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> As a way to trick yourself into the habit of exercise [...]

I heard something about this, only in the past few months, but I can't remember where. Apparently, the way to create habits is to trick yourself by doing something almost ridiculous or trivial. For example, say you want to start flossing regularly. For a lot of people, this is a tough thing to make a habit of. The suggestion is to just floss one tooth, once a day. Don't even try to floss two teeth the next day. Just keep flossing one tooth every day and try not to think about starting a flossing habit.

And then, one day, so the suggestion goes, you'll just go ahead and spontaneously floss all of your teeth and continue to do so in the days after that. You've tricked yourself into the habit, because you had no conscious resistance to committing to flossing one tooth; and in the meantime, by flossing that one tooth, your subconscious built the habit. Once the habit was firmly in place, your conscious brain no longer had any resistance to put up.

Something along those lines is supposed to work for exercise, and many other things as well.

I don't know if James Altucher is the originator of that thought line, but he mentions it in his book Choose Yourself. It's been such a long time since I read it. I actually did try the flossing one tooth- it worked for about 10 days before I fell back into my bad habit of a few times per month. (http://www.amazon.com/Choose-Yourself-James-Altucher/dp/1490...)

The 7 min workout definitely will not make you look like a cross-fit junkie, but who really needs to be that fit? For someone who doesn't work out at all, and sits in front of a screen for 8 hrs a day, 7 min a day is likely to add a few years to your life.

I've really enjoyed Mark Rippetoe's writing about the difference between Exercise and Training.

From the gloss for Practical Programming for Strength Training [1]: "Exercise is physical activity for its own sake, a workout done for the effect it produces today, during the workout or right after you're through. Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind, the constituent workouts of which are specifically designed to produce that goal."

He emphasizes that a realistic means of progression is one of the most important aspects of any training program.

Practical Programming and Starting Strength [2] (which is a better introduction to these ideas for novices) are together the best analytical discussion of physical training that I've seen.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Programming-Strength-Trainin...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-3rd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp...

Yes, this is exactly what I'm getting at :) Have read all his stuff. Seems lots of HNers have. It's a highly analytical approach that tends to appeal to hackers I guess.

True, but I think you should consider another perspective.

For most, the problem is getting started and forming a habit. By the time 7 minutes a day gives you diminishing returns, you've probably got a good routine going. Once you have a good routine is very easy to increase the duration or intensity. So, in a sense, it doesn't make people healthy but it does get them on the right track.

You seem to get this, because you said you wouldn't mind so much if it was being sold as "an intro" instead of a "silver bullet." While it's technically true, it would probably do more harm than good. Seven minutes is something that just about everyone, including very unhealthy people, feel like they can achieve. Which do you think is more likely to get people interested?

* Get healthy with just 7-minutes exercise a day!

* Get healthy by increasing durations of exercise starting at 7-minutes a day!

Both have the same result in the end, but my guess is the first will attract more. So, all I'm saying is, I would rather get more people started and then let them figure it out once they've got a routine.

> You seem to get this, because you said you wouldn't mind so much if it was being sold as "an intro" instead of a "silver bullet." While it's technically true, it would probably do more harm than good. Seven minutes is something that just about everyone, including very unhealthy people, feel like they can achieve. Which do you think is more likely to get people interested?

I heavily disagree with this. People run these programs and do them as written and don't dig any deeper. They don't achieve results, and that leads them to develop (completely warranted) distrust for the fitness industry. This makes them feel like exercise only works for some people, and they must not be one of those people. People feel like their weight is genuinely uncontrollable.

On the other hand, a realistic approach gives them the tools they need when they are ready by starting out easy and gradually progressing.

I have yet another perspective. When I try something that sounds too good to be true, and that's how it turns out, I usually drop it rather than investing more in it.