Just the other day, I saw an article about The Four-Minute Workout. Apparently, this is a real thing. A clue re the current state of physical fitness? There’s a reason it’s called a WORKout. A conversation with some of my favorite people. From January 1, 1992. – JDW
Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Shakespeare himself probably couldn’t find the time to exercise. Sonnets, plays… seems it’s always something.
The boss, the spouse, the kids… always someone. A really good rerun of “Night Court.” Something.
The biggest excuse I hear all the time, “I don’t have the time/I’m too busy/I just can’t do it.”
Even Masters Of The Universe can become slaves to time, but a high level of fitness can be obtained in just one hour a day.
Just one hour.
In Los Angeles in 1984, Joan Benoit Samuelson was the gold medal winner in the first Olympic marathon for women. A big deal.
At home in 1991, she’s the mother of two toddlers. Samuelson somehow manages to find the time to exercise.
“I have what I call my efficiency workout,” she offers. “Usually, I’m rushing off to get the kids someplace or myself to the airport. So, I run in the direction of my destination. I leave the house and run as fast as I can toward wherever I’m going. My husband leaves sometime later and picks me up.
“Nothing scientific. It’s a mind game,” Samuelson explains.
“I try to get as far as I can before the car shows up. Which makes the run both challenging and fun for me.”
Frank Shorter, whose victory in the 1972 Olympic marathon signaled the start of the running boom, thinks exercise should be something of a game. Do what you love, the fitness will follow.
“Find the movement that makes you happy,” suggests the forty-three-year-old.
“Start a routine that will give you a motion you like, that you will enjoy.”
For Shorter, that means running and biking. “If I only have an hour, I start out easy for five or six minutes to warm up. (The world-class guys crawl along for the first mile or so.) Then I go as hard as feels good for forty minutes, finishing up with another five minutes easy.
“That’s true for either sport.”
Shorter suggests running and biking on alternate days. “Since I started that schedule a few years ago, I have avoided injury,” he notes.
By alternating the two, Shorter has effectively created a “hard-easy” system which he feels is important.
Part of training is not training. Rest is essential.
“What matters is developing some sense of your effort,” Shorter advises. “You don’t have to exercise at your maximum. Sixty to seventy percent of your max will do the trick, 110-120 heartbeats per minute is plenty. For fitness athletes, it’s the consistency that counts.”
Shorter thinks we can all find time to exercise.
“Stuck in hotels, I’ve gone to the spa, taped my feet to the pedals and had at it. I’ve raced around airport parking lots between connections,” he explains. “Take your lunch hour, and instead of eating, exercise. Just remember, you don’t have to go hard and you don’t have to hurt.”
And you can always get up an hour earlier.
“If I had a regular job, I think I’d do it first thing in the morning to get it out of the way,” says Bill Rodgers, who was a teacher when he won the first of four Boston Marathons. He remembers those days before he became a professional athlete.
“In the morning – before you woke up – it was good. The end of the day was kinda tricky sometimes.”
Rodgers is a nice guy. But his idea of what can be accomplished in an hour reminds us he is not a normal human being.
“If I only had an hour to work out, I’d probably do what I like to do best, a steady ten-mile run,” Boston Billy says. “I think of it as partly enjoyable, partly work, partly preparation for competition.”
He laughs. “And then I’d sneak in fifty sit-ups.”
Rodgers would probably sneak out early and sneak back in late. He’d stretch his hour until it snapped back.
“I found myself forcing the pace when I was a teacher because I felt I had to get in as many miles as possible, he says. “I think it’s a good way to train. If that’s all the you have…” His voice trails off.
“Always play it by ear,” Rodgers suggests. “It’s just a matter really of what you want to do.”
Are those words to live by, or what?
Lynn Jennings wants to be the best. Already the top woman distance runner in the United States, she’s twice won the World Cross-Country Championship. Her 31:06 mark for ten kilometers was ranked as the best performance in 1990 by any road racer, male or female.
“I often think, when I’m stranded somewhere and I only have an hour to run, ‘Why bother?,'” Jennings admits. “But, as soon as I get out, I know I’ve made the right choice.”
Is it possible to get a good workout in one hour?
“Yes, of course. Absolutely,” she confirms. “I would do a tempo run, fast and continuous. I would do a one-and-a-half mile warm up. Then I would jam for four miles. I’d finish with a mile cool-down.”
Unlike Rodgers, Jennings allows ten minutes, both before and after her run, for a change of clothes. She’s still convinced that leaves enough time to get into excellent shape. “You’re using strength to push the pace, it’s good anaerobically and it’s good mental discipline.
“If one is a procrastinator, and one knows there’s only an hour, one knows you have to get the work done.”
One gets the impression this woman wouldn’t need all day to do it either.
“It’s like that Nike ad says, and I’m sure I’m misquoting it,” warns Jennings.
“The more you thought you were pushing, the more you were being pulled.”
Liz Downing is the best biathlete – that’s running and biking – in Oregon. Not to mention the rest of the planet.
In a career spanning fifty-one (51) races, she’s placed first forty-eight (48) times. Those other three times, she was second.
“I think somebody could do a great job with just an hour a day,” Downing says. Forced to choose, she’d do the same as the other superstars.
The obligatory warm-up, alternate fast and slow running for a half hour or so, then the equally obligatory cool down.
She’d change her clothes in a hurry.
If you have enough time to eat and to sleep, you have enough time to exercise.
“Take a look at your schedule, at your life, if you don’t think you have enough time,” Downing advises.
“How much are you wasting?”
Make exercise a priority, then accept the challenge of limited time.
“Be creative,” says Downing. “The time is there if you really want to find it.”
Sixty minutes. That’s all it takes. The time is there.
The only thing missing is you-know-who.