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46: The Busy Person’s Blueprint for Fitness That Actually Fits: (Part 1) - The Real Minimum Effective Dose — How Little is Enough to See Results?

• Adam Kelley • Episode 46

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Ever wonder, “What’s the least I can do and still see results?” You’re not alone—and the answer is better than you think.

The fitness industry glorifies more: more workouts, more sacrifice. But research proves otherwise. Just 150 minutes of moderate activity weekly can reduce disease risk by 40%, and 2–3 strength sessions a week builds muscle. It’s not about doing more—it’s about doing what matters consistently.

That’s the power of the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) approach. We offer three commitment levels:

  • Baseline Builder: 3–4 days/week (~2 hrs total)
  • Momentum Plan: 4–5 days/week
  • Optimize Routine: 5–6 days/week

The best part? You can shift between them as life changes—without losing momentum.

Clients like Alex (busy dad and lawyer) dropped 16 lbs and reversed pre-diabetes with just 2 lifts + 3 walks weekly. Renee crushed her goals on 3 full-body workouts/week—after years of burnout from daily programs.

The secret? Doing the right things, consistently. Start where you are. Do what you can. We’ll help you stack the wins.

Book a free consult through the show notes or our site. Your sustainable fitness journey starts now.

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References: 

  1. Haskell, W. L., et al. (2007).
         Physical activity and public health: Updated recommendation for adults from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association.
     Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(8), 1423–1434.
     https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e3180616b27


  2. Schoenfeld, B. J., et al. (2019).
         Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- vs. high-volume resistance training: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
     Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 33(Suppl 1), S1–S18.
     https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002958


  3. Campos, G. E., et al. (2002).
         Muscular adaptations in response to three different resistance-training regimens: Specificity of repetition maximum training zones.
     European Journal of Applied Physiology, 88(1–2), 50–60.
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-002-0681-6


  4. ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine). (2017).
         ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (10th ed.).
     Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health.


  5. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018).
         Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd Edition.
     https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf


  6. Harvard Health Publishing. (2020).
         Walking: Your steps to health.
     Harvard Medical School Special Health Report.
     https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/walking-your-steps-to-health

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Speaker 1:

What's the least I can do and still get results. Boy, don't we all wish we had the answer to that one. Well, guess what? You're gonna get the answer in this episode and in this series. So the answer is more encouraging than you may think. So let's get into this.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast From health and fitness, business, personal development, relationships and more. We promise you will find inspiration to help you win on purpose in all areas of your life journey. Now for your host, adam Kelly.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast, the show where we cut through the noise and teach you how to build a healthy, strong and purpose-driven life, even when you're busy, especially when you're busy. I'm your host, Coach Adam. Sorry, I'm your host. Let's try that again. You know, no one loves perfection. We all love authenticity. I'm your host, coach Adam Kelly, owner and head coach at Transform Health Initiative.

Speaker 1:

And today we are kicking off a brand new series, guys, and when I say I'm excited from this series, if you can't tell my voice and the fact that I keep stuttering and can't get my words out, that would be an understatement. I am super excited for this series because I know this series is going to make such a huge impact on so many people's health you have no idea especially the people that we love to work with, and that is, busy individuals. So this brand new series that we're kicking off it is called the busy person's blueprint for fitness. That actually fits OK. So if you've ever thought I just don't have time to do all this, or you ever felt that you know you were overwhelmed by how much you think you should be doing, then this series is for you. And we're starting this one with a question every client eventually asks and that is what's the least I can do and still get results. Boy, don't we all wish we had the answer to that one. Well, guess what? You're going to get the answer in this episode and in this series. So the answer is more encouraging than you may think.

Speaker 1:

So let's get into this. So why less can really actually be more? So let's start with the truth. More does not always mean better, especially if it's not something that you can stick with. All right. If it's not sustainable, then it's not actually better, no matter how good it could be. All right.

Speaker 1:

Too often we're fed this lie that if you're not sore, if you're not sweating buckets, if you're not working out every day, it's not enough. But the reality is that consistency beats intensity every single time. Here's where the minimum effective dose, or MED, comes in. So minimum effective dose is the smallest amount of structured effort that still produces meaningful change, not just checking a box, but actual improvement. And for busy adults, med isn't just a shortcut, it's a strategy. So what the research says? It says this of moderate activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, can reduce the risk of heart disease, depression and early death by up to 30 to 40%. That was by the CDC in 2022, the World Health Organization guidelines.

Speaker 1:

You can build and maintain muscle with just two to three strength sessions per week, according to leading hypertrophy researcher, dr Brad Schoenfeld. If you don't know Dr Brad Schoenfeld, you are truly missing out. If you like the nerdy stuff, if you like the exercise science, if you like all things science-based muscle building getting jacked the right way, then you want to check out Dr Brad Schoenfeld's work and all of his colleagues, because they are literally the top, of the top dogs when it comes to pumping out high quality evidence. And not only that, they're actually doing studies in trained individuals, where a lot of the data that we had, especially in the 80s, 90s, before that, and even up to the early 2000s, was usually based in non-active people okay, sedentary individuals. So obviously the rules are completely different with people who are active versus people who are not active. So that's another reason why I really love their work. But check them out, dr Brad Schofield.

Speaker 1:

So what is the key? Those workouts must be intentional If you're going to get away with just that. Two to three strength sessions per week, purposeful, not just moving, but actually progressing all right. So what the science says about strength and cardio. So let's unpack the two types of training your body truly needs and how much is actually enough of each. So let's start with cardio, everybody's least favorite topic. So this isn't just about running or burning calories. Cardio training helps your heart, your lungs, your blood circulation and recovery capacity. So cardio is not just about looking good. It is so much more than that, and there's so many health benefits outside of body composition that we should be weighing in the balance if we're going to be doing cardio or not. So even 30 minutes of walking a day can lower your resting heart rate, reduce blood pressure, improve mood and cognition, and you can find that in a Harvard Health study from 2020. So it's not flashy, but it's foundational.

Speaker 1:

So strength training here is the true game changer, guys. Strength training helps you age better, function better and look better, regardless of your goals. So some benefits of strength training include, but not limited to, preserve muscle mass, which declines after age 30 without intervention. So we typically lose about a pound of muscle per year after the age of 30 if we're not getting adequate protein and strength training regularly. It helps build stronger bones and joints. Strength training helps boost metabolism. It helps improve insulin sensitivity and mental resiliency. Okay, lots of reasons outside of, you know, having big muscles. There's many, many more reasons that you should be involved in regular strength training. So, actually, one study showed that just one set per exercise, performed to fatigue or close super close to failure, two to three times per week, was enough to significantly improve muscle strength and size, especially for beginners and those returning after time off.

Speaker 1:

So, hey guys, real quick before we dive back in At Transformed Health Initiative. We're not just in the business of workouts and meal plans. We're here to change lives, one transformation at a time. That means that helping real people, people like you, rebuild their health from the inside out in a way that actually fits their real life. Because here's the truth. You don't need another extreme program. You've been there, you've done that. You need a system that respects your schedule and restores your confidence and equips you to win in your body, your mind and your purpose.

Speaker 1:

If you've been listening and thinking, I would like that kind of change, but I don't know where to start. You don't have to figure it out alone. We love to hear your story and show you what's possible. No pressure, no push. You can grab a time to talk in the link in the show notes. Let's build a plan that actually works for your life. All right, let's get back to it. That's been a 2002 study. We actually put all the reference studies at the bottom. So I'm not going to mention as many times as I have in the past where the study came from, because you can look down the references and find that exact study and do the research, because it's always better to be studied up.

Speaker 1:

Don't just follow what I say. Don't just listen to me and say, oh, this must be right, or anybody else. Go check the sources and check people on their stuff. All right, feel free to check me please, because if I'm wrong, I'd love to be right. So, yes, at the end of the day, quality trumps quantity. Okay, very important to understand.

Speaker 1:

It's not about how much you do, it's about what you do, why you do it and how you do it. That makes the biggest difference. So why busy people quit? Okay, let's get down to the root issue here and how MED or minimally effective dose solves that. So most people don't stop because they're lazy. Okay, if they were lazy, they probably would have never started to begin with. They stop because they're tired, they're burnt out, they're tired of trying to do so much too much and on too little sleep, with too many responsibilities and not enough structure.

Speaker 1:

So, like what's the typical story here? Someone gets motivated. They start working out five to six times per week, usually going from nothing, cuts out all their favorite foods, all sugar, all processed stuff, all artificial anything and goes all in hardcore Spartan style, toughen up, only to crash by week three and say I just can't keep this up. Three and say I just can't keep this up. Yeah, we could have told you that it's not about, it's not a motivation problem, guys. It's not about motivation. It's a design problem, all right, and an understanding problem. That's why minimum effective dose works. It respects your time, it reduces friction and it builds repeatable wins. Okay, sustainable wins lead to long-term benefit, always well, not always, but mostly and that's what actually creates results not intensity, but repeatability.

Speaker 1:

So how to build a realistic, minimally effective dose plan? Okay, I'm basically gonna give you like three tier options that you can choose from, depending on where you're at. So let's talk about structure. What would a practical MED routine actually look like? So you can think of it as three different levels, depending on how much time and energy you realistically have. So, depending on where you're at, what you can do, what you've been doing, that's how you can kind of decide where you could fall in this category. This makes it super easy, guys.

Speaker 1:

So level one think of this like the baseline builder. Okay, three to four days per week, tops, that's it. That's all of your physical activity outside of just moving your body around, which you should do as much as you can anyways. So that level that three to four days per week could look like. You know, two full body strength workouts, 30 to four minutes, 30 to 40 minutes a piece. You can knock that out before work, after work, while the kids nap, after the kids go to bed so many different options to squeeze in 30 minutes. And then just two walks, two brisk walks, 20 to 30 minutes per week. So get your heart rate up, get that blood pumping, sweat going unless it's wintertime, but hey, I sweat when I walk, even in the wintertime. Just get that blood flowing, push a little bit hard for that. 20, 30 minutes and there you're done and like you're going to get phenomenal results just from that, especially if you're coming from doing nothing. Now, if you're way beyond that, like one of these other two levels and then you try to go down to that. Uh, maybe you know your results won't come as fast, or maybe it'll slow down some, slow down some, but if you especially if you're coming from nothing, then that is literally all you're going to need for a very long time to get phenomenal results. So it's great again for beginners, those returning after injuries, so not just going right back to where you were.

Speaker 1:

Or you have a crazy busy week, okay, or consecutive weeks, so you know one week being a little thrown off, you know it's cool, we work around that. But if you got multiple weeks where maybe you have a lot of business, you know traveling that you have to do over several weeks, or just you know the kid's schedule goes bonkers and your schedule is bonkers and you're trying to figure out a way to make it all fit. That's where it really helps to have that baseline builder Because, again, that's only you know one, two hours a week. Think about that, guys. Two hours a week of physical activity, whether that's strength training or just a brisk walk, can get you phenomenal results. Who does not have two hours a week that they can pull out and add in this type of work. Again, this is not hard. That's why it's the minimally effective dose.

Speaker 1:

Now level two, we'll call this the momentum plan. Okay, so this is like four to five days per week. This is a level up, still very doable. So now, where you can be at three strength training sessions per week, that's can either be a split, where you're splitting the body down into multiple muscle groups, or a full body training. Again, you're training the full body three times per week. Maybe it's Monday, wednesday, friday. That way you save the weekends to have family time and relax and do the things that you want to do. And then two to three cardio sessions per week, so brisk walks or interval work.

Speaker 1:

This is where most of our THI rebuilding clients land after two to three, four weeks of consistency. So we build them up slowly, introduce the activity, then we increase it slowly, and this is kind of where people typically stay in our rebuild program as they're solidifying these habits and really dialing in this new version of themselves. So again, guys like, even with that, four to five times per week, we're not talking about a lot of time, we're talking maybe like four or five hours of your entire week. Somebody do the math, because I'm not a math person but multiply 24 hours times seven and then subtract four, and there you go. Or subtract five or even six if you want to give yourself some drive time cushion to the gym, and boom, you have all those hours left for all your responsibilities. I promise you a many, many people can pull out that five hours from their week and fill it with things that are going to help them be more productive on the rest of the hours of the week.

Speaker 1:

And then our last level we'll call this the optimize routine. Okay, this is like five to six days per week. This is where you're advanced, your next level. You really want to challenge yourself, but you're also not overdoing things. Again, you could do this for five days for the rest of your life and get even way more phenomenal results than you would have with that beginner plan. So this can look something like three to four strength workouts per week, again splitting the body down.

Speaker 1:

Once you get past like three days per week, I would probably go and split the body down. So a lot of people out there do full body training every day, where they basically go in every day and they train the muscle groups that are the least sore or that aren't sore, while they let the other ones recover and they just go back in and rinse and repeat that same cycle. But I would say, you know, five days a week is very good. If you're just really obsessed with training, six days a week, cool. I would give yourself at least one day a week to literally have no strength training and just let everything recover. Okay, recovery is super important. And then with that, three to four strength sessions per week to add the cardio factor for our heart health, lung health all that then you could add in two to three cardio or conditioning or recovery sessions, so mix and match those as well. So this structure is more ideal for more advanced individuals with the time and desire to train more often, but only when it's sustainable.

Speaker 1:

So if this is how you like to train, don't think that you can do this 24, seven Well, we're not talking about hours but don't think that you can do this 52 weeks a year, every single year. Okay, things change, seasons change, we get sick, we go out of town, life happens. So you know you can always and the cool thing here too, guys, is side note you can always switch in between these three as well, like maybe for you know a few months, like you're locked in, life is pretty chill, it's pretty routine, not a lot's happening with the family, not a lot's happening at work. So you can dial in and be like you know what I'm going to do six days a week. I'm going to do five days a week, I'm going to push it hard, I'm going to get myself to the next level and then when you know that travel season's coming up, or summertime or vacation time or whatever it is, then maybe you dial back to that level one or that level two and just kind of maintain there. So, totally cool to do that as well, and then that'll help you not only handle business as life happens but also handle business with your health at the same time. So your MED, your minimally effective dose, isn't a static rule. Okay, it's a moving target that shifts with your life seasons, and that's totally okay, all right, that's actually preferred, because you'll go crazy trying to do the same thing all the time and forcing it all the time. Okay, you're a real person, that's totally fine, all right.

Speaker 1:

So let's look at some real clients and real results. We're going to look at a couple of many case studies of clients that we've worked with over the years. One of these clients is actually still a current client, so pretty cool there. So, anyways, we have two different case studies we're going to look at. We're going to look at Mr Alex, 42-year-old lawyer and dad of three.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so he started with just two strength training sessions and three walks per week. Okay, he was in the THI rebuild program and that's where we started with lost 16 pounds in 90 days. Guys, this wasn't something crazy. We did. We didn't make him cut out all of his food. Obviously, again, he was only in the gym about, you know, one hour a week combined and about 90 minutes of walking throughout the week. Broken up 16 pounds in 90 days. Reverse pre-diabetes markers. Doctors are like everything's looking good, keep doing what you're doing and improve sleep, without ever going to an actual gym. That two days of strength training was built at home with some of the equipment that he had, didn't even have to go to the gym. Obviously, you can walk in your neighborhood, all that. He actually had one of those little mini treadmills at home, didn't even have to go to the gym. Obviously, you can walk in your neighborhood all that. He actually had one of those little mini treadmills at home, but you can walk in your neighborhood and literally never go to the gym and get to where you want to be and feel better and improve your blood markers, and all that with that minimum effective dose.

Speaker 1:

So renee 37 an hr manager, so she couldn't stick with. She couldn't stick with past programs that demanded daily workouts. There's lots of programs that are super tough and rigid and like, hey, you got to train this many times per week, no matter what, in order to be successful and she just couldn't keep up. She's too busy, she's had too much life going on. So now she does three full body workouts and tracks protein. That's what we're focusing on and she's already down two clothing sizes, up in energy, and says, for the first time ever, this finally fits my life. Like I finally feel like I have something that I'm not competing with my daily life and my household duties and my career and my health. Now my health is actually helping these other things and I'm not giving up all my time because, again, she's doing three workouts per week. Guys, it's like 40, 45 minute workouts being full body, and then she's been after this for a little bit. So we're not getting crazy. We don't have our nutrition super dialed in. She's just making better choices, prioritizing protein, making sure she's getting enough protein to, you know, support the training that she's doing, and she's already getting phenomenal results, and we're not even that deep into it.

Speaker 1:

So what's the secret with them that's different from anybody else? They stopped trying to do everything and they started doing the right things consistently. So here are your main takeaways for today. Okay, here's your practical advice. You don't need to do it all. You just need to do enough, but consistently. That's the tick, that's the key. Okay, enough to move the needle, enough to feel progress, enough to prove to yourself that you can. That's the number one and hardest thing to do. And once we get that intact, boy are we? Are we rolling from there? So just start where you are, do what you can and let those wins stack up.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and if you're wondering how to make an med plan fit your life, just reach out. All right, no pressure, just strategy, clarity, support. We're here for you. You can work with us if you want to. We would love to help you. So you can message us anytime. Just hit the link in the show notes or d us directly and we would love to chat with you. You can go to our website transformedhealthcoachcom and you can sign up for a free consultation. We'll reach out to you personally, book that and we'll just chit chat with you, figure out where you're at, where you're wanting to go and how we can help you get there. So until next time, do something good for your health, something good for yourself, something good for those you care about and, whatever you do, make sure you win on purpose. See you next time.