Guest Post by Derek Wahler, CTT

Whew, I just got done with my 10 minute workout for the morning. It feels great to push hard through a workout, knowing that it will all be over soon! I’ll even share with you exactly what I did at the end of this post, so you can try it out at home!

10-minutes For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Derek Wahler. I’m a Certified Turbulence Trainer, just like Mr. Pancakes himself and I’m trying hard to follow in his footsteps!

I used to be the guy that some of you probably know all too well. I was super serious about my workouts, going hard 6 days per week, doing the boring weight lifting and cardio routine.

I would lift weights Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, then do cardio or intervals on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Talk about overkill.

Looking back on it, I thought I was doing all the right things. I was dedicated, working hard and I rarely missed a workout. There was only one problem, and it was a pretty big one………

……….I started to hate working out!

As most of you can imagine, you’re not going to stick with something that you hate doing. It’s hard to admit as a fitness professional, but the mental aspect of working out for an hour every day really wore me down.

When I finished a workout, I didn’t feel energetic or have a sense of accomplishment. Instead, I immediately thought about having to do it all over again tomorrow. I became more irritable, little things upset me easily, and I became a person I didn’t want to be.

At the time, I was in the same boat that most of you are in. I wasn’t a fitness professional yet. I was still working a full time day job and would work out in the evening each night after work.

That was fine in the beginning. However, once I became engaged, bought a house, got married, and now starting a family, I don’t have an hour or more each night to workout. Unless I wanted to be the worst husband ever!

It finally got the point where I had enough and couldn’t take it anymore. That’s how I came up with the 10-Minute Fat Loss Program.

I transitioned into my life as a fitness professional, started doing some research and learned a lot from the other Turbulence Trainers.

In this process, there was one study that really opened my eyes to how effective shorter workouts can be.

Dr. Glenn Gaesser (exercise physiology, University of Virginia) conducted the first “Spark” study, designed to determine if many short bursts of exercise would have the same health and fitness benefits as the standard 30-40 minutes, three times per week routine.

The study followed 40 ordinary people for three weeks on a regimen of 15 ten-minute exercise units per week.

The exercises included walking, weight lifting, stretching, and aerobic dancing.

His study showed results in just three weeks:

10-15% improvement in aerobic fitness among middle-aged men and women, the equivalent fitness level of a person 10 to 15 years younger.
Increase in muscular endurance from 40-100%, the equivalent strength level of a person 20 years younger.
15-point drop in total cholesterol, even higher for high-risk participants. A 1% reduction in cholesterol reduces heart disease risk by 3%. This means that the average Spark study participant reduced their risk of heart disease by 20% – and those in the high-risk ranged reduced their risk by close to 40%!

(The Spark – The Revolutionary New Plan to Get Fit and Lose Weight – 10 Minutes at a Time, Dr. Glenn A. Gaesser, Karla Dougherty, January 2002)

Those are some amazing results! Plus, when you think about it, the majority of their workouts consisted of either walking, stretching or aerobic dancing.

Imagine what can be done when doing total body exercises that work multiple muscle groups!

Personally, I like to break up my workouts, it just fits my schedule better at this point. You can really push yourself hard, knowing it’s only 10 minutes, rather than pacing yourself throughout a longer workout.

If you haven’t worked out in a while, or are very busy and don’t have much time, you can simply do one 10-minute workout and move on with your day. If you have more time or want advanced results, you can do 2-3 10-minute workouts. They can be “stacked” one right after the other, or broken up and done throughout the day.

It’s time for the marathon gym sessions to end! In order to get great results, all you have to do is push yourself hard for 10 short minutes. I promise the results will come faster than you think.

Getting fit 10 minutes at a time,
Derek Wahler, CTT

P.S. The number one complaint I’ve heard from people in my community is that gyms are way too intimidating. That’s why I created this program that you can do at home. All you need is a small space to do the exercises, let everyone else pay for the expensive gym memberships!

P.P.S. I almost forgot the 10-minute workout I did this morning.

Squat Lovers Workout

Do each exercise for 30 seconds, rest as little as possible between exercises.