About a month ago now, I decided to do a test of a workout system advocated to me by a friend, called the 7-Minute Workout (7MWO for short). Essentially, the program suggests that a person needs only to exercise for approximately 7 minutes a day, 3 times a week to effectively build muscle. For reasons explained in a previous post , I decided to give it a try, and today marks my first progress report.
First, I want to say that I chose the “Beginner, no equipment” set of exercises to do, and I was quite surprised at how many really good exercises can be done without any special equipment beyond a set of weights. The very first couple of weeks on the system I couldn’t believe how sore I was! Who knew you could work out your triceps and chest just by pushing against a wall? Or that your quad muscles would pain for days just by squatting for a few minutes? I wouldn’t have thought that just doing a few minutes of exercise would feel the same as lifting weights at the gym half an hour or more, but it most certainly did!
That said, I haven’t had any soreness since the first time through all the exercises. I’m doing them the same way – still working my muscles until they’re exhausted – but there’s no painful reminder of my effort in the next days. I asked my friend if that meant I was doing something wrong, but she assured me that she never had any pain at all, including her first week. Hard to believe that those 7 minutes could be making a difference (isn’t it supposed to be n o pain no gain ?), but I’m not complaining!
The updates:
Jan 1 - Weight 141.2lbs Body fat: 32.0% Jan 14 - Weight 140.8lbs Body fat 30.2% Jan 26 - Weight 138.8lbs Body fat 31.6%
I’m not particularly fussed about my weight…it usually fluctuates between 138-142, and it’s far too soon to give credit to any extra muscle mass. I am concerned that my scale says my body fat percentage has increased. The only way that could have happened is if the weight lost between the last weigh-in and this one was mostly muscle. That seems highly unlikely to me! More likely, my scale is not calibrated properly and it is not measuring body fat percentage properly. This means I’ll have to use another method to track progress.
Since you’re expected to track your own progress by how many reps you can do of a certain weight, that seems as good a method as any to assess if I’m building muscle mass. I’m not going to record everything here, but just a few. These are from Day 5 of the 10-day cycle:
Bent flies: 10 lb weight, 8 reps Seated shoulder press: 15 lb weight, 12 reps Front shoulder press: 15 lb weight, 13 reps
Unfortunately, last time through, I only marked down a note for myself on which weights I would be using this time; I didn’t write down my reps. Now I’ll track it better. Since I’m at the 12+ number of reps for a couple of the exercises, It’s time to increase the weights. It will be interesting to see how fast I progress through it. Now I’ve gotta go find a 20 lb weight…
That’s the update for now. If you’re trying it too, please give me your feedback! I’d love to hear how others are finding the program. And if you’re interested in giving it a try, you can get some more information about the program in my earlier post , including specifics on how the program works and how to sign up.
Until next time!
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