Exercise Express Route ; 12 Minutes a Day? Results in Weeks? Celebrities Swear By Fitness Plans
Exercise 90 minutes a day?
Fat chance.
It figures that the federal government, which isn’t trying to sell books or make friends, would come out with fitness recommendations guaranteed to make many of us snort derisively and inhale a box of Girl Scout cookies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which included exercise for the first time in its updated dietary guidelines, fails to realize we’re living and lumping in the age of drive-through fitness. If it doesn’t have the word express in front of it, forget it; no workout can be too quick or too painless.
No wonder my bookshelf is crammed with exercise/diet guides – with new truckloads arriving every minute – that promise to get you in shape in daily workouts of 15, 20 or 21 minutes, or a mere 12 minutes to tighten those trouble spots! (That’s 12 minutes total, not 12 minutes per trouble spot, in which case it would take three hours).
Who wouldn’t want a Hollywood body in only 30 minutes a day? The world’s fittest you in only one month? A total transformation in two weeks?
If there’s one constant in all surveys that ask people why they don’t exercise, it’s time. There’s not enough of it, and it’s definitely not on our side.
So there’s instant appeal in a book like Rick Bradley’s Quick Fit: the Complete 15-Minute No-Sweat Workout. Exercise So Quick and Easy, You’re Bound to Succeed.
Bradley, longtime fitness director at the U.S. Department of Transportation, has boiled the workout down to its essence, the better to get people to do it and keep doing it. And it must work: More DOT staffers are involved in their employee fitness program than at any other federal agency.
Bradley takes aim at what he calls “The Great Sendentary Majority,” the two-thirds of the public who resent all this yammering about fitness and consider standing up highly overrated.
So here’s his magic formula: 10 minutes of walking, one minute of abs, three minutes of upper-body work and one minute of stretching.
That’s it.
And while the workout’s stripped down, you don’t have to take off anything at all. The 900-second routine can be done anywhere without breaking a sweat, which means you can do it in business clothes without having to take a shower after.
Bradley likens exercise to money in the bank – it’s cumulative. Research has shown that breaking exercise into two 15-minute workouts a day or three 10-minute ones does as much for you as one 30-minute session.
It takes about four months to see real results, he says, but you’ll start feeling better almost immediately. And you’ll probably start wanting to kick it up a notch.
“Consider Quick Fit your minimum daily requirement,” Bradley says. “You can always do more – but never less.”
Bradley’s workout seems like a snap compared with the heavy-duty routines outlined in The Ultimate New York Body Plan by David Kirsch and The World’s Fittest You by Joe Decker.
Kirsch promises a “Total Transformation!” in two weeks, and he’s done it for Heidi Klum, Liv Tyler, model Linda Evangelista and singer Faith Hill. (Unless he’s turned Heidi Klum into Shirley Booth, I’d say “total transformation” is an overstatement, but it’s probably all relative.)
Take heart: Kirsch also did it on ABC-TV’s Extreme Makeover for Michel, Samantha and Kenna, typical women saddled with cellulite and self-esteem issues, just like the rest of us.
Before he transformed those three on national television, Kirsch admits that he was as skeptical as anyone about exactly how much could be accomplished in so little time. But he made a believer out of himself.
“I chose two weeks because it is a long enough period of time to be effective,” Kirsch says, “but not so long that it’s unduly burdensome or boring.”
Of course, what’s not unduly burdensome to one superman might reduce many of us to greasy little spots on the floor. The Ultimate New York Body Plan requires 45 minutes of cardio sculpting – that’s Kirsch’s special blend of 35 intense exercises that either kill you or make you wish you were dead – plus another 45 minutes of additional cardio three times the first week and four times the second.
On the other days, you do 45 minutes of cardio plus a 15-minute workout that targets either your abs/core or your butt/legs. Rest is for wussies!
As for food, you get to eat every three hours. Sort of. Here’s a day’s menu: Breakfast – protein shake. Snack – hard-boiled egg. Lunch – Salmon. Snack – low-fat chicken salad. Dinner: another protein shake or Turkey Lasagna made from Kirsch’s own recipe.
If you think that means pasta, think again, cabbagehead. Kirsch slyly substitutes eggplant and zucchini when you’re not looking.
Kirsch’s fast track to fitness no doubt works, but it’s going to hurt – a lot. At least the book costs only $22; personal consultation with Kirsch for the two-week program at his club runs $7,500. Ouch.
Former fat guy Joe Decker doesn’t have any supermodel endorsements, but as I always say, who needs Heidi Klum when you’ve got Al Roker? (“He’ll change the way America works out!” Roker crows on the cover.)
Decker’s story reads like a heart-warming All-American fairy tale: Fat kid becomes high school football star, gets injured, becomes fat adult, joins the Army and gets in shape, goes to college, drops out of college, porks out again, becomes a bartender in New Orleans, pigs out on chicken wings at Hooters, gets disgusted, buys a lowfat cookbook and weight set from Wal-Mart, becomes the “World’s Fittest Man.”
Which just goes to show that there’s nothing you can’t achieve as long as there’s a Wal-Mart in your neighborhood.
Decker, who has a degree in exercise science, has created a regimen that includes interval training and weights, plus lots of nutritional advice and menus. It feels a lot less frantic than Kirsch’s routine, but Decker’s not promising results in two weeks. One month of following his advice just puts you “on the road to fitness.”
A fun feature of this book: Decker’s “Outside the Box” workouts, which he saves for Saturdays. There’s a playground one and a butt- blaster boot camp one and one designed for a baseball diamond.
A word about that “World’s Fittest Man” title: Decker earned that place from Guinness World Records by doing, among other things, 3,000 crunches, 1,100 push-ups, 1,100 leg lifts, 1,100 jumping jacks, biking 100 miles, running a marathon and lifting 278,540 pounds on 10 different weight machines – all in one day.
For something edgier, there’s The Jump Off: 60 Days to a Hip-Hop Hard Body. Mark Jenkins, a former fat kid turned trainer to rap royalty, bundles the elements of fitness into a driven, down-and- dirty wrapper.
“Other than Mary J. Blige and Diddy, who are both animals,” he says, “almost every celebrity client of mine has thrown up at one time or another.”
Hey – no way I’m breaking my 14-year no-vomit streak. Plus, I’m not sure I want to measure my exercise intensity by whether it makes me puke.
Despite that, Jenkins includes well-illustrated exercises, good nutritional advice and lots of motivational blather, which can be helpful. Plus, he includes a glossary and an index (e.g., “Busta Rhymes, getting arms like, 72-73.”)
Kathy Kaehler works with celebs, too, and has even named her workouts after them. There’s Rachel’s Super-Sexy Upper Body Sculpting Workout Starring Jennifer Anniston, The Pretty Woman Leg Workout Starring Julia Roberts and The Amazing Abs Bonus Workout Starring Cindy Crawford, to name a few.
Kaehler’s button cute, and her workouts are clear and fun. She doesn’t spend a lot of time on nutrition, but there are yummy- sounding recipes sprinkled through the book, along with photos of her famous clients.
“After spending years training with Kathy, I now have the tools to exercise safely and effectively on my own,” Michelle Pfeiffer writes. “She has shown me how to stay in shape without having to spend all of those hours in the gym that are a waste of time and frankly, boring as hell.”
Now that’s saying something.
INFOBOX
Opportunity walks
Here’s Rick Bradley’s Quick Fit No-Sweat 15-minute program. Do it five times a week.
* 10 minutes: March in place, walk on a treadmill set for three miles per hour or cover a half-mile outside.
* 1 minute: Abdominals: two sets of 10 crunches. Work up to 50.
* 3 minutes: Upper body, using three-pound weights. Bicep curls, alternating arms, 10 on each side. Bench press on the floor, 10 reps. Standing upright row, 10 reps.
* 1 minute: Stretching. Side bends, alternating left and right, for 30 seconds. Sit on the floor and reach your hands toward your feet; hold for 30 seconds.
For more information, go to www.ricks quickfit.com.
Stick-to-it strategies
Here are some tried-and-true tips for adding an express workout to your day:
* Start slowly. Adding a few minutes of exercise a day ensures that you won’t injure yourself or suffer soreness, both of which can discourage more exercise.
* Make an appointment with yourself. Schedule your exercise into your day just like you would any other obligation. You’ll have the time if you make the time.
* Be realistic and specific. Set a goal that’s attainable and healthy and make definite plans to do it. Examples: a bike ride with the kids twice a week, or a 15-minute walk after dinner every night.
* Make it short and sweet. Research shows that exercising for 10 minutes three times a day is just as beneficial as one 30-minute session.
* Log it. Keep track of your workouts on a calendar you look at every day. Hang it in a place where everyone can see it, and you’ll be even more motivated.
* Do it together. You’ll be much more likely to stick to it if you’re accountable to someone else, and the support doesn’t hurt, either.
* Do something fun. If it seems like a chore, it probably won’t get done. The best exercise is one you’ll do consistently.
* Take it one day at a time. If you miss a workout, don’t beat yourself up. And reward yourself once in a while for being so good – how about a massage?
Activity the key to fitness Here are the key recommendations for physical fitness from the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005:
* Engage in regular physical activity and reduce sedentary activities to promote health, psychological well-being and a healthy body weight.
* To reduce the risk of chronic disease in adulthood: Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, above usual activity, at work or home on most days of the week.
* For most people, greater health benefits can be obtained by engaging in physical activity of more vigorous intensity or longer duration.
* To help manage body weight and prevent gradual, unhealthy body weight gain in adulthood: Engage in approximately 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity activity on most days of the week while not exceeding caloric intake requirements.
* To sustain weight loss in adulthood: Participate in at least 60 to 90 minutes of daily moderate-intensity physical activity while not exceeding caloric intake requirements. Some people may need to consult with a health-care provider before participating in this level of activity.
* Achieve physical fitness by including cardiovascular conditioning, stretching exercises for flexibility and resistance exercises or calisthenics for muscle strength and endurance.
For more information, go to www.healthierus.gov/ dietaryguidelines.