I have recently seen a physical therapist about a back injury I have been dealing with, and he gave me four exercises to do; each exercise was to be done for five breaths.
Once a day, five breaths was the minimal effective dose I needed to improve my back. Of course, I could do the exercises more than once a day if needed, but once a day was the minimum.
When talking about minimal effective dose, we are asking, “what is the least I can do to get the results I want?” or “what is the least I can do to progress toward my goal?”
Like taking medication, if you do too little, it is a waste; if you do too much, it can harm you. But just enough will achieve the outcome you are looking for.
What does a minimal effective dose look like for health and fitness?
There are four aspects to getting results in health and fitness:
- Sleep/Recovery
- Nutrition
- Exercise
- Movement
Each one of these categories has a minimum dose.
Sleep
In an ideal world, you would go to bed and wake up every day at the same time and get 8 hours of sleep. But, unfortunately, this is not realistic for most, so what is the minimum dose?
Go to bed and wake at roughly the same time every day regardless of whether it is a weekday or weekend.
Nutrition
With the goal of weight loss, in an ideal world, you would eat in a caloric deficit (eating fewer calories than the energy you put out) 6-7 days a week.
The minimum dose would be to eat in a caloric deficit more days than not. For example, if you want to eat out once a week and have a few drinks, you would see some change if you were doing well with sleep, exercise, and movement.
Exercise
It is ideal to work out 2-3 times a week; if you can do more, great.
The minimum dose will differ depending on how long you have been training. If you have been training for fewer than six months, your minimum dose would be once a week. If you have been working out for six months or more, your minimum dose is twice a week.
Movement
The best way to look at movement is by steps because it is so accessible to us these days with various fitness trackers.
The minimum effective dose would be hitting 10k steps each day.
These are the four categories of health. If you are hitting all four, you should see good results. If you are even hitting three out of four, you should at least be able to maintain (this might happen when you are on vacation or have a stressful work week).
If you are moving a lot, getting great sleep, and getting to the gym a few times a week, but are enjoying yourself with some lovely meals out, unfortunately, this is where you might see some back-sliding.
Focus on consistently hitting 3 out of the four categories, and results will come.
Your Fitness Sherpa,
Josh
