So you've likely heard about the latest study by British researchers, who've proven that 3 minutes worth of burst bout style cardio may help prevent diabetes by helping control blood sugar?

This is awesome news, but not really new. We've known for some time now, that short term, high intensity cardio is great for heart health. In fact there has been research that proves that three 15 minute bouts of cardio exercise completed throughout the day is more beneficial than doing one long 45 minute bout. This isn't magic though people. It's simply a matter of those three 15 minute bouts being spread over the course of a day; you can make each bout more intense because it's a shorter duration and you'll be training three times over the course of many hours. 

I don’t want to get side tracked here but I also want to talk about some new products that I’ve seen surfacing, where some fitness marketers are riding the impulse train, trying to get you to buy in to the belief that you can also build lots of muscle or a totally transformed body in just 3 minutes a day. 

Let’s get something straight, if you've been doing NO exercise for some time now, doing some type of exercise is better than nothing. If you've been sedentary, barely exerting yourself and I asked you to go outside your house and carry a big rock or boulder around your yard for 3 minutes a day, guess what? You're going to get a result. Most likely not a great or even good result, but you’re bound to feel some muscle soreness in a day or two. Again it’s not magic. If you don’t exercise and suddenly decide to exercise, even a small amount of exercise will challenge your body enough to create a result. 

Yes, this will work more for someone who has never worked out. You may be familiar with a reality show that features "Losers" who claim to have lost more than 35 pounds in a week's time. Please understand something guys & girls, these people who are losing weight like this are morbidly obese, they are usually brand new to intense exercise like this (the Boulder effect), they are spending the majority of their day's working out and concentrating solely on health and nothing else (No work – No family) & guess what? Their so called weight loss happens to be 99% water weight! This is entertainment television, not a show to show you how to do it! They even state that their contestants follow a diet that most likely is very different than what it appears to be.

In a nut-shell, this sends an unrealistic message to regular people, who are struggling with their own weight. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a wonderful thing to give somebody hope and inspiration to help get themselves healthy. On the other hand, it is nothing but a disservice to you and even more, harmful and potentially life threatening to sell people a dream that is so unattainable! 

So now let’s get back to the 3 minute weight training workouts. If you're interested in building a lean and muscular physique, 3 minutes worth of weight training will get old mighty quickly. Weight training is all about adaptation and you adapt muscularly by overcoming resistance. The heavier you lift, the more you break down the muscle, wait for it to recover and repeat the process again by lifting heavier weights or challenging your body by changing up some of the other training variables (the exercises, the sequence of exercises, sets, reps, rest between sets, time under tension, tempo, etc.). One of the biggest variables is time under tension, which is the length of time that your muscles are actually under resistance/tension that is created by the weights or resistance you're lifting throughout a set or over the total workout session. It's unrealistic to think that you can or should try to create enough of a challenge for even one muscle group in 3 minutes time, let alone more than one major muscle group. 

These self proclaimed experts who are creating or endorsing these quick fix workouts are simply trying to tap into the impulses of those who want fast results and expect them with very little  or no effort.

Listen, it takes hard work to create a great looking body. I challenge anyone to step up and show me a how they developed a great looking body through one of these hokey 3 minute workouts. It's BS and you must not fall prey to this crap.

Now it may very well be possible that some of these 3 minute workouts are simply a play on words and that by 3 minutes, they really mean 3 consecutive minutes worth of exercise, followed by rest, followed by another 3 minutes worth of exercise. Now this weight training protocol could work, but if they’re marketing a 3 minute workout ( a workout where you can develop a great body in only 3 minutes a day) it's misleading to those of you who believe that you can accomplish such a feat.

For cardiovascular benefits, breaking up the bouts of training into shorter duration burst bouts like 3 minutes is a fine idea, BUT. I bet that you knew there was a “but” coming:    I don't have the time or the patience to allocate the time to three separate exercise sessions in my day. I'd rather, as most people would, get it done in one bout. There may be days when I can break it up, but for the most part, I'm blocking out 1 hour, getting in, getting it  

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