7 minute workout/HIIT: Does it work?

[Fabresque]

Before we start this thread I’m going to be updating it everyday for 30 days with some changes in my diet. I don’t expect a lot of weight loss but I expect a lot of the fat I’ve built up to be shredded (thanks coronavirus).

There’s been a lot of talk about this 7 minute workout, and if it’s really meant to work. It’s supposed to be for people who don’t have time in their day to get a proper workout in, or don’t have a gym/equipment available. I have a mat available, some tunes, and an app to guide me through.

More importantly, me trying to get in shape includes proper dieting. I’ll be logging what I eat and the calories I’m taking in as well. I’m not too great at this part, so if anyone would like to give me dieting tips and such that’d be greatly appreciated.

The goal of this thread is for me to track my own progress and also share it with you, so that you can also decide if it’s worth it or not. After 30 straight days I’ll give my verdict on whether it’s helpful or not so much. I’m going to start a workout soon and post my Day 1 update once I’m finished, basically how I’m feeling and what I ate today.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 1 (April 15):

Wow, that was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It was a full body workout that worked on your core, arms, and legs, as well as your maybe underworked areas like your back and glutes. It was intense, you only got 10 seconds to really catch your breath, and even then you’re using those 10 to set up your next drill. First cycle/Day is done.

What I ate: I didn’t keep today that healthy. I ate two Belvita breakfast biscuits before tucking into popcorn chicken, potato wedges, another full sized biscuit, and a medium coke. Thanks KFC. Also ate a portion of salad with Italian + shredded Mozzarella on top, + two pillsbury baked croissants. Gonna go for a yogurt and an orange later on today. For now, I’m gonna get a paper done and hit the showers, next update coming tomorrow!

 

[Deleted member 768841]

Man, I love popcorn chicken but KFC popcorn chicken screws me up. Had KFC for the first time two years ago and had popcorn chicken, felt like I was going to vomit, diarrhea, never doing that again.

 

[T1000]

I usually do about 10 mins of HIIT conditioning at the end of my workouts (4-5x week). It helps me increase my work capacity and keep the fat off. So yea the 7 min one should work and it’s definitely better than nothing. I wouldn’t expect mind blowing results but if you stick with it you should see some fat lose and an increase in work capacity

 

[Fabresque]

I usually do about 10 mins of HIIT conditioning at the end of my workouts (4-5x week). It helps me increase my work capacity and keep the fat off. So yea the 7 min one should work and it’s definitely better than nothing. I wouldn’t expect mind blowing results but if you stick with it you should see some fat lose and an increase in work capacity

I’m not expecting anything crazy. But i do expect that, after 30 days I’ll be in decent shape and have shaved off a good portion of my fat.

DAY 2 (April 16):

Had my second workout just now. Now that I properly know what to do I can set myself up quicker. Felt good after yesterday and feeling pretty good today as well. Food consisted of a slice of frozen pizza and 4 chicken nuggets, a bunch of water and cereal for breakfast + orange juice. Snacking on some popcorn now.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 3 (April 17): Finished third straight workout. Felt great, definitely understanding the benefits of this. I’m feeling better about myself.

What I ate: Some fish sticks for lunch, a bowl of soup, and a slice of pizza. Drinking more and more water as the day goes by.

 

[bobleenov1963]

This is the best time to train, IMHO, because just about everything is shutdown and there is plenty of free time.

Both my 18 years old son and 17 years old daughter run the hilll as part of their HIIT routine. They run the hill three times a week about 20 reps each. Each rep takes about 15 seconds to finish and 2 minutes to recover by walking back down backward to release pressure on the knees. Running uphill improves a lot of muscles and it requires you to be much more efficient with your running techniques and almost free risk of injury. My son is a big fan of pull-up and push-up.. He does 200 push-ups and 150 pull-ups everyday. Both my son and daughter love working with the medicine ball. They use the medicine ball to jump off the ground and than slam the medicine into ground while the body is still in the air. There is a hill very close to where we live like this one below for them to do the hill training. The bottom of the hill is about 75 yards flat so they can start there before accelerating uphill. The hill is located right next to the public school and even though school is not in session, the school maintenance crew still take very good care of of the grass by cutting it every week:

I also suggest that you should eat much healthier food than what you listed above. Lot of fruit and vegetable, quiona, lentils, with moderate amount of lean meat and seafood like salmon, chilean seabass, tuna, etc... As far as fruit and vegetable go, you should definitely eat at least 20 serving a day. Something like 2 apples, two bananas, 1 orange, 2 avocados, 1 cup of blueberries, 2 cup of strawberries, 1 cup of low fat yogurt and tons of kale, broccoli, cauliflower and green bean. Also eat some nuts like pistachio for snacks. Drinking a lot of water is very good but I also recommend that you drink an extra bottle of coconut during your workout in addition to water. I find Harmless Coconut brand sold at Costco or Wholefood is closet to the real thing:

 

[E46luver]

That hill looks a lot bigger than 15 seconds.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 4 (April 18): Fourth straight, almost forgot to post, finished the workout a few hours ago. Also played a tennis match today against a good friend, lost 2-6, 2-6 but in my defense he’s a UTR 10 haha. I had bacon to start off my day which was followed with chicken and tater tots. Haven’t eaten since, but I’ll go for a banana probably to get my fruit in.

 

[Fabresque]

DAYS 5 & 6 (April 19/20): Apologies for not posting yesterday. Anyways did both. Pretty lean food wise, yesterday was 2 beef sausages, a lamb chop, and Spanish rice for dinner. Today, just cereal so far, I’m gonna tuck into some left overs.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 7 (April 21): Another day, another workout. One week has officially been completed! I can see some good results, my fat seems to be trimmed down and I feel better about my well being. I have eaten two granola bars today, about to eat some veggies and meatballs in a bit.

 

[jcgatennismom]

@Fabresque First of all congrats on finishing your 1st week! For the 2nd week, maybe you can repeat the 7 min workout after a couple min of rest or maybe add some weight to the original 7 min. You probably want to build up to 30min of total activity but not all HIIT-lots of sites have virtual workouts (Joel Jones has some short tennis fitness videos 5-8min on youtube, USTA player dev has stuff too https://www.dartfish.tv/Videos?CR=p611c52462). How much conditioning did you have at school-I assume at least 30min pre/post practice and probably more like an hour? I assume doing school remotely you have a lot more free time too unless you have a job plus school.

Unfortunately my son left his tennis conditioning book in his college apt-this is a good one with different tennis specific exercises. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Conditioning-Tennis-2nd-Sports-ebook/dp/B01J1V18H2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3C61PBCE8KNBD&dchild=1&keywords=tennis+training+kovacs&qid=1587526672&sprefix=kovacs+te,aps,160&sr=8-2 There are video links with the book for download or you can do the other free stuff off youtube. Your 7 min workout is mainly bodyweight so you should add in some agility and footwork and some strength with weights every other day to average 30 min a day but work up gradually 7 min last week, 15 next and by the 3nd of 4 weeks you will have a 30 min workout.

You should have protein at every meal-maybe a protein smoothie after a workout. Smoothies are a good and fairly reasonable way to get in quality protein plus extra fruit and veggies-you can even add greens powder. Replace those tater tots with a sweet potato! Lots of affordable options on Amazon. I dont know if you are drinking Gatorade or not, but the main benefit of Gatorade is electrolytes, and you can take Emergens C or Trace Mineral Power paks instead and get 1000-1200mg Vit C along with the electrolytes for about .33-40 a pack (30 in a pack-still as cheap as Gatorade). If you dont want to make a smoothie, my son likes the Orgain smoothies-12 packs on Amazon for post match snack. Remember healthy fats can actually help you lose weight-avocadoes, almond butter, etc instead of the granola bars.

Are the courts open where you live now? I think I remember from a past post that maybe you are in Mid-west. We had heard from players there that courts were closed but maybe that was just indoors and now people can play on outdoor courts. We live in one of the crazy southern states where golf, tennis, and gun stores are open with much more opening soon-probably too soon... Lots of players home from college in our area so keeping up tennis skills is easier than keeping up strength.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 8 (April 22): 8th straight. Once I’m done with 10 I will begin two workouts a day. I feel more productive actually. I’m getting my schoolwork done with minimal procrastinating and my mood overall is better. I ate a bowl of stuffed peppers. I like to dice it all together and then eat it.

 

[navigator]

7-minute abs... that's the ticket... well, until 6-minute abs comes along.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 9 (April 23): Did another workout. One more and we’ll be a third of the way done with this challenge. Food was two bowls of vegetable noodle soup and rice, with some toast. See you later today!

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 10 (April 24): I posted my update very late last night, apologies. 10 done! From now on I will complete two workouts per day, so 14 a week. Food was Bacon and chicken sandwich with some greenery on top and a lot of water. I also played some tennis today.

 

[Injured Again]

I've been into high performance cycling and running for a few decades and have been on email lists and forums heavily visited by exercise physiologists and high level (national/world caliber) coaches. The research says that you can't even get your body ready to perform at a high level without a warmup period that takes at least 10-15 minutes. You need to raise your body temperature in order to be able to drive physiological responses in ways that induce significant adaptations, and that takes time.

These short workouts are definitely better than nothing, but getting into good shape is hard and takes a lot of time, effort, and discipline. It's one of the reasons why there's an obesity epidemic in the United States. It's awesome that you're now going to do two of these workouts back to back, and if you have a bit more time, I think you'd see more benefit by doing some light jogging for ten minutes before you start it. Good luck.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 11 (April 25): 2 done!! Making good progress, my core feels really strong. I forgot to post it but I’m feeling like my core is getting better, I can see my fat being trimmed up but not too much.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 12 (April 26): Another 2 done, I'm thinking about doing 3 a day once I hit 20. If anyone wants to give any input on that it would be appreciated. Ate stir fry for dinner.

 

[chic]

@Fabresque something to keep in mind with your diet (I've been on a weight lifting trend myself the past year). Even a lot of your healthier meals are sodium heavy.

Long term health aside, this will mean you are carrying much higher water weight. As a result it will be very easy to fluctuate your weight based off food and drink but the result may not actually be true weightloss.

Whenever I get cheap pizza now (Domino's, pizza hut, etc) even if I eat it over 2 says and the calories are below my daily burn I gain 3-4 lbs for a couple days then rapidly lose it. Nothing necessarily went with this, but worth mentioning it you're trying to gauge any results.

 

[Fabresque]

DAY 13 and 14 (April 27/28): It’s kind of becoming a hassle constantly updating this, but I did my 2 today and yesterday. I ate maznik, pizza rolls, and fish sticks in the two days. If you don’t know what maznik is, google it.

 

[Azure]

DAY 13 and 14 (April 27/28): It’s kind of becoming a hassle constantly updating this, but I did my 2 today and yesterday. I ate maznik, pizza rolls, and fish sticks in the two days. If you don’t know what maznik is, google it.

Are you monitoring your weight? Also, are you visibly noticing the difference before you started it and two weeks into it?

 

[Fabresque]

I don’t really seem to be doing a good job of updating this thread, I just don’t really feel as if this is important to my personal growth, but I’ll post when I get to 30 days.