Fab Fit Chicago gets in a 7-Minute Workout with Chris Jordan

If you’ve ever given an excuse for not working out, there’s a high probability you named “time” or “access to a gym” as your limitations. With one app that uses your body weight and quick, high-intensity workouts, Chris Jordan and Johnson & Johnson answered your exercise excuses. Welcome the Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute workout app to your iPhone or Android device.

After years of working with busy professionals who didn’t have enough time to fit a workout into their schedules, Chris Jordan of the Human Performance Institute created workouts that took the intensity up, cut the time in half and required only body weight to execute. Jordan’s article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal outlined his program.

After reviewing this accessible fitness method, Gretchen Reynolds of The New York Times Well blog, coined the phrase, “7-Minute Workout,” starting a craze that would catapult this form of high-intensity interval training into the fitness vernacular. Although each circuit only takes seven minutes, Jordan recommends exercisers do three circuits, but he says “you can progress to that.”

Cutting the time and equipment opened up greater fitness potential for Jordan’s time-strapped clients. Often his clients wouldn’t have an hour to get in a workout, so they’d skip it entirely. Jordan says that “the most health and fitness benefits come from a sustained health and fitness program,” so exercisers should try to get the most physical activity accomplished most days of the week.

Now with the release of the Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout, you can access Chris Jordan’s expertise on your iPhone or Android device. Jordan sees this app as a way to make fitness a part of every day. He said “this app may make the difference between someone being physically active and not.”

The app allows you to set your intensity level,

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choose from a library of workouts,

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and select your ultimate workout motivator: a playlist.

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High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) comes with an intimidating name, but the app makes this kind of hyper-effective program scalable for anyone just starting a fitness program to advanced exercisers.

Jordan said that he “built in more gentle versions of the workout so that we can encourage those who need more help to get into it.” He had his 74-year-old mother in mind as he created it. However, he also created workouts for people who were in peak physical shape like his brother “who is a competitive cyclist and a recreational triathlete.”

With 36 body weight exercises and thousands of potential exercise combinations, Jordan believes that the 7 minute workout can keep you interested and your muscles challenged, saying, “the more variety you can get, the more enjoyable [your workout] will be.”

After trying the workout myself, I know that it can help give you the edge over your excuses no matter your schedule, your travel to a hotel with no gym or your lack of a gym membership.