7-minute workout – incorporate more exercise into your daily routine

In the last article on exercise, we showed that adequate physical activity is incredibly important for physical and mental well-being. Especially in the current situation, while sports facilities and fitness centres are having to remain closed and the majority of people are working from home, physical exercise and alternative ways of getting exercise are essential.

In today’s article, we are presenting a 7-minute workout. The workout is what is known as HIIT (high intensity interval training), comprising 12 separate exercises, each of which is carried out for 30 seconds at very high to maximum intensity. The exercises have been selected to uniformly strengthen the largest muscle groups and all parts of the body as far as possible to counter muscular imbalance.

Why choose a 7-minute workout?

Various health organisations recommend that adults spend at least 150 minutes a week on moderate intensity physical activity and 75 minutes on high intensity physical activity (Federal Office of Sport (BASPO), 2013, WHO, 2020). Despite this, 41 % of Swiss people exercise too little and do not follow these recommendations even though we are currently witnessing a real upturn in the number of people practising sport (Lamprecht, Bürgi and Stamm, 2020). The main reason cited is a lack of time (Trost et al., 2002). To overcome this problem, we have put together the 7-minute workout. Everyone should be able to find 7 minutes in their day to do something good for their health. It has been shown that a daily 7-minute workout can improve endurance and muscle strength and also reduce fat levels and insulin resistance (Mattar, Farran and Bakhour, 2017, McRae, Payne and Zelt, 2017, Hazell et al., 2014, Richards et al., 2010).

What are you waiting for? Let’s get the training started!

The 7-minute workout

The workout comprises 12 exercises, each of which is carried out for 30 seconds at high to maximum intensity. On a scale of effort of 1 to 10, you should be somewhere between 7 and 10 when carrying out the exercises. There is a 5-second pause between exercises to give you time to get ready for the next one. You will need a chair and a pair of trainers for the workout. The exercises are shown in the following table. We have produced a beginner’s and an advanced variant of each exercise.