Do you tend to blame your lack of time to exercise for not being as fit as you would like to be?
You and me both, mamas. I manage to convince myself rather regularly that if it hadn't been for, you know, having to go to work or cook dinner for those kids and hoover the floor, I would pretty much be Miranda Kerr – in all her yoga-honed glory.
But guess what?! Here is some great news (or really bad news, depending on how you look at it as you can no longer use those old 'I'm time-strapped' excuses): According to some fresh findings, it only takes one minute of exercise to boost your health.
That's right, guys. Contrary to popular belief that good fitness is achieved by slogging it out at the gym, a Canadian study has found that one minute is all it takes. The research, which was published in the journal PLOS One, found that 60 seconds of high-intensity exercise proved just as effective at improving your overall health and fitness as a full 45-minute workout.
The catch (there had to be one, I mean; come on!): You really have to give it your ALL for that minute.
"The catch is that the minute was divided into three 20-second bursts of activity with a little bit of recovery," Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, told CBC. Participants in the study were asked to go "all-out" on an exercise bike for 20 seconds and then had a period of easy cycling between each session to recover.
When asked whether or not we really all could ditch the hour-long gym session for these one minute super-workouts, the professor had the following to say:
"If you are an elite athlete, then obviously incorporating both endurance and interval training into an overall program maximizes performance," Gibala told The New York Times. "But if you are someone, like me, who just wants to boost health and fitness and you don't have 45 minutes or an hour to work out, our data show that you can get big benefits from even a single minute of intense exercise."
Well, that really is it then, isn't it? No more excuses, Miranda Kerr-body, here we come.
