Take 10

This morning I did something I never, ever do… stayed in bed a few extra minutes and watched some TV.  My entire life, I have been a rise and shine person, and I am always ready to get up and start the day, once I have awoken.  This morning, Mitch handed me the remote and said “try.”  When I turned on the TV, there was an infomercial for “The 10 Minute Trainer.”  Now, I am not a big believer of infomercials, and I am the first to say that they tend to make some very sketchy promises, but being a big fan of Tony Horton, and P90x, I watched this one.  If I could have any trainer in the world, I might consider Jillian Michaels, and definitely would love to do some yoga and chat about plant-based diets and training with Bob Harper, who definitely walks the walk, but if I could have ONLY one, I think I might have to pick Tony Horton.  Well, he sort of already did train me that summer I squeezed in P90x workouts whenever I had a day that allowed for a little extra training.  While I loved the workouts and was truly in the best shape of my life, they were very time consuming.

So along comes The 10 Minute Trainer.  In these daily videos, Tony does what he calls super-stacking exercises, to work as many muscles at one time as possible.  Using elastic resistance bands, he does continuous, multi-muscle moves, for just 10 minutes.  Each day the video is different, so by the end of the week you have done 70 minutes of movement, using every single muscle in your body.  Clearly, it is the eating program that comes with the videos, that allows him to guarantee the results that he does.  That said, I never followed his P90x “diet,” which I am sure would have given me even better results, but it wasn’t for me…still the workouts worked wonders!  My guess is the 10 minute workouts are pretty great, too.

Watching this morning, I didn’t think too much of it, until I got out of bed, checked my email, and amongst the ones from Runners World, Weight Watchers, Real Age, Shape and more, I got one from the people at Beachbodies.com, and yup, it was a video about The 10 Minute Trainer.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized how many people truly cannot find ample time to commit to a fitness routine.   Maybe 10 minutes a day, every day, can help us realize more results than we think possible.  Maybe for many of us, 10 minutes a day is the difference between working out and not working out.

Now, this particular video system is probably awesome, but my guess is you can create a similar program without spending any money.  I am thinking that if you make a list of all the exercise you can do in your space and then divide them into groups of four or five, you can warm up for a minute by walking or marching, and then set up a circuit.  It might be 10 lunges, 10 crunches, 10 push-ups, 10 dips and 10 jumping jacks, and then back to the lunges, etc.  Leave a minute to do some full-body stretches and your workout is done in the time you could have hit your alarm and snoozed.  The key to getting the most out of this would be to keep moving!!!  You can keep your heart rate up, burn calories and build some all important muscle.  Maybe some days you emphasize a little more cardio, adding a one minute run into your circuit, or a minute of jump roping.   One day you can rev it up with the hardest of moves like burpees and mountain climbers or sand crawls (great for improving other sports like basketball, volleyball and tennis!)  On another  day you might slow it down and do a series of challenging yoga poses, flowing from one to the other and then beginning again.  How about 10 minutes of sun-salutations to get everything moving and flowing?  One day might be devoted to core work…one day might incorporate elastic tubing or weights…work with what you have, stay safe and let your imagination run wild and remember to include a minute of stretching at the end.

I have 3 classes to teach today (and one big dog to walk, this morning) but with 55 laps in the pool already logged this week, I am definitely going to take 10, get in my garage and try my own 10 minute workout!  I challenge YOU to try one and let me know what you come up with!  10 minutes.  WE CAN ALL FIND 10 MINUTES, even the very busiest of us.