Should You Do a Newspaper Workout?
1st January 2025
The New York Times just published a “Scientific 7-minute workout” claims:
“In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.”
“Based on science” is a great term, isn’t it? A bit like the “based on a true story” claim we see in many blockbuster movies. When you read this piece please remember the notion that “based on a true story” and “true story” are very different.
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Beyond the cautions that the creators of the protocol posted (please take these seriously if you’re considering this!), there is another aspect of this workout that I don’t care for: the exercise selection itself. In an ideal world, your workout would include a balance of exercises that will help to keep your body…balanced. I won’t even claim that to be “based on science” because it’s just sensible. Although it is also “based on science”. In fact I would even go as far as to say it is science.
What does it mean to have balance of exercises? There are many ways to look at this, but my preference is to approach it with movement-based exercise selection instead of muscle-based. I wish I could remember which great trainer I learned this concept from, but basically the notion is: If you train muscles, you’ll probably forget some; if you train movement, you’ll be covered.