When It Comes to Exercise,
It Really Is About Quality, Not Quantity.
The Superfast Workouts Help You Become
Leaner, Sexier, and Healthier in Half the Time!
And That’s Just Plain Smart.
In our Biggest Loser culture we have a tendency to believe that if a little exercise firms and burns, a lot of exercise will transform us into Victoria’s Secret models. Even though I’m a trainer and triathlete and I should know better, I’ve been guilty of buying in to this notion myself. A few years back, I laced up my running shoes and started hitting the street for an hour a day, believing that if only I sweated more, my skinny jeans, which were on the verge of becoming my asphyxiation jeans, would never get too snug. But to my dismay, I didn’t really get any leaner. I lost a little bulk, sure. But I also got softer, especially in my belly. Then a running coach gave me some advice that stuck (because it worked!): If you want to scorch calories and burn fat, go harder, not longer. I picked up the pace and haven’t looked back since.
The more-is-more mind-set is more than a waste of time; it also derails people from their fitness goals. If we think we have to do a ton to get results, we sometimes don’t exercise at all. It’s a mentality that sets us up for failure before we even start. As it turns out, it is far more important to know what kind of exercise to do rather than how long to do it for. Because much of what we think is going to make us thin or keep us fit actually does neither. Case in point, a study published in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism in which researchers asked a group of women to do 45 minutes of steady, moderate cardio exercise (like a brisk elliptical workout) 5 days a week for 12 weeks. The result? At the end of the study, the women experienced no change in their body composition compared with women who didn’t exercise or diet.
Depressing huh? Not at all. The good news is that you have permission to stop wasting your time. You can finally free yourself from marathon gym sessions. Instead scientists are now saying you can shed fat, firm trouble spots, boost your heart health, and fend off a host of ills, mental and physical, not by doing more, but by doing less. You can do this in as little as 15 minutes if you do the right exercises. But you need the inside knowledge.
That’s exactly what you get with the Women’s Health Big Book of 15-Minute Workouts: a scientifically proven, insider shortcut to losing weight permanently. We’ve pooled all our expertise and pored over the latest research to create the Superfast Fitness Plan. At the heart of it is resistance training. Hands down, resistance training is the quickest way to burn fat and build a lean, beautiful body. When you create resistance—whether with weights or your own body—you cause microscopic tears in your muscle fibers, which sounds like a bad thing, but is actually the first step to slimming down and getting strong. This fiber breakdown speeds up a process called muscle protein synthesis that uses amino acids to repair and reinforce those fibers—and voilà, you’ve built some new muscle.
Muscle works magic in many ways. First, all that lifting and rebuilding burns calories not just while you’re exercising, but long after you’re done. Secondly, muscle is metabolically more active than fat, meaning it burns more calories just to sustain itself. Finally, being stronger makes you more active. Research finds that people are more spontaneously active when they start lifting weights because they’re stronger and even hard physical tasks suddenly feel easier. Worried that building muscle will make you bulky? Don’t be. A pound of muscle takes up 20 percent less space than a pound of fat. So you’ll actually be smaller, but stronger. Didn’t we tell you less is more?
The best part: You can get all these body-shaping benefits in no time—just 15 minutes is all it takes. How? We’ve condensed the workout by removing all the sitting around and resting between moves for a supereffective program. It’s not only time efficient, it also increases your energy expenditure both during and afterward. Researchers from Southern Illinois University recently found that one set of 10 reps of 10 exercises (which took 15 minutes to complete, by the way) raised resting energy expenditure (the calories you burn when you’re just sitting around) as much as three sets, which took the volunteers 35 minutes to do.
Finally, to turbocharge your results, we’ve added cardio to the mix. Not the 45-minutes-to-an-hour-a-day variety that may barely budge the scale, but the superfast-fat-burning variety, known in scientific circles as high-intensity interval training (or HIIT) that, like resistance training, builds muscle and burns fat fast. While the government keeps upping the ante on its cardio exercise recommendation—up a half hour from 60 minutes a day to 90 minutes a day for weight loss—a large and growing body of research is saying the opposite thing: that HIIT is drastically superior to regular cardio workouts in improving cardiovascular functioning, increasing insulin sensitivity, and, of course, burning calories. What determines whether or not you shed fat is not the duration of your workouts, but the intensity. In other words, it’ll take many hours to walk away that extra weight. But you can sprint it off in no time.
HIIT builds up lactic acid in your muscles because you’re working harder and faster than your body has a chance to clear it, which triggers a release of human growth hormone, a powerful natural elixir that promotes fat loss and may crank your metabolism to Maserati speed. And it works fast. Just 30 seconds of sprinting on a stationary bike is enough to send your levels of human growth hormone—that chemical that boosts lean muscle and burns fat—soaring by 530 percent. Another study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, reported that just 2 weeks of alternate-day interval training boosted eight active women’s fat-burning ability by 36 percent. Importantly, your metabolism stays elevated for far longer—up to 24 hours, burning up to 120 additional calories (twice as many as low-intensity exercise)—after a high-intensity workout, so you see results fast.
All that fat burning translates into a leaner you in half the workout time. In a study of 18 women, Australian researchers found that those who performed superfast fat burning workouts that included 8-second sprints followed by 12 seconds of recovery 3 days a week lost about 5½ pounds during the study period while a similar group who pedaled twice as long at an average pace actually gained a pound of fat over the same period. Even better, the weight you lose is pure fat. In one study from Laval University, researchers found that even when HIIT exercisers burned half as many calories during their actual workout sessions, they still lost nine times more fat after 15 weeks of working out than their traditional long-cardiobout peers did after 20 weeks.
The benefits don’t stop at weight loss. HIIT workouts also help you get fitter faster (so you have more energy for everything you love to do). In a striking head-to-head showdown, Canadian researchers found that a group of exercisers who cranked out short stationary bike workouts that included a series of 30-second sprints 3 days a week improved their fitness by about 30 percent—nearly identical to the improvements made by a similar group of exercisers who pedaled for 1½ to 2 hours at a lesser intensity. Interval training is also the ticket for better health. Researchers in Norway reported that interval training was far more effective for reducing blood pressure, controlling blood sugar, and improving cholesterol than traditional one-speed workouts.
When you stop and think about how your body works, all of this seemingly counterintuitive science suddenly makes a lot of sense. Our bodies are built to adapt to the work we demand of them. When you get up and go out the door for a leisurely jog, you’re asking your slowtwitch (endurance) muscle fibers to wake up and get to work, but all those fast-twitch (speed and power) muscle fibers go largely untapped. Over time, many of the neurons that once served fast-twitch fibers will get rewired to serve their slower counterparts. Others will die off. Turning up the intensity of your workouts not only gives you firmer, more shapely muscles by tapping in to all those unused fibers (think Dara Torres), but also fast-tracks your fitness gains, says HIIT training researcher Martin Gibala, PhD, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University. “High-intensity exercise kind of shocks your system. Your body thinks, ‘She’s making me do some really hard work,’ so it increases your total exercise capacity—your ability to use oxygen and burn fat—in a fraction of the time than if you’d exercised less intensely,” he says. In fact, according to neuromuscular researcher Christopher Knight, PhD, of the University of Delaware, there’s an almost immediate effect when you tap into your fast-twitch fibers with strength training and/or high-speed intervals. “We’ve found that you can increase your fast-twitch firing rates after just 1 week of training,” he says.
33
Percent more calories you burn after doing back-to-back sets of two different exercises (supersets) compared with sets that let you rest between moves, according to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
That’s the genius of the Superfast Workout Plan. You combine 15-minute resistance-training workouts with 15-minute HIIT workouts to lose the most weight. Scientists already know that combining cardio and resistance training works faster and better than either alone. When Pennsylvania State University researchers put three groups of overweight people on a diet and then had them do cardio, resistance training and cardio, or no exercise at all, they found that though each group lost roughly 21 pounds, the lifters dropped 6 more pounds, or 40 percent more, of fat (which, remember, takes up more room than muscle and doesn’t look nearly as nice). That’s right, nearly every ounce they lost was in the form of fat, while the other two groups dropped precious metabolism-revving muscle as well. Now you get to reap all these rewards in a fraction of the time you ever thought possible.
But the 15-minute secret doesn’t just give you the shortest, most effective workout on the planet. You’ll also:
Whether you want to be bikini ready or are just looking to boost a sagging bottom, 15 minutes is all it takes. Premiere strength-training researcher Wayne Westcott, PhD, CSCS, instructor in the exercise science department at Quincy College in Massachusetts, confirms that when you choose your exercises wisely, a handful of moves—just four in some cases—is all you need to change your body composition. “Navy research shows you can get tremendous overall improvement—losing 4 pounds of fat and adding 2 pounds of muscle in 8 weeks—by doing just four exercises that work every major muscle,” he says. The four moves are the squat, chest press, row, and abs curl. Do them during several rounds of a 15-minute workout for total body transformation.
Even better, the calorie-burning benefits of even the shortest strength-training bout keep coming long after you’ve left the gym. In a study from Southern Illinois University, researchers found that when volunteers did just one set of nine exercises, or about 11 minutes of strength training, 3 days a week, they increased their resting metabolic rate (the calories burned when just hanging out) and fat burning enough to keep unwanted weight at bay. And then even more great things will happen.
Unless you do something to stop it, your body loses about half a pound of muscle a year after age 20, says Tina Schmidt-McNulty, exercise specialist at Purdue University Calumet. That may sound nearly insignificant, but when you consider that muscle is your body’s biggest calorie burner—burning five times as many calories per pound as fat—it’s like “taking your foot off the gas pedal of your metabolism right as you enter adulthood,” explains McNulty. That metabolism meltdown can lead to a creeping weight gain of 1 to 2 pounds per year. Little wonder then that the average American woman loses a metabolism-stalling 15 pounds of muscle and adds 45 pounds of fat between the ages of 20 and 50.
Even if the scale doesn’t take a wild downhill ride, that lean muscle tissue minus the fat will keep you in those skinny jeans forever. How’s that? Because 1 pound of fat takes up 20 percent more space on your body than 1 pound of muscle. Resistance training—just 15 minutes a shot—is all it takes to keep your youthful muscle (and figure) for life.
High-intensity exercise helps you sleep like a baby, which in turn helps you keep pounds at bay. Australian researchers recently reported that men and women who did total-body resistance training for 8 weeks enjoyed a 23 percent improvement in their sleep quality. Even better, they were able to fall asleep faster and slept longer than before they started working out. That’s important because poor sleep wrecks your waistline. In fact, Stanford University scientists have found that body weight rises proportionally as hours of sleep drop below 7½ a night, likely because sleep deprivation triggers the hunger hormone ghrelin and the fat-storage hormone cortisol.
Resistance training is second to none for building bones. Unfortunately, women build their peak bone mass in their teens and early twenties and then start a skeletal slide around 35, when bone thins at a rate of about 1 percent a year; it’s two to three times that following menopause. A study of 124 men and women published in the journal Osteoporosis recently reported that high-intensity exercise like that found in our superfast workouts increased bone density in high-risk spots like the spine, hips, and legs in just 40 weeks. By contrast, those doing low-intensity exercise actually lost bone mineral density over the same time.
Flexibility is the first thing to go, as your muscles shorten over time. Left unchecked, you can lose a full 50 percent of your flexibility over adulthood, which means waving a long-distance good-bye to your toes…from your knees. Using those muscles through a full range of motion, like you will in these 15-minute workouts, will keep all your limbs limber. In a study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, scientists reported that men and women doing just three full-body workouts a week for 16 weeks increased their range of motion in their hips and shoulders and also improved their sit and reach test scores by 11 percent. You’ll find specific stretching and strengthening workouts for even greater flexible benefits in our workouts.
Regular resistance training strengthens your most important muscle—the heart—and improves the health of your entire cardiovascular system. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, scientists reported that volunteers who strength trained just 3 days a week for 8 weeks lowered their systolic blood pressures (the top number) by an average of 9 points and their diastolic blood pressures (the bottom number) by an average of 8 points. That’s enough to slash your risk of stroke by 40 percent and bring down your risk of heart attack by 15 percent.
Muscle is simply good medicine. A 2003 study from the University of Sydney, Australia reported that resistance training could improve insulin sensitivity, which means fewer blood sugar spikes and crashes as well as fewer of those binge-eating episodes low blood sugar can trigger. Research also shows that resistance training is particularly good for burning visceral fat, the kind deep in your belly that smothers your internal organs and raises your risk of metabolic syndrome. Even if you have diabetes, it’s not too late to benefit. Austrian scientists found that men and women with type 2 diabetes who started strength training were able to significantly lower their blood sugar levels and improve their conditions.
Resistance training fends off cancer-causing free radicals, according to a study from the University of Florida. Researchers there found that people who did resistance-training workouts 3 days a week for 6 months had significantly less oxidative cell damage than their non-lifting peers. High-intensity exercise, like the kind found in our HIIT workouts, also has been shown to protect against breast cancer.
No dumb jocks, here. Canadian researchers found that a year of just once-weekly strength training boosted brain power among women volunteers by nearly 13 percent. Other research has reported that strength training improves short- and long-term memory, verbal reasoning, and attention span. Now that’s a mind–muscle connection!
TIP: Research shows that resistance training is particularly good for burning visceral fat, the kind deep in your belly that smothers your internal organs and raises your risk of metabolic syndrome, a precursor to type 2 diabetes.
Survival of the fittest is especially true when it comes to handling stress. Scientists at A & M University discovered that the fittest people have significantly lower levels of stress hormones than their couch potato counterparts. Scientists at the Medical College of Georgia have also found that blood pressure levels return to normal faster after a stressful situation in people with more lean muscle tissue compared to those with less.
Pushups may work as well as Paxil for improving your mood. Researchers from the University of Sydney recently reported that people who did strength training on a regular basis were far less likely to suffer symptoms of major depression. Short bouts of cardio may be equally powerful. Scientists from Bowling Green State University reported that as little as 10 minutes of cycling improved mood in 21 men and women, compared with a similar group who did nothing during that time.
In the pages that follow, you’re going to find all the information you need to follow the Superfast 15-Minute Plan. And then you’re going to have hours (heck, days!) for everything else!
So if 15-minute workouts are so great, why aren’t more people using them? Because you have to know how to put them all together to make them work for you. That’s why we set our minds to creating the most comprehensive guide possible to unleash the magic of the 15-minute secret. And even we were amazed at how the Superfast Fitness Plan can be adapted to every kind of exercise to meet every conceivable goal.
This plan is the most versatile you’ll find. You don’t need to be bench-pressing barbells or even stepping foot in a gym (unless you want). You’ll find dozens or workouts you can do right in your living room. You can swim, bike, jump rope, elliptical train, and even power walk for your superfast fat-burning workouts. You’ll even find workouts to help you perform better on the tennis court or in road races, if that happens to be your weekend passion. You’ll also find an entire chapter of workouts based on the most popular workout equipment (and even some household items), including the ever-popular kettlebell, stability ball, Bosu, and even paper plates!
Following the schedule that we provide on page 21, you’ll be choosing three strength-training workouts and one HIIT workout each week. You’ll find at least two versions of most strength training workouts because it’s important to switch up your exercises as often as possible to keep your results coming. “Your body adapts to meet the specific challenges you place on it,” says strength-training researcher Wayne Phillips, PhD, founding partner in the STRIVE Wellness Corporation. “If you constantly challenge it in different ways, it will continue adapting and you’ll be less likely to hit a plateau. You’re also less likely to get bored with your workouts.” That’s why we’ve included multiple workouts to surprise your muscles with new and different challenges.
Which workouts should you choose? If you’re looking for a major makeover, you’ll probably want to start with the total-body workouts, which you do 3 times a week for 3 or 4 weeks. If you’re looking to work on a specific part of your body, there’s a wide array to choose from and you can mix them up during the week, alternating between, say, the Michelle-Obama-Arms Workout and the Thinner Inner Thighs Workout. The Superfast Fat Burn (HIIT) workout you choose depends on what you like to do (i.e., elliptical train, bicycle, etc.). Just look through Chapter 8 so you can plan which ones you want to do ahead of time. For your down days, when you’re under the weather or recovering from a medical condition, we even have workouts that will address your woes, mental and physical.
There you have it. It takes no time. You can do it anywhere with your favorite equipment or none at all. No more excuses standing between you and your best body ever. Flip the page and let’s get started.