Does a 20-Minute, Once-a-Week Workout Really Work?
Discover exactly what that style of movement is, and find out how to get the most bang for your exercise buck in just 20 minutes.
Ben Greenfield
Listen
Does a 20-Minute, Once-a-Week Workout Really Work?
I recently read an article in Inc. Magazine entitled “Why This 20-Minute, Once-a-Week Workout Is the Best Thing Ever for Office Workers.” With one eyebrow raised at the hyperbole, I nonetheless delved into the article and discovered that it explains the science and practice of a specific type of exercise training that I personally implement and have indeed found to be quite time efficient. Here, you’re going to discover exactly what that style of movement is, and find out how to get the most bang for your exercise buck in just 20 minutes.
In the article, the author describes her growing frustration over being strapped to a chair all day at the office unable to adequately exercise, and then her amazement upon speaking to her 50-something year old fit hair stylist who goes to a place where she’s strapped into special exercise machines, wears her regular clothes, doesn’t break a sweat, and performs a full-body workout in 20 minutes.
She then goes on to describe something called “high-intensity, slow-motion strength training,” in which you would do something like, say, a machine leg press, but you’d only do one single set, and you would take a very long, drawn out, all-the-muscles-in-my-body-burning time to perform that set (e.g. nine reps over three minutes), You’d then hit every other major muscle group, from upper body to core, with just one single, hard, teeth-gritting super slow set and…voila. Within 20 minutes, you’re done.
And better yet, according to a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, “Comparison of once‐weekly and twice‐weekly strength training in older adults,” this style of training may actually work—at least for older adults who need to maintain strength. In the study, a group of subjects aged 65–79 years were randomly assigned to two groups who each performed one set of exercises to muscular fatigue. Group 1 trained 1 day a week and group 2 trained 2 days a week using three lower and three upper body exercises for a total of 9 weeks. Using this style of training, researchers noted no difference in strength changes between training once a week versus twice a week.
Let’s face it: this style of one single, hard weekly super slow training routine probably isn’t going to break any Olympic records, but it appears to be a viable strategy for staying fit when time is limited. Perhaps better yet, as the author notes in the article, you don’t have to hunt down fancy exercise machines to do this style of training, and using your own body weight, a kettlebell or a set of dumbbells along with moves such as squat, lunge, pushup, overhead press, pull-up or row, you can easily perform 4-6 different superslow exercises for each body section in your home, backyard, basement, or office.
This latest article actually backs up research that I highlighted in an episode a few years ago, “Does Super Slow Training Work?” In that episode, I describe that the idea behind super slow training is that by decreasing the speed of movement, you can create more tension in your muscles, and that this higher time-under-tension has indeed been show increase strength. But it’s important to note that the increase in strength primarily crosses over to muscle stability and the ability to—you guessed it—move high loads slowly. This is great news for someone who needs to, say, pick a heavy bag of groceries from the floor, but really doesn’t transfer much into the explosive power and speed necessary for athletic performances such as hitting a golf ball farther or rebounding a basketball.
It turns out that there really is something to super-slow training, especially if you’re tight on time.
However, there’s another benefit to super slow training: benefit to your heart and entire cardiovascular system. In the episode Weight Training Is Just as Good as Cardio, I describe a physician and exercise researcher named Doug McGuff (who, incidentally, is also mentioned in the recent Inc. Magazine article). Also, I highlight a study entitled “Resistance Training to Momentary Muscular Failure Improves Cardiovascular Fitness in Humans: A Review of Acute Physiological Responses and Chronic Physiological Adaptations”opens PDF file , which was written in part by Dr. McGuff.
In the study, super slow resistance training to muscular failure resulted in the same type of cardiovascular adaptations you’d get if you were to, say, go out for a long run. This included a better ability to buffer lactic acid and increased density of the mitochondria—the tiny energy-producing powerhouses of your cells. In another episode, Is Weight Lifting Bad for Your Heart?, I describe how when you lift a heavy weight slowly, you produce adrenaline, and adrenaline causes the arteries in your muscles to dilate. This causes a decrease in something called “peripheral resistance” (basically, a measurement of your blood pressure), an increase in cardiac output (how much blood your heart can pump), and zero changes in blood pressure that are dangerous to the heart. The squeezing actions of slowly contracting muscles actually “milks” blood back to your heart, and this means that for people with high blood pressure, lifting weights slowly may actually be less stressful to the heart than aerobic exercise, which doesn’t result in that same milking action.
So in summary, it turns out that there really is something to super-slow training, especially if you’re tight on time. However, due to the lack of efficacy of super slow training for things like speed, power and explosiveness, and the fact that it can get a bit boring to do, I recommend mixing up super slow training with a host of other types of moves, such as explosive body weight training, high intensity cardio intervals, and easy fasted fat burning workouts. And I describe exactly how to do that in my article “How To Look Good Naked And Live A Long Time.”
Do you have more questions about whether a 20 minute a week workout really works? You can join the conversation at Facebook.com/getfitguy!
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.