Every couple of months there seems to be a headline pop up about “The 4 Minute Workout” – Typically it talks about a study where a person transforms themselves with routine that’s shorter than a post workout shower. Just a couple of months ago the TV media outlets were excitingly reporting about how the four minute workout boots fitness and attacks fat. At the end of the day it seems most of us are still looking for an answer 
to the question “What is the least amount of exercise I can get away with?”
The answer seems to be 4 minutes.
A study published in the journal PLoS One, the researchers at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway tried to define the minimum amount of exercise needed to develop endurance and enjoy the health gains. They started by looking at their own previous work, which looked at the effects of a relatively large dose of high intensity intervals on different health and fitness measures.
High intensity intervals are simply bursts of strenuous exercise that last 30 seconds to several minutes and that have rest periods between them. There have been numerous studies conducted in recent years, which have established that high intensity sessions can be as potent as longer sustained endurance sessions.
A study in 2010 done by Canadian researchers showed that 10 minutes of strenuous exercise mixed with one-minute rest periods between — led to the same changes within muscle cells as 90 minutes of moderate bike riding.
Another study done by Norwegian scientists around the same time had been studying the effects of intense intervals lasting 4 minutes performed at about 90% of each volunteer’s maximum heart rate and repeated four times, with a three-minute rest between each interval. The total meaningful exercise time in these sessions, then, is 16 minutes.
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology took 26 overweight and sedentary but healthy middle-aged men, determined their baseline endurance, cardiovascular and metabolic health, and then randomly assigned them to one of two groups.
Half began a supervised exercise program that copied the Norwegian researchers’ former routine. After briefly warming up, these volunteers ran on a treadmill at 90% of their maximal heart rate — this is an intense enough pace where you cannot talk — for four four-minute intervals, with three minutes of slow walking between, followed by a brief cool-down. For 10 weeks the session was repeated three times a week.
The second group completed only one four-minute strenuous run. For 10 weeks they exercised three times a week. At the program end, the men had increased their maximal oxygen uptake, or endurance capacity, by an average of 10% or more, with no significant differences in the gains between the two groups. Metabolic and cardiovascular health improved in both groups, with almost all of the men now displaying better blood sugar control and blood pressure profiles, whether they had exercised vigorously for 16 minutes per session or for 4 minutes per session.
Based on the research to date it would appear that the 4 minute workout does work. In fact it would appear it can actually work better than much longer workouts. The key is that it must be high intensity in order to enjoy the benefits.
So why not give it a try. Why not have a look at the many 4 minute workouts being promoted, do some research to see which one is getting the best reviews and give it a try. Think about it 4 minutes of exercise – that you can find time for.
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4 minutes, sorry I don’t buy it. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I will give it a try for sure. Setting aside and hour or two to work out is not doable the way my life is now, so I have to be open-minded. Thanks.
Is that 4 minutes of one exercise and then move on to another? If so, then that would work very well for anyone who is trying to get in better shape.