If you are like me and just about perish at the thought of doing 40 or 45 minutes of exercise several times a week when life gets hectic ... read this.

Oxygen Mag Sept 2009 quoted from Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise .... 11 minutes of daily resistance exercise three days a week ... significantly improves resting metabolic rate.
I found this a truly inspirational little nugget for several different reasons.

If you don't have time today ... you certainly have 10 or 12 minutes somewhere.

If you do no exercise now ... 11 minutes doesn't seem so bad.

If 11 minutes is a significant improvement, what's 20 minutes going to do for you.

You don't need much (if any) equipment.

I am really excited and encouraged by this article.

Yep - we talk so much on this board about the "perfect" or "ideal" way of going about things...MAXIMUM burn, MAXIMUM benefit, etc. What we sometimes forget to emphasize is that anything you do, no matter how small, that allows you to consume fewer calories (decrease your calories in) or move more (increase your calories out) is ultimately going to move you closer to your goal.

Probably because I'm in vacation mode ... but ... I keep thinking about travelling. You could do 11 minutes of squats and lunges in an airport or a rest stop ....

Uhhh ... I'm confused

That doesn't seem so bad

Yeap .... and tell the inquiring onlookers that you are practising for emergency jumps out of the aircraft, sans parachute.

Or, if you are transferring in Amsterdam, you can run from one terminal to another. They are quite far from each other and a few times I was very close to missing my connecting flight.

Thanks, SusanB - I definitely needed to see that today!

Seriously though, thanks Susan!

It's a direct quote, which I assumed means 11 minutes per day each of three days a week.

I'm bumping this because I just did it. That's not even the amount of time between the commercials during your favourite TV show. And I didn't get to my abs ... I did them after the stove timer went off.

Good job Susan!

THanks for this. I am having a very hard time balancing the demands of nursing school with my homelife demands AND still tending to my exercise needs. I think resistance training IS the most beneficial. i know I have 15 minutes. I spent 10 min running around campus alone looking for my class.

Such a short time yet can still make an impact! That's a great thing to remember!

I love this!! I have been feeling guilty because I haven't been able to keep up with my normal 60 to 90 minutes, 5 days a week since I started my new job. I can however do 11 minutes in the comfort of my living room with my free-weights and using my own body weight.

yay! for this article! I don't feel so hopeless about exercise anymore!