The benefits of a 15-minute workout will blow your mind

lindasutton2023

Things that take 15 minutes: cooling down after a yogaclass, deciding what to order for takeout and discussing the caption of yourlatest Instagram photo. Here's something else to add: a workout that actuallychanges your body.

Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to work hard inthe gym for 30 or 45 minutes (or, God forbid, an hour). 15 minutes of exercise- yes, 15! - carries a whole host of health benefits: it increases calorie consumption,gets the body in shape, reduces the risk of certain diseases and even addsyears to life.

Yes, that rapid sweating is no joke. Here are some of thereasons why you should take 15 minutes a day off:

1. get results faster.

You've probably heard of HIIT, high-intensity intervaltraining. There's a reason no one shuts up about it: it really works. Recently,researchers found that a 10-minute high-intensity workout had the samebeneficial effects as a 45-minute jog.

One group of study participants did a two-minute warm-up ona stationary bike, followed by a 20-second sprint, then pedaled slowly for twominutes. They repeated this sequence two more times for a total of 10 minutes.The other group pedaled steadily for 45 minutes. At the end of 12 weeks, bothgroups had improved their cardiovascular endurance by 20%.

2. Burn more calories

HIIT exercises, which typically last only four to 15minutes, can also increase calorie burn. In a study published in the journalMedicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, men who performed 13 minutesof HIIT burned more calories per minute and increased their VO2 max capacity by12.5% more than men who performed 40 minutes of steady-state resistancetraining. More power in half the time? Yes, please.

3. Longer lifespan

Fifteen minutes of exercise a day is enough to increase yourlife expectancy. Researchers from the European Society of Cardiology studiedparticipants over a 12-year period and found that those who exercised little(or the equivalent of a brisk 15-minute walk) were 22% less likely to dieduring the study period than those who did not exercise at all. Forparticipants with moderate and high levels of physical activity, the risk ofdeath was reduced by 28% and 35%, respectively.

4. Weight Control

The benefits of even the briefest strength training can burncalories long after you leave the gym. In a study at Southern IllinoisUniversity, researchers found that volunteers who did just one set of nineexercises three days a week, or about 11 minutes of strength training,increased their resting metabolism (calories just burned) and fat burning tothe point of keeping unwanted pounds at bay.

5. stay young

HIIT can have a profound effect on aging at the cellularlevel. The older we get, the less efficient our energy-producing mitochondriabecome. However, when researchers studied three groups of athletes over a12-week period-one with high-intensity aerobic interval training, one withresistance training, and one with a combination of both-they found thatparticipants in the high-intensity aerobic interval training actually reversedthis age-related degeneration. Translation: their mitochondria actuallyfunctioned like those of much younger people.

6. Give your brain a boost.

You know exercise is good for your body, but you probablydon't think about the benefits it can have for your brain. According to arecent study published in the journal Neuropsychologia, just 10 minutes ofexercise can increase brain capacity over a short period of time. Researchersfound that study participants who rode a stationary bike at a moderate to briskpace for 10 minutes answered questions 50 milliseconds faster after exercisethan before, representing a 14% increase in cognitive performance.

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7. Reduce the risk of certaindiseases

Of course, all exercise has health benefits. According to astudy published in JAMA Internal Medicine, 75 minutes of physical activity perweek can reduce the risk of cancer or cardiovascular disease. That's just 12.5minutes a day.

8. Stay happy

Everyone knows exercise and endorphins.

But the science actually says that just one hour of exercisea week (i.e., less than 10 minutes a day) can prevent up to 12% of depressioncases.

The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry,followed more than 22,000 healthy adults who had been free of symptoms ofanxiety or depression for about 11 years. In the end, the researchers foundthat people who reported not exercising at the start of the study were 44% morelikely to become depressed than those who exercised for an hour or two eachweek.

In another study, people who took antidepressants for majordepressive disorder and rode an exercise bike for just 15 minutes lowered theirlevels of the stress hormone cortisol.

9. Have more fun

"High intensity" sounds intimidating than regularworkouts, but people actually enjoy HIIT workouts. When the researcherscompared responses to moderate-intensity continuous exercise and HIIT workouts,they found that 92% of study participants preferred HIIT to moderate-intensity,continuous-intensity exercise, even though HIIT is more difficult.

The reason why they liked him more? Because HIIT is moretime efficient and the workout is constantly changing for you. And you know,the more you like an exercise, the more likely you are to stick with it, therewards will keep coming.

If you want to experience for yourself just how effective a15-minute workout can be, try these quick workouts. Don't try to use your lackof time as an excuse to stop exercising: that job is done.