5BX - Exercise Program
 

Is anyone familiar with the 5BX (Five Basic Exercises) program? It's a set of exercise routines created in the 1950's to help keep Royal Canadian Air Force pilots physically fit for flying, regardless of physical location.

The program itself is separated into six charts, and within each set of charts are specific exercises. The charts get broken down even more by saying that at each specific level, or step, you need to do XY amount of each exercise within the time constraints. Overall, the complete set of exercises will be completed in 11 minutes.

If you do all the exercises, and still have time left, you can go back and repeat exercises until time is up.

More Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5BX
Downloadable copy of the booklet: http://www.idmclient.com/gettingfit/5bx.php
Get the 3rd edition, on the right

Anyway, I was wondering about something:
- I read that some of the exercises just are not as effective or safe as originally thought. I would assume it would be some of the exercises that have the neck and back as a focus. Are there any that are completely hazardous and should be avoided?

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I think 5BX is a relatively interesting exercise program and started Chart 1, Step D- about two days ago. Needless to say, I'm doing a lot of repetition until the 11 minutes is up. I'm breaking into the C levels tomorrow and should be up to B or A next week depending on what my current fitness level is.

I'm just adding the 5BX program in as something to do during the day now. Right now, my daily program consists of 5BX in the morning, and I am doing some abdominal work in the evenings. Random bits of walking occur throughout the day (not 10k steps though), cycling on the weekends, and I play dodgeball for about 3 hours on Sundays.

Interesting. I did a Google scholar search on it and found a few recent articles that use 5BX in tests of the effect of exercise. I'm sure that if it had been proven unsafe, they wouldn't still be using it in academic research.

Kinda cool, I've been looking for something I can do quickly in the morning. Not so much to stay in shape, but to wake me up and get me out of bed.

Yeah, it definitely helps in the morning for a quick 11 minutes. The good part about it is that the warm-up is built into the program due to the order of the exercises. It does offer a moderate cooldown phase if you have time to repeat exercises.

I'll check Google Scholar as well to see some of the articles you read. I didn't even think about using that part of Google, as I forgot it even existed.

5BX is AWESOME! I reached 6B a few years ago before switching to another program and was super, super fit. In 11 mins a day! Started again at chart 2 the other day, it is totally working and this time I'm going to 6A+ and staying there!

The situps and toe-touching can be unsafe if you round your back. To avoid this problem, always do it with a straight back (much more difficult but who wants a back injury). If you find any safe abs exercises that can be substituted easily, let me know!

Is it weird that I remember reading this booklet as a little kid? The scarier thing is that there is a 50% chance that I still have it.