Is 20 Minutes Really Long Enough?

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the benefits of doing the right workout…

Amy Hudson and Brian Cygan reveal the truth behind the fitness industry and why you don’t need to spend hours at the gym every week in order to stay fit and healthy. Learn the science behind the 20-minute workout and how you can achieve optimal health benefits by doing the right workout, for the right length of time, just twice a week.

• Is 20 minutes long enough to have a great workout? Simply put, absolutely.
• The training at the Exercise Coach is targeting the root cause of usual aging which is the age-related loss of muscle mass, also known as sarcopenia.
• Research shows that sarcopenia is a function of the loss of and weakening of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers directly correlates to a weakening metabolism, weaker bones, less energy, and worse health as we age.
• In order to reverse the usual aging process and restore muscle mass you need to do exercises that are focused on building fast-twitch muscle fibers. This means the exercise needs to be intense enough to recruit those muscle fibers.
• The ideal exercise to target those muscle fibers is science-based strength training.
• When we work our muscles in exactly the right manner to actually use our fast-twitch muscle fibers, it’s intense and therefore needs to be brief. That’s why the workout at The Exercise Coach is only 20 minutes.
• The 20-minute workout is not the bare minimum you can get away with, it’s actually the specific length of time you need to optimally recruit, stimulate, and fatigue the right muscle fibers.
• One researcher looked at a number of studies on exercise programs and concluded that all that was necessary to get the majority of the benefits that people want from a health and fitness standpoint was to perform a strength training workout for about 20 mins no more than twice per week.
• The best workout with the most health benefits is the one that is necessarily brief. The higher the intensity of the workout, the less time you need to spend doing that workout.
• No amount of exercise, in volume or minutes, can bring about the most important results from a fitness endeavor that people are after. The key is to work at the right intensity level and engage the fast-twitch muscle fibers to reverse the aging process and restore optimal health and fitness.