John Barban

If you're having a lazy or busy day and you know you're just not going to get to the gym, is there any benefit to putting in a 5 or 10 minute workout at home?

The answer is yes!

Any amount of exercise is better than nothing. Even 5 minutes.

Recent research is beginning to show that the benefits of exercise take effect even if the workouts themselves are very short. Even 5 minutes is enough to get your heart rate up, get blood moving, increase oxygen delivery to your muscles and just wake you up! Some research even shows multiple short term workouts have similar benefits to longer workouts. An interesting study compared the effects of three 10 minute workouts to one 30 minute workout. The resulting benefits on the cardiovascular system were the same. This means you can fit a workout into your day in small chunks if you have to. Even as small as 1o minutes at a time! Even if you feel totally pressed for time you can start to make a difference with small steps.

Look at it this way. Each day we will engage in some level of activity, whether it be a 10 k run, a game of volleyball, sitting at a desk, or walking to the fridge from the couch. Each scenario is a different level of activity, we are simply trained to think of specific activities as workouts and define them as beneficial for us.

I wouldn't say that a 5 or 10 minute workout is ideal, but if 30 minutes in a row is just not going to happen for you, then even 5 or 10 minutes is worth it.

Remember, every little bit counts, no matter how little.