Show HN: Workout Daily. We text new 7-minute workouts daily to make fitness easy (opens in new tab)

> Is a daily 7-minute workout better than a 30-minute workout three or four times per week?

The best workout is the one you'll actually do; I suspect this program is appealing to the crowd that figures they can fit in 7 minutes, but not 30.

I usually do a 20-25 minute VR workout using a game I developed for myself.

You could say it is optimized to give the maximum full body workout you can do in a limited space with no additional equippment (except for the VR headset of course).

I top out at 17.9 kcal/min tracked with a Polar H10 chest strap and the vrhealth institute app.

Here is a shorter workout of last night [1] it's 328kcal in a little over 18 minutes.

The game has the very <s>inspiring</s> name VRWorkout [2]

[1] https://twitter.com/MichaelGschwan5/status/12730156899730391... [2] https://vrworkout.at

Physical training follows a fairly typical bell curve-ish dose/response relationship, where more training gives you less and less benefit until you reach a point where your recovery cannot catch up and you get worse. 7 min per day isn't bad because it's a very small time investment that can yield a lot of result for anybody who cannot do anything else, but that's really about it. If you are liking Mark Lauren's strategy you should stick with it. You could probably do both ML's program and this one to be honest.

The 2018 guidelines of activity for physical activity for general health [1] are the following:

* 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, OR;

* 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, AND;

* Resistance training of moderate or greater intensity involving all major muscle groups on 2 or more days per week.

[1]: (PDF warning) https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti...

I always say the best workout is the one you look forward to. If you are currently doing 30min 3-4x a week - and you change the exercises every 2 weeks (so you don't plateau0 - then you are following what most trainers would say is the ideal protocol for strength training. You're also hitting the CDC guidelines. Ideally you would also be getting 120-150min of vigorous cardio in there as well.

Definitely going to check Mark Lauren out. Thanks for the tip! The 7-min workouts tend to work best for people who are too busy for 30-min workouts, or they are looking for something to "mix it up." For instance, they've been doing the same ab workout forever. Our 30-day ab program delivers a new 7-min ab workout every day, so you learn a lot of new moves!

Not at all even when factoring intensity

I went to their sitemap: https://www.workoutdaily.io/sitemap.xml

And found this: https://landing.workoutdaily.io/pricing

omg great feedback thank you so much!

This is great feedback - thank you! Looks like the links to the sample workouts are missing. Here's one https://www.workoutdaily.io/vanessa. It sounds like we need to also provide links on the signup flow soon after we ask for an email. This could explain why so many people are dropping out! Right now the workouts are intended for people between the ages of 20-60 and in good health. Soon we would like to make it so the user can customize based on health condition and age group. We'd love to know more about how you'd like to customize and what you're looking for.

We're already in trouble in so many ways! LOL

This is such a good point! We definitely need to do that. What would convince you? The CDC guidelines for exercise To maintain your weight: Work your way up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent mix of the two each week. Problem is most people aren't doing anywhere close to the CDC guidelines. What we're hearing from users is that they can't say they are too busy for a 7-minute workout...so they end up doing it. If you do 7 min a day for 7 days that's 49 minutes a week of exercise - which helps people build the habit and the confidence necessary to "work their way up" to the CDC's suggested guideline.

I don't know about 7 mins, but personally I have been doing the 5BX [0] (11 mins) plan since the gyms closed here in Germany. Done it nearly every day for about 80 days. Definitely works, I am currently holding above A+ on chart 4. I tried moving up to chart 5, but for me doing >30 clapping pushups in 1 minute seems fairly difficult (got 18 last I tried) even though I can do about 50 wide pushups for chart 4.

I can feel my cardiovascular fitness is far better than before I started, I lost a fair amount of body fat too. I was fairly fit before though. This scheme, as well as supplementary pullups on a doorway bar seem to give me at least some amount of decent exercise. Can't wait for the pools to open up again though, I love swimming.

[0] - https://campbellmgold.co.uk/archive_health/5bx_cmg.pdf

We were skeptical too. We've run 3 sets of beta tests so far, and the results we are seeing are bonkers. Our users who show up and do the workouts every day or every other day are reporting gains of 20% in their strength after Month #1 (the workouts include assessment tests). Month #2 they report gains again. By month #6, one user reported he has reached his ideal bodyweight and is in the best shape of his life. I've been a personal trainer for over a decade and prescribing 7-minute workouts goes against everything you're taught re: the "science." I think it's the combination of behavioral science with the actual workouts themselves. Text-based health interventions have legit science backing them as effective. The rest is discussed in the book Atomic Habits. I think there is a compounding effect on our bodies re the daily 7-min workouts that has not yet been studied. I'm trying to partner with a research lab to learn more!

It depends on where you start. Exercise and training follow a very basic dose/response relationship where the higher you start, the more you need to progress. If you are a couch potato, 7 minutes a day will give you a lot of progress... until it doesn't. For example my starting point would be training four times a week and squatting 500lbs, so it probably wouldn't do much for me.

I wouldn't replace my current exercise routine with it because it wouldn't be enough to even match the 2018 physical activity guidelines for Americans [1]:

* 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, OR;

* 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, AND;

* Resistance training of moderate or greater intensity involving all major muscle groups on 2 or more days per week.

[1]: https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Acti...

Depends on the intensity. 7 minutes of push ups is a lot of push ups, for instance.

Plus the convenience probably helps to get people over the initial hump and used to a daily workout, and they can expand from there

Yes, they do. This article about the science behind 7 minute workouts (it's about intensity, not duration) generated a lot of interest: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-m...

Yes, I've been doing it for the past few months (not even daily) and feel the benefits. I have 2 young kids, so don't always have time for bigger workouts. You reach a plateau eventually, but it's a nice place to be.

Yup. What we're hearing from users is going into YouTube and finding the workouts is kind of a pain, and then you also have to do the workout. Our user is crazy busy, mostly working parents, tiny slices of time in their day to workout. It's worth it to them to pay $20/mo to get a new workout texted. We have yet to see if LOTS of people want that, tho! Free is def a nice price.