A Better Body in 7 Minutes with Katie Lawton, MEd

Podcast Transcript

John Horton: Hello and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

If you're looking for a way to squeeze a little bit of exercise into a hectic schedule, today's podcast is for you. We're going to walk through a muscle-burning routine known as the 7-minute workout. That's right, seven minutes. That's all it takes for a strength and cardio session that works your entire body, and all you need to get it done is a chair, a wall and commitment. Joining us to boost our heart rate is exercise physiologist Katie Lawton, our go-to source when it comes to fine-tuning our bodies. She's one of the many trusted experts at Cleveland Clinic who pop into our weekly podcast to offer tips on living healthier. So with that, let's learn what a difference seven minutes can make. Welcome back to the podcast, Katie. I'm ready to break a sweat.

Katie Lawton:

All right, let's talk about it.

John Horton:

Whenever you visit to talk about exercising, I feel like our focus is on squeezing maximum effort into minimal time because none of us have any time. I'm guessing that's a big trend in the workout world.

Katie Lawton:

It is. And even like you said, none of us have any time, but in reality, I think if we really wanted to make time for it, I think most of us can generally make time for some form of exercise or movement.

John Horton:

Well, that's a whole other episode. We could talk about the time being our excuse, but we're going to make it so easy where people can do it in seven minutes, where they're not going to be able to use the excuse.

Katie Lawton:

Ideally, yes.

John Horton:

Because I got to be honest, workouts cannot get much shorter than 420 seconds. So tell us about the 7-minute workout and if it's worth the time and effort.

Katie Lawton:

So the 7-minute workout takes you through 12 different exercises, and it is 30 seconds of the exercise with a 10-second rest to help you get ready and get set into the next exercise. None of it requires any equipment — I think maybe there's a wall that you might need or some space to be able to do a wall sit — but there really are no excuses for this one.

John Horton:

Well, and the idea is that these are short bursts, right? The high-intensity movements that I know you and I have talked about on the podcast before.

Katie Lawton:

Yeah, and it is the idea that, with that 30 seconds, that you want to try and do as many repetitions in that or push yourself as hard as you can during that amount of time.

John Horton:

All right, well you mentioned the 12 exercises and that's the key to this entire workout, so let's go through them one by one. I understand that the order you do them is really pretty critical.

Katie Lawton:

They do mix up whether they're going to do lower body and then move it into a core or an upper body and then, mixing up between the muscle groups so that we're not going back-to-back with some of the movements.

John Horton:

So, a very intentional pattern.

Katie Lawton:

Yeah.

John Horton:

All right, well in the spirit of staying in order here, let's work through our list and we'll start with No. 1, which is a classic elementary school gym class thing: jumping jacks. What does that do?

Katie Lawton:

That's going to be your cardio and maybe fatigue your arms a little bit. For the most part, that's just going to get your heart rate going and that's a good way to actually warm up into the workout itself.

John Horton:

OK, so regular jumping jacks, that's just where you go up and you make that X and come back down, right?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah. And then there's a modified version. If you can't quite do the jump, you can step your foot out to each side as you're bringing your arms out to the side as well. So if the jumping bothers your knees or your ankles, that's where you can modify the movement a little bit as well.

John Horton:

Thank you for mentioning that because that is always good. I feel like, sometimes, people think these are so definitive that you can only do it one way, but the key is you can change it to fit where you're at fitness-wise and make it work for you.

Katie Lawton:

All exercise is modifiable.

John Horton:

All right, so No. 2 we're going to is the wall sit. So tell us what that is and how we do it.

Katie Lawton:

You will need a wall, of course, because it's wall sits, that's self-explanatory. But generally, you're going to lean your back into the wall and your feet are going to come out farther from the wall, probably about, I don't know, a foot or foot and a half, and then you're going to slide your back down the wall so that you're looking like a chair. So your knees and hips should be technically at 90 degrees. Now, again, if you need to modify, you just don't sit down nearly as deep into the wall sit.

John Horton:

Now if you get down to that 90, and I know I've done these, it's a thigh burner.

Katie Lawton:

It's definitely a very good quad exercise, yes.

John Horton:

Yeah. And you said, so we hold that for 30 seconds and then…

Katie Lawton:

When you're done, you slide up the wall and that's the end of the exercise.

John Horton:

We take our 10-second break and then we go into the classic push-ups.

Katie Lawton:

Right. And, again, still modifiable. Technically, we're going to be in that plank position on our hands and on our toes, and you want to try and keep your elbows in. I do more of a military-style type push-up, so elbows are going to be in and you're going to slowly lower yourself down to the ground and then, push into your chest muscles to push yourself back into a plank position again. Again, it could go onto your knees. You can go onto a countertop, a weight bench. If you want to make it harder — there are ways to also make that exercise harder as well. You can place your feet onto a bench or something, elevate it so you do more of a decline push-up. You can use — they're called deficit push-ups — so you can take some dumbbells and you're going to go a little bit deeper into the push-ups as well.

John Horton:

I know you said 30 seconds, you do as many as you can. Does it help with something like that to just really pound them out as much as possible, or is it better to go slow and really hold that movement?

Katie Lawton:

I'm more big into form, right? So I do find that if someone's going to do something within 30 seconds, they're not going through the full range, so they're going to do a mini push-up for that matter. But I find you're going to be better off if you're going to go into a full extension in those elbows before you come all the way back down. And like I said, I have seen it where guys will — and I apologize for singling out guys — but where they actually will just move their elbows a little bit back and forth, but they're not going to a full range.

John Horton:

OK, well … just how easy this workout is — we're already a quarter of the way through.

Katie Lawton:

I know.

John Horton:

So, we got done with our push-ups and now we get to lay down, but not to rest, because now you got to do some crunches.

Katie Lawton:

Right. And usually, you can bend your knees, put your feet flat on the ground, and you can put your hands behind your head and you can put your arms across your chest. Whatever it is, you just want to make sure that you're not cranking down your neck. But you do want to focus on actually using your core, and you almost want to think about actually bringing your chest up to the ceiling and looking at the ceiling the whole time as you're doing it so that you're not hurting your neck. If you feel it in your neck, you're probably not quite ready for a crunch because you're not quite using your abdominal muscles to actually be able to do the crunching movement.

John Horton:

What about if you're feeling some pain or a little extra in your back? Is that something that you're not set up right?

Katie Lawton:

Correct. Or you're just not strong enough to do it because, again, that's one of those things — if one muscle's weak, you're going to overcompensate with something else. So yeah, if you're feeling that exercise in your back, there could also be some spinal issues, but there are some other exercises that you can essentially do for that.

John Horton:

But if you got it, sounds like, work through it with the 30 seconds. And you don't want to do it until it hurts, but just do the movement you can and modify it as you need to.

Katie Lawton:

Depending on how fit you are, I think you can. Now, we've talked about that joint pain or that burn that your muscles are getting fatigued, that's fine, but I definitely think that depends on also how fit you are. If you are doing this for the first time, you may regret going to that point the next day. Now, if you're pretty fit and you're generally regularly exercising and this is just a supplemental workout, push yourself, by all means.

John Horton:

Next, we go to step-ups. Is that as simple as it sounds?

Katie Lawton:

It is. And again — I forgot about this one — you do need a step or a sturdy chair, I guess, if you would, a bench, something along those lines that you can actually step up onto and then step back down. This is also going to be a cardio movement as much as it's going to be for your legs as well.

John Horton:

Should you alternate legs going up? If you're going up onto a step, right, left, right, left?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah, because you don't want to use one leg more than the other and you don't want to create any type of imbalances, so you definitely want to make sure that you're alternating between the two.

John Horton:

And we go from there into squats, which I have to tell you, I cannot squat to save my life. My kids laugh all the time. I cannot keep my heels down, and I take it, that is the key to doing a proper squat.

Katie Lawton:

That's that ankle flexibility we were talking about before. But yeah, it does require some form of flexibility within the hips and within the ankles to be able to do it. Generally, sometimes, I will have people sit into a chair or tap a chair and stand back up, making sure they're sitting back and not using their quadriceps too much. Or you can actually, if you've got a TRX or a door frame that you can actually hold onto to, making sure that you're sitting back. The hard part is, with that, making sure you're not using too much of your arms when you're also going into that standing position when you're holding onto something.

John Horton:

And the goal there when you do a proper squat is to keep your feet flat and then you sink your butt down, right?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah, you should sit your butt back first. And then after you sit your butt back, then you can lower your butt down toward the ground.

John Horton:

Well, we've been hitting our legs pretty hard the last couple, now, we're going to go upper body again as we go back and forth. And this was triceps dips, using a chair. Tell us what we're doing.

Katie Lawton:

So that one, the chair's actually going to be behind you. I actually like to have my fingertips facing me versus turning your hands out. Depending on what your ability level is, you can extend your heels out a little bit, or you can go into even more of a tabletop position. Once you're all set, then you would lower your butt down toward the ground and then, you'd push yourself up using and extending your elbows.

John Horton:

OK, yeah, that sounds like if you do that enough over 30 seconds, you're going to feel it a little bit.

Katie Lawton:

Yeah, like I said, that one is — depending on how you challenge yourself with it, your feet placement is, you can also elevate your feet, also to make it even more challenging — but yeah, that one actually can be pretty challenging.

John Horton:

And No. 8 on our list is going into a plank. And no push-ups this time, right? We're just going to hold it.

Katie Lawton:

No pushups. And I would call this one more of a forearm plank. So you could do on your hands into a full, I call them high planks, and then you have a low plank or a forearm plank. If you're starting out for the first time, I would go onto more of a forearm plank, potentially on your knees as well. But generally, what you're going to do is you're going to come onto your forearms with your elbows underneath your shoulders and your feet are going to be behind you in that level plank position. Again, you can go on your knees or you can be on your toes. Toes is going to be a lot more challenging.

John Horton:

And you want to keep everything straight, right? No sagging in middle as you do it.

Katie Lawton:

No sagging, no butt up. And this is also something where you want to think about squeezing your glutes and your posterior chain a little bit — your glutes, hamstrings, as much as using your abdominal muscles as well.

John Horton:

Planks are one of those exercises that it seems so absurdly simple and yet you do it and within that 30 seconds, you are feeling it.

Katie Lawton:

I can't tell how many times I've demonstrated it to somebody and then that patient went to go ahead and try it for me and they're like, "Oh, that's a lot harder than it looks."

John Horton:

Well, it seems like that's the way a lot of these are. It's a lot easier watching somebody else do it than doing it yourself. All right, No. 9 is high knees running in place. So getting back into that cardio, get the heart rate up thing.

Katie Lawton:

Some people actually put their hands out in front of them and have it as a goal to drive your knee up as high as your hands. So if your elbows are tucked in at your side, your hands are out front, and bring your knees up to your hands. I know that's one of the elementary ways that they will teach it as well because the idea is just to, in place, driving your knees in an awkward jog, if you would.

John Horton:

Yeah. So all right, then we're going to move … and No. 10 is lunges. And I know you're supposed to alternate legs, but is it … you just step ahead and dip down, right?

Katie Lawton:

You do want a good enough of a width within your step, otherwise, you'll feel yourself off balance. Whereas, if you have your feet right in front of each other, then you're really going to find you're walking on a tight rope and then it's really hard for you to do the actual exercise. So you want to go — we call it if you're on the railroad tracks, not the exact width of the railroad tracks — but you want your stance to be a little bit wider.

John Horton:

Yeah, wide stance.

Katie Lawton:

Yeah. And then, you actually want to step out a little bit wide as well. And yeah, once you get a good amount of a depth or a good amount of width, if you would, yeah, you drop that knee down toward the ground and then you stand it back up.

John Horton:

And alternate legs, and you step forward a little bit, right?

Katie Lawton:

Depending on how much space you have, you can do what's called a walking lunge — so you can do more continuous, so in that forward motion. Or you can, once you go into that lunge, you push yourself back up into a standing position and then you would alternate.

John Horton:

Now, the next one, we're back to the push-up thing, but this is a push-up with rotation, so that sounds like we're upping in the intensity level on these. What are we doing there?

Katie Lawton:

After you're done, so usually, you do your push-up first like we had talked about before, and then what you're going to do is you're actually going to take one hand, so let's say your right hand, and you're going to reach for the ceiling, reaching behind you toward that ceiling, and then placing that hand back down. You probably want your feet to be a little bit more wider in that stance. Narrow is going to make it a little bit more challenging to get into that rotation, but if you widen your feet a little bit more, it'll make that core a little bit easier.

John Horton:

And should you alternate which hand you reach up here as you're doing it for the 30 seconds?

Katie Lawton:

Yeah, I think depending on how you want to do it. Some people may do a push-up in between each side or you can do a push-up and then rotate, rotate, either one. If you're not as good with your push-ups, you may want to go ahead and do one push-up for each of the rotations.

John Horton:

 And that seems like an exercise that could really test people. And so if you don't have the strength to do it, it sounds like that's one where you could maybe go with doing the push-up on your knees a little bit and just working on…

Katie Lawton:

On your knees, on a countertop, that same idea. Yes.

John Horton:

All right. And we're already at the last one here, so yay, we're just about there. Side planks. I guess we're back to working the core again.

Katie Lawton:

Yep. So again, you're going to go ahead on one elbow. And again, you want to try and keep your feet and your upper body all in one line and you're going to bring your hips off of the ground. Now, you can do it on your knees as well, or you can have it a little bit harder again when you're on your feet. Or if you want to make it, again, harder, you can actually go onto your hands instead of going onto your forearm or your elbow.

John Horton:

All right. Well just to reiterate for everybody, because I know we've been talking and laughing a lot and going through these one by one, so the 12 in order are: jumping jacks, wall sit, push-ups, crunches, step-ups, squats, triceps dips where you'll need a chair, planks, high knees running in place, lunges, push-ups with rotation, and then the side plank. And as you said, 30 seconds on and a 10-second rest in between.

Katie Lawton:

Correct. The only thing I'm not sure about actually is with the side plank, if you should do 15 seconds and 15 seconds.

John Horton:

Well, let's start on the easy side and say 15 seconds for each. And if you get better, you can boost it up.

Katie Lawton:

Absolutely.

John Horton:

What really stands out to me as you look over that list, it's just how amazingly simple all these exercises are. I said they do remind me of elementary school gym class.

Katie Lawton:

 A lot of them you probably did do in elementary gym class. Some of them, they add a little bit of a twist too — I don't know how much of the dips you do in gym class or anything along those lines — but yeah, a lot of them are something that you can do with just being in your home.

John Horton:

And I think a lot of people look at exercise and they think they've got to go buy some equipment or drop some money on a membership somewhere. But this just goes to show that these simple bodyweight exercises can be incredibly effective.

Katie Lawton:

And I will usually say, I definitely think if this is something you're trying to get back into exercise again, doing this, and as long as you're consistent, then you can look at buying other equipment. But make sure that you can start yourself with the routine first before you actually start looking into some further equipment.

John Horton:

And I know it is the 7-minute workout, but I know when I was reading up on it ahead of this, a lot of people will do multiple sets. So it could be seven if you just do one maybe to start, but you can turn it into a 14-minute workout if you just do two rounds of it, or 21 minutes.

Katie Lawton:

I think that has to do a lot with your current fitness level. So some people could probably sustain it for 45 minutes if they really wanted to. But if you're starting out and just getting your toes in the water, don't go big just yet. Try it out for a period of time and see how you're going to feel, and then, progressing through the exercises a little bit.

John Horton:

Now, is there a certain group that the 7-minute workout is just really targeted for and really would benefit the most?

Katie Lawton:

Not anyone just necessarily in particular. I do think that anyone starting out into exercise, it would be really good for. Again, it's only seven minutes. It's better than what they potentially may have not been doing before. So if they weren't doing anything before and they can't really leave the house if they have young kids, if you're traveling, don't have a whole lot of equipment, those would be reasons to try the 7-minute workout.

John Horton:

Well, now the really big question that everyone wants the answer to is, does the 7-minute workout really work as far as building up fitness?

Katie Lawton:

Again, I think it depends on your fitness level and it depends on how much you push yourself when you're also doing it. So something's better than doing nothing at all, right? But for somebody that goes to the gym on a regular basis, this is something that's going to fill something that you can't necessarily get to the gym for. So if anything else, it's just a filler for the most part. So that's not going to give them some extreme benefits for any type of exercise. But for those starting out, I definitely think that they can get some good cardiovascular benefits and some good strength benefits to start out.

John Horton:

Well, and you had mentioned earlier, while traveling — so if you are somebody who works out a lot and you can't get to a gym, seven minutes, 14 minutes, 21 minutes in your hotel room, and you get a good workout in.

Katie Lawton:

Well, and a lot of people who especially travel for work, that is one of the biggest issues or things that I get concerns about is they don't have time for it when they travel. But in reality, seven minutes, if you just set your alarm seven minutes earlier in the morning, you can definitely get a decent workout in.

John Horton:

Do you have any tips for someone who's looking to maybe try this workout and start doing it?

Katie Lawton:

Start easy. Sometimes, I will even say, count your repetitions. So you know that the next time you come back around to it, you know how many repetitions you did before so that you can maybe try and beat it the next time. Don't feel like you have to go for the whole 30 seconds if you're really struggling to meet the whole 30 seconds. If you need the extra break, take an extra break. Or you can actually set a timer on your own and maybe do a 20-second break instead of doing a 30-second break if you think you need a little bit of extra time to rest in between each.

John Horton:

So the rules are not hard and fast, you can modify them as you see fit.

Katie Lawton:

As you see fit. I wouldn't do longer than maybe 20 seconds in between. It does make it a longer workout, so it no longer makes it a 7-minute workout anymore. But yeah, you can definitely modify it if you're just starting out, you need a little bit more rest time in between, you don't have that cardiovascular fitness, you can give yourself a little bit more time.

John Horton:

Are there any people who should approach this a little more cautiously?

Katie Lawton:

Anybody with cardiovascular disease or any type of heart concerns absolutely should have a stress test done before doing something like this if you haven't done exercise in a while. Your heart rate is going to go up a little bit and we want to make sure that your heart's working properly at higher heart rate zones.

John Horton:

Before we sign off and maybe decide we're going to invest seven minutes in this, any final words of wisdom or encouragement about trying this workout?

Katie Lawton:

Consistency. I definitely always have to always harp on making sure that we're consistent. If you're starting out and doing it, I wouldn't go back-to-back-to-back days. Making sure that maybe you're giving yourself a day of rest in between, maybe doing some walking or some light exercise in between. But for somebody that is, again, a regular exerciser, they can probably do this every single day if they needed to, on vacation or something along those lines.

John Horton:

Great advice as always, Katie. I appreciate you coming in and look forward to you coming back.

Katie Lawton:

All right, thanks for having me.

John Horton:

If you're looking to start a fitness routine and get in better shape or just need to squeeze in a quick hit of exercise, consider the 7-minute workout. It's a minimal time investment, but it can pay off big. Until next time, be well.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for listening to Health Essentials, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Children's. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or visit clevelandclinic.org/hepodcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own physician.