A work friend encouraged me to try 15-minute home workouts when the Covid quarantine first started. I was sulking on social media about my fitness slump and he suggested to just try committing to a 15-minute, at-home body-weight workout. I’m a prolonged off-season armature bodybuilder. So, my initial reaction was a scoff. Fifteen minutes? What’s the benefit of the 15-minute workout? What is a short workout without weights going to do for me, I thought.
But I tried it and learned that it does EVERYTHING for me. It made all the difference. I can’t sing the praises of the benefits of the 15-minute workout enough. There’s so many mini-workouts to try avalible on-line. Now, anytime I get into a fitness slump, I always fall back on the 15-minute workout. Here’s why:
1. The 15-minute workout that you do is better than the hour workout that you don’t do.
Ordinarily, if I don’t have the time or enough energy to carve out at least 90 minutes to commute, dress, and complete a workout, I just won’t do anything at all. And that can happen all week. And then the week can turn into two weeks!
2. You have 360 opportunities a day to get started.
The great thing about the 15-minute workout is that you have 360 opportunities to do it. So, sure 15-minutes a day is great. But perhaps I can slip in 15 minutes in the morning and another 15 minutes at lunch and another when I get home. There’s my typical 45-minute workout broken up throughout the day. It’s a shorter workout so you have the opportunity to do it multiple times a day.
3. The small sessions add up.
One of the benefits of the 15-minute workout is that the small sessions add up. If you can commit 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, you’ll end up putting in 1 hour and 15 minutes. That’s an hour and 15 minutes more than going the whole week without doing anything.
4. Fifteen minutes is the start.
Just like when it comes to writing or doing academic work, the hardest part is getting started. I know if I can commit to just 15 minutes of any activity (whether it be studying a language, writing, or studying), I’ll likely end up doing more. BTW, read here about how I applied this same method to learning another language.
5. Science Supports the Effectiveness of the 15-minute workout
The science supports the benefits of a 15-minute, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout is just as effective as lower intensity, sustained workout. Check out this peer-reviewed research that found that twelve weeks of shorter sprint interval training improves cardio-metabolic health similar to traditional endurance training despite a five-fold lower exercise volume and time commitment. This article by the British Journal of Sports Medicine also concluded that you lose nothing by engaging in short, high-impact workouts.
6. You can always fit one in
No matter how busy I am, I can always find 15 minutes. Whether it’s at my desk in the office or first thing when I wake up, I will always have 15 minutes at some point in the day to spare. If I find myself mindlessly scrolling the gram for 15 minutes, I remind myself I can put that time into a workout. Even on long road trips when I usually just accept that there isn’t time to work out, I can still put in 15 minutes at a gas station or restaurant to break up the drive.
I am such a believer in the benegits of the 15-minute workout. It got me out of a fitness rut and helped me maintain my overall conditioning when I was lacking motivation. I am confident it will do the same for you. Since you don’t want to spend half your time deciding what to do during your workout, be sure to check out some of these pre-planned 15-minute Workout Plans to help get you started.
