Minimum Effective Dose: The Busy Person's Guide to Getting Fitter Without Burning Out
When life gets hectic, fitness is often the first thing to go. Work deadlines, family obligations, a packed calendar — it can feel like there just isn't time to do what you "should" be doing to stay healthy.
But here's the truth:
You don't need to train like an athlete to get results. You just need to do enough of the right things, consistently.
This post is your guide to figuring out what actually matters — and how to fit it into a full life without burning out.
What Is the Minimum Effective Dose (MED)?
The "Minimum Effective Dose" is the smallest amount of effort or input needed to produce a desired outcome. In fitness, it's about finding the sweet spot — enough stimulus to spark progress, without tipping into exhaustion, overwhelm, or unsustainable effort.
If you’ve been stuck on the "all or nothing" hamster wheel — working out hard for a few weeks, then crashing and burning — you’re not alone. This approach offers a different path. One built on consistency, efficiency, and sustainability.
Why This Matters (Especially If You’re Busy)
You probably already know that movement is good for you. But what often gets lost in the noise is that more isn’t always better.
Trying to squeeze in 90-minute workouts five days a week might sound great on paper — but if it’s not sustainable, it’s not effective.
On the other hand, a thoughtful plan based on MED principles can:
Improve your health and fitness without overloading your schedule
Reduce decision fatigue and stress
Build momentum through consistency
Create more space for recovery (which is where the magic happens)
The Problem with "NEAT Hacks"
You’ve probably heard of NEAT — Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis — the calories you burn doing non-deliberate movement (e.g., taking the stairs instead of the elevator, pacing while on calls, fidgeting). I've read countless articles saying that "you just need to work on getting in more NEAT" as some magical hack and it will solve all your problems without intentional exercise.
These hacks are often touted as a silver bullet for improving health. And while they do contribute, in my experience the overall impact is minimal. Sure, take the stairs. Park further away. But don’t expect those to replace the benefits of purposeful, intentional movement.
That said — what I find they do help with is shifting your mindset away from always choosing the easier, more convenient option. Choosing the slightly harder, more active option more often primes your brain to lean into movement rather than away from it.
But for meaningful impact on fitness, health, and body composition?
You need to go further.
Start with Baseline Activity
Our bodies evolved to be consistently active. Most modern lifestyles simply don’t support that — so we need to intentionally create the conditions our biology expects.
The foundation of that? Baseline Activity.
The simplest and most effective version? Purposeful walking.
Not a leisurely dog walk, and not wandering the grocery store aisles. We’re talking:
Brisk, purposeful walking (like you're late for a meeting)
Slightly elevated heart rate
Breathing a little harder, but still able to hold a conversation
Start with 15-20 minutes per day. For the best health and body composition outcomes, build toward 30-60 minutes of purposeful walking per day (this can be split into two 30-minute chunks if needed, but each chunk should be 30 minutes-ish in length).
Studies have shown that even 20 minutes of daily walking can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 30%. That’s huge.
And honestly? For some people — if your nutrition is consistently solid — just focusing on getting in your purposeful walking might be enough to maintain a healthy body composition and general health.
But if you want more than just maintaining — if you want to get stronger, move better, or change your physique — we need to go beyond.
Mobility and Movement Quality: Your Daily Reset
For mobility and movement quality, fitting a simple but comprehensive movement flow into your daily routine can be a great idea.
Being really intentional about your breathing as you move through this can also help balance your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems for the day ahead (if you're doing this first thing in the morning) or prepare your body for rest and recovery and improve your sleep quality (if you're doing this just before bed).
We've used this Movement Flow at The BTG as a warm-up and standalone practice in the past and gotten good results:
It only takes 10-15 minutes. But done consistently, it can transform how you move and feel.
Strength Training: What’s the Minimum That Works?
If your goal is simply to maintain strength and lean mass, one focused strength workout per week can do the trick — as long as it’s well structured and pushes your limits.
That means:
Focus on compound movement patterns: squats, split-squats, hinges/deadlifts, horizontal and vertical pushes and pulls
Two warm-up sets, then one high-effort working set per movement
Push to near failure with good form
Want to build more strength and/or muscle mass? You’ll need to hit those same patterns 2–3 times per week.
You can add some direct work for arms and shoulders too — especially if physique changes are a goal. But remember to train not just the mirror muscles (chest, biceps and front delts) but also the "back side" too: triceps, rear delts, upper back.
You can get a bit more bang for your training time buck by incorporating some novel movements like the Turkish Get Up (TGU) into your routine over something simpler like reverse lunges. These kinds of movements help you develop both strength and active mobility / stability at the same time, improving your movement quality alongside your physique.
The dumbbell TGU makes fairly complex demands of your shoulder stability and mobility, hip control and mobility and core stabilization with moving extremities...AND it incorporates a reverse lunge as well as stabilizing a weight overhead! For something that literally originated as a circus strongman trick, the TGU really has a lot going for it! I have a demo video for the technique and how to break it down into sections to work on here:
Likewise, rather than just a dumbbell overhead press, doing something like an overhead press to windmill can incorporate some active hip mobility and shoulder stability, is a great exercise for actively strengthening and lengthening the quadratus lumborum (AKA "QL", a lower back muscle that is often problematic due to the amount of sitting we do every day) in addition to overhead pressing.
As I said before, these compound movements train balance, coordination, core control, and full-body strength all in one.
Interval Training: Build Work Capacity (Efficiently)
Interval work — short, intense efforts followed by recovery — is one of the most time-efficient ways to build your aerobic and anaerobic capacity.
This is what I call "burst conditioning" — the ability to go hard, recover fast, and repeat.
The good news? You don’t need a separate session. Just tack it on to the end of your strength workouts.
Strength for 30–45 minutes
Then 15–30 minutes of intervals (e.g., air bike, rowing, kettlebell complexes)
A favourite protocol we use at The BTG:
Kettlebell complex ladder:
Swings, Goblet Squats, Push Press, 1-arm Rows
Start with 1 rep of each, add 1 rep per round for half the time
Then descend the ladder back to 1
Prefer to split your sessions? Try this:
Mon – Strength (30–45 min)
Tue – Intervals (20–30 min)
Wed – Baseline activity only
Thu – Strength (30–45 min)
Fri – Intervals (20–30 min)
Sat/Sun – Baseline activity only, or long walk/hike/run
Or keep it simple:
Tue & Thu – 60-minute sessions that combine 30-45 minutes of strength + 15-30 minutes of intervals
Steady-State Conditioning: The One That Takes Time
Steady-state aerobic work (like running, cycling, rowing) is the one fitness domain where longer sessions are required for meaningful progress.
To improve cardiovascular fitness, aim for:
45 to 90 minutes continuous duration
Moderate intensity (RPE 6–7/10), or a solid zone 2 heart rate (if you're using HR as a metric)
Able to hold a conversation, but just barely
Ideally done at least once per week
If you're tracking metrics (distance, speed, heart rate), you’ll see improvements in efficiency over time. But only if you’re putting in the time.
For most, weekends are the best place to fit this in — a long hike, a bike ride, or a steady run.
So What Actually Matters Most?
If you care about general health, longevity, and body composition, these are the priorities:
Baseline Activity (daily walking)
Strength Training (2–3x/week)
Mobility/Movement Flow (daily)
Nice to haves if you want to maximize your physical capability in all areas:
Interval Training (1–2x/week)
Steady-State Conditioning (1x/week)
You don’t need to do everything, all the time.
But you do need to do enough, consistently, to get the results you want.
Sample Schedules
Here’s how it might look in real life:
Daily – 10-15 minute mobility flow + 30 mins brisk walking (skip the walk on your steady-state day)
Tue & Thu – 60 min sessions (Strength + Intervals)
Sat – 60–90 min steady-state (hike, run, cycle, etc.)
Or the split model:
Daily - Movement flow & walking
Mon – Strength (30–45 min)
Tue – Intervals (20–30 min)
Wed – Off / Baseline only
Thu – Strength (30–45 min)
Fri – Intervals (20–30 min)
Sat – Optional steady-state or movement play
Or what I personally aim for most weeks with my own training priorities (which are currently pretty run-heavy). Bear in mind, though, I have a LOT more flexibility than most people to build my schedule around my training:
Mon – Morning movement flow (10-15 min), midday easy zone 2 run (30-60 min)
Tue – Morning movement flow (10-15 min) and easy zone 2 run (60-90 min), evening strength and / or interval training session (60 min)
Wed – Morning movement flow (10-15 min), midday easy zone 2 run (30-60 min), evening martial arts training (60 minutes)
Thu - Morning movement flow (10-15 min) and easy zone 2 run (60-90 min), evening strength and / or interval training session (60 min)
Fri - Morning movement flow (10-15 min), midday easy zone 2 run (60-90 min)
Sat - Morning movement flow (10-15 min) and long trail run (2 - 4 hours)
Sun - Morning movement flow (10-15 min) and easy walk or zone 2 run (30-60 min)
You can adjust based on your needs. But the principles remain:
Start small
Be consistent
Build gradually
Don’t chase perfect — chase better, more often
Wait — Isn’t That Still a Lot?
It can feel that way at first glance. But let’s look at the numbers:
Daily mobility flow: 10–15 minutes
Daily walking: 30–60 minutes (split as needed)
2–3 focused strength sessions: 30–60 minutes each
1–2 interval sessions: 20–30 minutes
Optional: 1 long steady-state session on the weekend
On average, we’re talking about 7 hours per week, or about 1 hour per day. Even my crazier training load totals up to a little more than 2 hours per day on average.
Compare that to the average time spent doom-scrolling, bingeing Netflix, or sitting in traffic — and it becomes clear:
This isn’t about time. It’s about what you prioritise.
The goal isn’t to make you feel guilty — it’s to show you that getting fitter is possible, even with a busy schedule. Especially when you stop trying to do everything and focus on doing enough.
Final Word: Progress Without the Burnout
You don’t need to overhaul your life to get fit.
You don’t need to chase a brutal plan to prove you’re committed.
You need a framework that actually fits your life — one that builds you up instead of breaking you down.
Minimum effective dose is enough.
If you apply it consistently, it becomes maximum sustainable progress.
And that’s the real goal, isn’t it?
Let’s build that kind of fitness — together.