what is your minimum effective dose of exercise?

I heard this term, minimum effective dose (MED) from Tim Ferris about 12 years ago.

It’s kind of like the “Goldilock’s” amount.

The not too much, not too little, but juuuuust right.

In a culture where we are programmed to overwork, overdo, overdrive, overdraw, to speak of a minimum effective dose is heresy.

You mean, you are asking me to do the least amount possible Abby?

Yes, but the reason behind it is the key.

It is to create the greatest possible change.

I’ll diverge for a moment.

There is a concept in the fitness world called ‘muscle maturity.’ This is the phenomenon of—after a certain number of years of consistent repetition, your muscles reaching a breakthrough in growth. Spawn into fitness as a whole, ‘fitness maturity’ is,your strength breaking through a plateau zone, and/or aesthetic/physiological changes like vascularity, power, VO2max, and HRV showing up much stronger. Built into this fitness maturity is a major benefit…because of all the training you did over so many years, your body becomes more efficient and needs less stimulus to keep the gains.

This applies to just about everything in life.

Build a great enough level of mastery, and you will get the advantage of having to do less to get the same outcome.

LeBron James put up so many shots, bench pressed so many reps while visualizing his passing power, and ran so many suicides with the hustle for a loose ball in mind in his youth and early adulthood that he doesn’t need to do as much now to keep his peak expression of self, on the court.

We all work like LeBron; that is, with enough deliberate practice and foundational fitness (in any realm, really), you get the privilege of doing less to get the same peak expression of self.

Beyond this, sometimes you can even expand yourself further by doing less than if you did, comparatively, more.

I used to funnel my everything into workouts: emotional sadness, rage, and escape; social avoidance; my voice was in my movement. My friendships were in my movement. My romance was in my movement. My sex was in my movement.

This resulted in, as you can image, going way over the top with my workouts. What I mean by this is, going hard all the damn time.

Nothing wrong with that in general, but if you want energy for other interests in your life, to not get skewed in body type by rampaging your innate hormonal balancing phenomena, etc, then you’d likely be wise to make a change.

I put in so many hours of deliberate practice and foundational fitness by the time I was 25-ish, that all of a sudden, breakthroughs started happening. I got more vascular. I was getting more definition in every muscle group. I could take more rest, and via that rest, lose body fat.

The irony in this is that “doing less becomes doing more,” and the hard truth is that you have to pave the way to function this way.

It doesn’t just fall into your lap.

So, given the ideas of muscle maturity and fitness maturity—I pose the question to you: what is your minimum effective dose of training now?

Look closely: I said now.

Not five years ago or five years from now. Not five days ago or five days from now.

Today, now, what is your minimum effective dose of training?

Approaching your body’s energetic control like this gives you a leg up on your longevity in terms of years lived, life in your years, and days of enjoyable, expansive fitness (efforts met with growth).

It will prevent long periods of feeling burnt out.
It will prevent long periods of being dissatisfied with your body—in looks, performance, and feel.
It will prevent the feeling that you are not succeeding/thriving.

Really, if you ask yourself, what would be your answer here:
Would you rather exercise well in spurts of awesomeness throughout your life or pick an extreme (nothing or everything) and do it for a short time?

Inquiring within like this, you will discover more accurately what your MED is today.

It will allow you to approach your workouts/workins with a loving, caring and rational mindset that keeps your body growing, thriving, and happy.

There are days to go hard AF, and days to go gently. There is even in between.
There are days to go long AF, and days to go in a spurt or two. There is even in between.
There are days to go wild and dump your everything into your workout/workin, and days to maintain the balance. There is even in between.

I believe that, as you mature, in body and mind—in Bodymind, you recognize that you are building a foundation for the next level, always, and as you go, you will get the privilege of doing less to thrive just as well as you once did.