12-31
Hold that thought.
There's an at-home fitness app called the 7 Minute Workout that says it gives you the benefits of a sweaty bike ride and a trip to the weight room — so long as you commit to it. It sounded perfect for me last January, when I made a resolution to get more fit and feel less stressed.
Twelve months later, I'm still using it weekly. In fact, this is the only year in which I've actually upheld a New Year's resolution through December.
The small time requirement (each workout is just seven minutes) really helps on the weekends when I have plans with friends and can't make it to the gym or on weekdays when I stay up late and don’t get a chance to wake up bright and early to hit up a yoga class.
Here's how the app works:
First thing's first: The entire workout takes just seven minutes to complete, and it looks super simple. Initially, I was skeptical I could accomplish this much in such a narrow time frame.
7-Minute Workout/Wahoo
The workout consists of 12 standard exercises like jumping jacks, sit-ups, and push-ups. Ten of them require nothing but your own body (you'll need a chair that can support your weight for the others). The New York Times' version of the app shows proper positioning for each, which you do for 30 seconds:
The idea of a workout you can do in minutes was originally envisioned by personal trainer Brett Klika and exercise physiologist Chris Jordan of the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Florida. Here's Klika demonstrating one of his workouts:
The concept behind the workout is interval training — short, intense periods of exercise broken up by brief periods of rest. It's less time consuming than a traditional workout, but studies suggest it may actually be more beneficial.
Several studies back high-intensity interval training for both building muscle and helping to protect the heart. But since this specific workout is still pretty new, we don't have long-term studies comparing it to traditional workouts yet.
To do my workout, all I used was a yoga mat, the hardwood floor of my office, a wall, and a stool.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
The first four exercises — 30 seconds each of jumping jacks, a wall sit, push-ups, and crunches, with 10 seconds of rest in between — were easy-peasy. I started to think the workout was all hype.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
But by the time I got to exercise No. 8 — plank — I was starting to feel a bit winded. At this point, I'd also finished the step-ups onto a chair, the squats, and the triceps dips. Still four exercises to go.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
Next, it was on to running in place with my knees as high as I could get them, lunging, doing alternating push-ups and rotations (raising one arm high into the air while balancing on the other), and side planks, where you align your body sideways and balance on one hand and the side of one foot.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
Full set of 12 exercises complete!
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
In the end, the workout was actually, well, a workout. Still, I wasn't totally wiped and I felt as if I could do a bit more. So I did a second set.
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
I was satisfied overall with the seven-minute workout, and I've been doing it every so often ever since I first tried it out as an addition to my regular yoga routine. Here's to 2016!
Business Insider/Erin Brodwin
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Erin was a senior health and tech reporter at Business Insider based in San Francisco, where she focused on startups and Silicon Valley.She's broken news on a variety of life science and health-tech stories, including:
Before joining BI, Erin worked as a freelance health and science reporter for outlets including Newsweek, Popular Science, and Scientific American.Erin graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego and received her master's from the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in New York, where she spent an extra semester completing her degree after breaking both wrists in a snowboarding accident.
