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Fit & Well
Fit & Well
Health
Harry Bullmore

One move, one kettlebell, and six minutes to develop full-body muscle

A man completing a kettlebell workout at home

Adding a little extra movement into your day is rarely a bad thing. And, even when you're pressed for time, there are workout options that allow you to hit your whole body in 10 minutes or less. 

This session from NCSF-certified personal trainer Elise Young hits your core, legs and upper-body muscles with just one exercise, so you can enjoy a full-body workout with every rep. It will even get your heart pumping, giving your cardio fitness a boost.

To turn it into a quick session, set a clock for six minutes and perform eight to 10 reps every 90 seconds. The faster you move, the more rest you'll have each round, but make sure not to rush through reps to the point you're forced to compromise on form. 

Speaking of form, the multi-muscle compound exercise you'll be tackling involves lifting a kettlebell from the ground to a goblet hold in front of your chest, performing a squat, then pushing the weight overhead before returning to the starting position. 

If that all sounds like a lot to take in, you can watch Young demonstrate the movement in the video below before you try it for yourself. 

Watch Elise's BodyShop's one-move kettlebell workout

Six minutes may not seem like a lot of time, but if you're busy working from home and own a kettlebell then squeezing in this short workout can help you access health benefits you might have missed sitting at your desk. 

Quick hits like this can be used as exercise snacks—a relatively new term used to describe short bursts of activity performed at intervals throughout the day, which can help boost your fitness, improve your heart health and look after your lungs.

This is believed to be a "feasible, well-tolerated, and time-efficient approach to improve cardiorespiratory fitness and reduce the negative impact of sedentary behavior on cardiometabolic health," according to research published in the Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews journal.

If you want more options for exercise snacking, why not try some of the session from our handy guide to five-minute workouts? You don't need any equipment, making these short routines ideal for quick desk breaks to look after your body. 

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