Short workouts: How to firm up and tame hormones

How many days a week can you really fit an hour of exercise into your busy schedule?

If you struggle to exercise due to lack of time, there’s good news. Shorter workouts can have a more positive impact on your body and on your hormones…

According to research, high to moderate intensity exercises provoke an increase in circulating cortisol hormones — but low intensity exercise does not. I wish I had known that years ago.

But having 20:20 vision has always been the gold standard, right? So it is with this workout. Watch as I take 20 minutes and make them count with cardio intervals. Then I show 15 exercises that demonstrate what you could do with 20 minutes of core exercise once a week. That’s how you can make a few minutes daily enough to keep you consistent and on track with your goals.

A 20-minute cardio interval program would look like this:

• 5:00 Progressive warm up (increasing intensity)
• 10:00 Interval training 30 seconds and recover 1:00
• 5:00 Cool down

Ready for a better core workout? Choose an exercise for each minute. You can repeat those that were most challenging. Can’t do the full minute? It’s OK, rest until the start of the next minute. The core exercises included in the video include:

• Front plank
• Side plank
• Moving plank
• Reverse crunch
• Walk-the-dog plank
• Back Extension (feet down)
• V-sit hold
• V-sit rotation
• Roll ups (knees bent)
• Bicycle
• Single Leg March
• Side plank with flexion
• Plank with frog legs
• Side plank with leg lift
• Back extension skydiver

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787373