The minimum effective dose of movement for busy leaders.

Most leaders believe they have no time to train, and they are half right. The all-or-nothing idea of fitness, an hour in the gym five days a week or why bother, is exactly what makes training the first thing to vanish when work gets heavy. The fix is not more time. It is a smaller, smarter dose.

For a leader, the point of movement is not how you look. It is capacity. Strength, energy, and a body that holds up under long days and sustained stress. You get most of that from surprisingly little, as long as it is consistent.

Find your minimum effective dose

The minimum effective dose is the smallest amount that still moves the needle. For most leaders that is two or three short strength sessions a week, plus a daily habit of simply moving more. Not a transformation. A floor you never drop below.

• Two or three short strength sessions. Thirty to forty minutes, a handful of compound movements. Enough to keep you strong and resilient.
• A daily movement minimum. A walk, the stairs, a few minutes between meetings. Movement snacks beat a perfect plan you skip.
• Protect it like a meeting. The leaders who stay consistent do not rely on motivation. They schedule it and treat it as non-negotiable.

Why small and steady wins

Consistency beats intensity over a career. A small dose you actually do every week, for years, compounds into energy, resilience and a body that supports the work. The heroic programme you abandon in three weeks does nothing.

So the goal is not to train harder. It is to find a dose small enough that even a brutal week cannot knock it out. Find your floor, and never go below it.