Taking three seconds a day to build your muscles can make you significantly stronger

Researchers have found that sedentary people can get significantly stronger by following a super short weight-lifting programme. Could it work for the almost 50% of the population who fail to meet physical activity guidelines? 

Brevity is a word we all like to hear when it comes to workouts. And if it’s a case of hours at the gym versus a shorter, sharper session, most of us would choose the option that cuts sweaty effort to a minimum. In recent years, cardio workouts have been crunched to a minimum with HIIT workouts lasting a matter of minutes, and now it is the turn of strength training with the latest study suggesting
that a new low of just three seconds of daily weight training could make a big difference to your muscle strength if you have neglected resistance exercise until now.

A team of exercise scientists reporting in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports asked a small group of healthy but sedentary men and women to perform a brief arm-strengthening exercise with weights every day for a month. To ensure uniformity of movement among participants, the team from Niigata University of Health and Welfare in Japan and Edith Cowan University in Australia used a lab-based training machine called an isokinetic dynamometer that recorded precise measurements of force and range of motion as they performed a simulated three-second biceps curl with ‘maximum force’ - as heavy as they could manage – on five days a week.