How to Make the Most of a 5-Minute Workout | Path to Gains | Men’s Health Muscle
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Can you get fit in just five minutes a day?
00:03 Contrary to the five minute workouts
00:05 and the five minute ab sessions
00:07 that you see all over Instagram and YouTube,
00:09 the answer to that is no.
00:11 But that does not mean that we can't maximize five minutes
00:14 if that's all the time we have
00:16 to get a little bit of activity in.
00:18 Listen, I'm always gonna tell you,
00:20 you are better off going to the gym for 20, 30 minutes
00:23 or like an hour to get in a true workout,
00:26 and you're gonna get a lot more out of that workout too.
00:28 But as long as we understand
00:30 what we can and can't do in five minutes,
00:33 we can get something out of the five minutes
00:34 that we do have and we can be very productive in that.
00:37 We're gonna break it all down for you now.
00:39 First, let's talk about what five minute workouts
00:41 can not do at all.
00:43 And one of those things is something
00:44 that we very often try to do in a workout,
00:46 which is we wanna burn fat and we wanna burn calories.
00:49 That is not something you're gonna get out
00:50 of a five minute workout.
00:52 And for evidence of that,
00:53 we can actually look at what's happened
00:55 when they've researched workouts that take even more time.
00:58 One of the best research workouts out there
01:00 that was meant to be time efficient
01:02 was a 20 minute series of kettlebell snatches.
01:05 And in those 20 minutes,
01:07 people were able to burn up to 400 calories in 20 minutes.
01:11 Now that's 20 minutes, that's 400 calories.
01:13 If we simply divide that by four,
01:16 you wind up burning max 100 calories
01:18 in your five minute workout.
01:20 In order to burn one pound of fat,
01:22 you would have to do that workout 35 times in a single week
01:26 in order to burn one pound of fat.
01:27 So this is not gonna be an effective way to burn calories.
01:31 It's not gonna be an effective way to burn fat.
01:33 You're not gonna get that out of your five minute workouts.
01:36 The other thing you're not gonna get
01:37 out of your five minute workouts
01:38 is much strength or muscle building stimulus.
01:41 In order for us to build strength and build muscle
01:43 and get our body to create the adaptations needed for that,
01:47 in general, we're gonna have to lift heavy
01:49 and we're gonna have to train hard.
01:50 And when you're training heavy and training hard,
01:52 you're simply not gonna do that in five minutes
01:54 because of the simple reason that after a set,
01:56 you're gonna wanna take 90 seconds to 120 seconds off.
02:00 So if we're doing that in the context of five minutes,
02:03 you wind up doing a set,
02:04 you wind up resting for a whopping two minutes,
02:06 you wind up doing another set,
02:07 that's simply not gonna be any stimulus or enough stimulus
02:11 for you to build muscle and strength.
02:12 So the two things we cannot do in five minute workouts,
02:15 we're not going to effectively burn fat or burn calories,
02:18 and we're not gonna get much stronger,
02:20 we're not gonna build much muscle.
02:22 So what can we do in five minutes?
02:24 The strength of the five minute workout,
02:26 and the great thing about the five minute workout
02:29 is the fact that it is easily digestible.
02:31 So when we think about going to the gym
02:33 for a 25, a 30 minute, a 60 minute session,
02:36 we have to get dressed, we're thinking about a warmup,
02:38 we're thinking about a cool down,
02:39 I mean, you have to go through all those steps.
02:41 So that lengthier workout seems daunting
02:44 and it seems like something that we have to plan out.
02:46 When it comes to a five minute workout,
02:49 we're talking about a bite size piece of our day
02:51 that may not even get as sweating.
02:53 And because of that, it's something more sustainable.
02:56 And it's something that the truth is,
02:57 you can do multiple times a day.
03:00 If you can get down on the ground to do sets of pushups
03:03 or do a couple stretches, two, three, four,
03:05 five times a day, we can create some benefit for our body.
03:09 And we can do that in two distinct ways.
03:11 So you're not gonna wanna do this just once,
03:13 but you're gonna wanna do this a couple times a day,
03:15 because it is very easily digestible.
03:18 And then we can get two things out of it.
03:20 The first thing we can get out of it
03:21 is we can learn exercises
03:24 and we can learn body weight movements.
03:26 And this is a great way to get better at exercises
03:29 that you're trying to figure out.
03:30 Whether you're trying to learn pull-ups or pushups
03:33 or even more complex concepts
03:34 like sissy squats and Nordic curls,
03:36 we can very, very easily learn these in five minutes.
03:39 We're never really going to push ourselves to the edge.
03:42 And because of that,
03:43 we're able to repeat it multiple times throughout the day,
03:47 which is going to help our body understand the movement,
03:50 build our learning curve.
03:51 It's like going to school again
03:53 in that we get to understand how to do an exercise
03:56 and learn how to do an exercise.
03:57 How do we use five minute workouts this way?
03:59 What you're gonna do, and again,
04:01 remember you have to do this multiple times a day
04:04 for five minutes.
04:06 All you're gonna do,
04:06 whatever exercise you're working on learning on
04:09 and whatever level of that exercise you're at.
04:11 So if we're say learning to do pushups,
04:13 but we can't do complete pushups,
04:14 we have to do pushups with our hands on a table or a chair,
04:17 you're just gonna work at whatever level you're at.
04:20 And all you're gonna do is you're gonna do reps
04:22 of the exercise that you're working on for 30 seconds.
04:26 If you can't do them for the full 30 seconds, that's okay.
04:30 Just take a break when you need to for three,
04:32 four or five seconds, then go right back to work.
04:35 Continue to use that 30 second work block
04:37 as a chance to get better at the movement
04:40 and build movement competency.
04:41 And then you're gonna rest for 30 seconds.
04:44 We're gonna do that five times.
04:46 That is your five minute workout.
04:48 And this is gonna help you learn
04:49 whatever exercise you need to learn.
04:51 You're gonna get to develop the motor skills.
04:53 You're gonna get to develop a connection with the exercise.
04:55 And it's really gonna set you up.
04:57 That way you can continue to improve at an exercise
04:59 without fatiguing yourself.
05:01 And because of that,
05:02 we can repeat it over and over and over
05:04 a couple of times a day.
05:05 Because of that, you will get better at the exercise
05:08 much more quickly than you would
05:09 if you were just going into the gym
05:11 and doing say three sets of that
05:13 at the end of a much lengthier workout
05:15 when you're tired and when you're trying
05:16 to load a little bit more.
05:17 So that's one way that we can effectively
05:19 use five minute workouts.
05:21 The other thing we can do with five minute workouts
05:23 is remember that all activity is good activity
05:27 and all activity, all movement creates blood flow.
05:30 And we can use that to our advantage,
05:32 especially in this era where so many of us
05:34 wind up sitting for our jobs.
05:36 If you can just get up out of your desk for five minutes,
05:40 we can loosen up tight tissue.
05:42 We can create total body blood flow
05:44 and we can avoid some of the positions
05:46 and some of the tightness that sits in
05:48 when we're sitting all day.
05:49 So to do this five minute workout,
05:51 we're really just gonna focus on mobility and movement
05:54 and getting that good movement in throughout our day.
05:56 And what we're gonna do is we're gonna do four moves.
05:58 You're gonna do each of these moves
06:00 for 40 seconds on, 20 off.
06:03 For the first 40 seconds,
06:05 you're gonna do a very simple cat cow
06:07 that will loosen up our lower back and open up our spine.
06:11 After that, you'll take 20 seconds of rest.
06:13 You'll follow that by going right into
06:15 alternating Spider-Man lunges with a thoracic rotation.
06:19 That's gonna open up your hips.
06:21 It's gonna give you a nice little chest opener.
06:22 That's gonna be great, especially if you were sitting down.
06:25 And if you've been sitting for hours,
06:27 you're gonna follow that by doing a lying two-way Superman.
06:31 So then we're starting to strengthen up our mid back,
06:34 work some of our postural muscles, loosen up our shoulders.
06:36 After you've done that for 40 seconds on, 20 off,
06:39 you'll finish by firing up your glutes
06:41 with a couple of glute bridges.
06:43 Again, 40 seconds on, 20 off.
06:44 Then you've got one minute to go.
06:46 Pick any one of the moves that you've just done,
06:48 the one where you felt the most loose,
06:50 the one where you felt things the most active.
06:53 Just do that for another 40 seconds on, 20 off.
06:56 And that is your five-minute workout.
06:58 Again, another workout that you can do multiple times a day
07:01 that's gonna help just loosen up your body,
07:03 create total body blood flow,
07:05 and all of that will have you moving better,
07:07 whether you're going to the gym in the evening
07:10 for a real workout.
07:11 Yes, I said it and I meant it.
07:13 Or whether you're just using it to keep loosening up
07:17 during your work day.
07:18 So that means there are ways
07:20 that we can be productive in five minutes.
07:21 We're not gonna build muscle.
07:23 We're not gonna build strength,
07:24 but you are gonna move better
07:25 and there's never a downside to getting up
07:28 and moving around, even if it is just for five minutes.
07:31 So get these into your day.
07:33 Your body will thank you.
07:34 (upbeat music)
07:36 (upbeat music)