I’ve been reading a book called Body By Science, and if you’re a busy, working adult who feels like fitness always demands more time than you have, this is very good news.
By now, it’s pretty well established that strength matters — a lot. Stronger people live longer, have lower all-cause mortality, and move through life with more confidence and capability. And I’m not talking about bodybuilding. I mean real-world strength: picking up your kid, hoisting a suitcase into the overhead bin, taking the stairs two at a time without feeling tired.
Where things get confusing is how to build that strength.
- Do you really need 4–5 workouts a week?
- Hour-long CrossFit or spin classes?
- 45-minute HIIT sessions that leave you exhausted?
They’re hard — but are they actually necessary if your goal is long-term health and strength?
This is where Body By Science shines. The authors take a research-driven approach and make a simple (and radical) case: high-intensity strength training, done briefly and infrequently, is the most efficient way to get strong and fit. Think maximum effort, minimal time — as little as 12 minutes per week.
One study in the book really drove this home for me-
Researchers took young adults and tested how fast they could complete an 18.6-mile stationary cycling test. Then they split them into two groups:
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One group did short, intense intervals — about 2–3 total minutes of hard cycling per workout (250% of VO2 max).
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The other group did traditional endurance training — 90–120 minutes at a moderate pace (65% of VO2 max).
Both groups trained three times per week which totaled 6-9 minutes for the first group and 4.5-6 hours for the second. Let that difference sink in for a moment…
After just two weeks, they repeated the test. The result? Both groups improved the same amount — despite one group spending hours more exercising each week. All that extra time produced exactly zero additional benefit.
That’s the key takeaway: more time does not equal better results.
And for people with jobs, families, and real lives, that’s incredible news.
It means you don’t need to live in the gym to be strong and healthy. You can focus on a small number of big, compound movements — leg press, chest press, overhead press, pulldown, and row — push them close to failure, recover well, and be done.
For the average working man or woman, this completely changes the game.
And when you look at this through an ancestral lens, it’s not surprising at all. Humans are designed for short bursts of hard effort, not endless workouts. Walk a lot. Lift something heavy. Sprint once in a while. Recover. Repeat.
That’s how I live and train now — and it’s the reason I’m stronger today than I was a decade ago, even though I spend far less time exercising.
Turns out, doing what our bodies were designed for works pretty well.
