Guest Post by Derek Wahler
Beat up, worn down and mentally drained. It was all finally starting to add up. I felt embarrassed to even be feeling those emotions, but I couldn’t take it anymore.
For years, I prided myself on being the person who stuck with their workouts. The problem was, I was doing it all wrong.
I would spend 60-90 minutes a day, 6 days a week, lifting weights, doing cardio and adding in some sprint intervals as well. I tried all the popular home workout programs, as well as created my own, to get in the best shape I possibly could.
It’s hard to admit, but looking back on it now, I was doing all the wrong things. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t get seriously injured, because I literally didn’t give my body any time to rest.
At the time, I was like most of you who follow Shawna K. and read her blog. I wasn’t in the fitness industry, just a guy with a regular day job at a software company, working 40+ hours a week.
I would work all day, head to the gym immediately afterwards to work out, then make it home around 8:00 for dinner.
That was fine when I was a single guy who didn’t have a whole lot of responsibilities, unless you count making it home in time for your favorite TV show, before DVR was around.
But it doesn’t really fly when your life starts to change.
After getting engaged, moving in with my fiancé’ and the coolest dog in the world (our yellow lab, Turk), getting married this past spring, and now expecting our first child, I can’t come home at 8:00 every single night.
Not unless I want to have all my clothes thrown out in the front yard, with our neighbors peeking through their window blinds, trying to catch a glimpse of the show.
I realized a change had to be made, which is where Turbulence Training and the godfather Craig Ballantyne stepped in.
In my career transition into the fitness industry, I became a Certified Turbulence Trainer. With this came access to Craig and his MOUNDS of research studies.
Through our conversations, I let him know about my passion to create a shorter workout program, for busy people who don’t have hours to spend in the gym.
Then it happened. One day, an email came through with the subject line ’10 Minutes’.
Inside there was a link to the revolutionary “Spark” study, which was conducted by Dr. Glenn Gaesser. It was designed to determine if many short bursts of exercise would have the same health a
nd fitness benefits as the standard 30-40 minute workout.
I don’t know about you, but I’m always skeptical about the extremely short workouts.
How much benefit are you really getting out it? I can’t imaging breaking much of a sweat in only 10 minutes, unless you’re doing burpees the entire time (I can imagine Shawna’s eyebrows raising up curiously. Sorry readers, I may have just given her a new idea!)
In the study, the exercises included walking, weight lifting, stretching, and aerobic dancing for 10-minute “bursts”.
Dr. Gaesser’s 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 10-15 years younger.
- Increase in strength and muscular endurance from 40 to 100%; the equivalent strength level of a person 20 years younger.
- A 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 the average Spark study participant reduced their risk of heart disease by 20% – those in the high risk range reduced their risk by close to 40%!
- LDL or “bad” cholesterol dropped 10 points in the group as a whole – and 29 points for those in the high risk range. More importantly, everyone who started the study in the high risk range got out of it!
Those are some amazing results, simply by breaking up their workouts into short 10 minute bursts!
I was immediately hooked and started creating short 10-minute workouts to use in my boot camps, along as in my own training.
There’s only one caveat with the 10-minute workouts. You must push yourself hard! We’re only going for 10 minutes at a time (yes, there are short rest breaks included in some workouts), so in order to get the results you want, you must push yourself through each of the exercises.
But if you’ve done any of Shawna’s workouts, you already know that!
Here’s a special workout I created exclusively for all of you readers at ChallengeWorkouts.com. It isn’t included anywhere else, it’s strictly for you.
The 10-Minute Total Body BombShell Workout
We’re doing this one pyramid style! You’ll do 5 reps of each exercise, one right after the other. Once you complete the first round, you’ll then do 10 reps of each exercise, followed by 15 reps, then back down to 10 and finally back down to 5 (5, 10, 15, 10, 5).
You’ll go up and down the pyramid as many times as possible in 10 minutes. There is no scheduled rest, simply rest whenever you need to, especially when your form starts to dip.
- Prisoner Squat Jump
- Reverse Lunge w/ Knee Up
- Double Pushup Burpees
- Total Body Extensions
The key to the 10-minute workout is to make every second count. We’re not adding in extra sets or reps in at the end. Once the 10 minutes are up, you’re done.
It’s how you can strip away the unwanted belly fat, build lean muscle in a short amount of time at home, and most importantly stay off the ‘you know what’ list with your significant other!
If you like this workout, then you’ll love the 120 10-minute fat loss workouts I created just for you. They’re easy to fit in throughout the day, so you can keep your energy levels up no matter what your day throws at you.
I Have 120 Additional 10-Minute Fat Loss Workouts for You to Check Out Here
About Derek 
Derek Wahler is a Certified Turbulence Trainer, as well as a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. As a recently married man, with his first child due in a few months, he knows how quickly fitness and nutrition can be pushed to the side.
With his constant determination to make workouts shorter AND more effective, he focuses on getting advanced results in a minimal amount of time. Derek currently lives in Madison, WI, where he runs his own fitness boot camp. He also trains clients across the country online with his easy to follow home workout programs. He’s also been known to spoil his yellow lab Turk (yes, he’s named after the Scrubs character!)