Christmas has come early, everybody.

The American College of Sports Medicine's Health & Fitness Journal has put exercise science research to work by designing a full-body, 7-minute workout that meets the mandate for high-intensity effort. Yep, get ready to get your cardio and strength training done in less time than it takes to hunt down an open treadmill at the gym.

The new time-saving workout requires you to perform 12 moves in rapid succession, separated by 10-second recovery periods. Not entirely groundbreaking in the world of interval training, but what makes this workout so effective is alternating the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. (So consider that your warning to not go out of order!)

But before you hang up your sweatband, there's a catch (of course): This isn't the "Lazy Girl's Guide To A Pseudo-Workout." You're basically jamming a long run and a lifting sesh into 7 straight minutes of total discomfort. And according to the study's lead author, that discomfort should be around an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale. So, no perusing the latest issue of "Glamour" during this sweat session.

(Source: New York Times)