Imagine this: You’re at your desk, toiling away when suddenly the boss appears in your cubicle farm, blows a whistle and yells, “All right, people! Time for recess!”

Recess, which was abandoned in our grade schools about the time EOCs began dominating the academic landscape, is being pushed as a key way to help a sluggish, overweight America get its supersized butt in gear. The notion of Instant Recess, which is embraced by the recently formed U.S. National Physical Activity Plan,  activity during the workday is better than staying parked in your ergonomic chair for 8 hours. Thus, employers are being encouraged to conduct 10 minute recess sessions where workers can gather and elevate their heart rates in a healthy way. It’s creator, Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor in UCLA’s School of Public Health, is confident Instant Recess will take hold.

“In five years, Instant Recess will be in Congress, churches, waiting rooms,” Yancey told the Washington Post. “Once the opportunity is available, people will take it.”

There’s little doubt that some people will take it, those people being mostly women. I draw very few generalizations when it comes to exercise, but one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that women are much more open to embracing the new and unusual. Example: I’m currently reporting a story on Nia, a workout that’s dance-based and asks only that you drop your inhibitions and let yourself go. In the two classes I’ve attended, there have been two men — and one of them abandoned with 10 minutes left on the clock. While I thoroughly enjoyed the workout I took part in, I’m also quick to admit that I probably wouldn’t have tried Nia if I weren’t writing about it. What can I say: I’m a bottled-up guy. A guy likely to roll my eyes come Instant Recess time.

There’s also the notion of forced exercise to contend with. To many Americans, group exercise carries the baggage of a grade school gym teacher who took delight in seeing the weaker ones among us crack when confronted with the dread climbing rope. And who hasn’t cringed at video clips of Chinese workers loosening up en masse to Chairman/Coach Mao’s sweat-‘til-you’re-Red workouts?

Perhaps a bigger challenge to Instant Recess, though, is how it’s presented in the workplace. Twenty workplaces have already signed up for Instant Recess: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the YMCA and AARP among them. Alas, those organizations’ mission is helping people live healthier, happier lives. When it comes to the typical widget-producing operation, I can’t help but think that Instant Recess will meet a fate similar to “The Office” 5K Fun Run, right down to the nipple chaffing. If the boss — a boss who’s already drowning under a blizzard of directives from corporate — isn’t on board, expect the rank-and-file to follow suit. (Or worse, imagine Instant Recess in the hands of a boss like Michael Scott who thinks he’s on board.)

Instant Recess isn’t a bad idea, it’s simply one idea. For some, it will work. But for the self-conscious, the reluctant, the male, there need to be options. Options such as more flexible work hours. Rather than prescribing a time and place to workout, a growing number of employers, especially in the high tech sector, worry less about whether employees can be tracked from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. than whether they get their work done. Come in at 7:30, take an hour at lunch to run, leave at 5:30? No problem, as long as the Pensky File is on the boss’s desk by morning. Subsidizing onsite exercise classes is a good idea as well.

And frankly, while 10 minutes is better than nothing, it’s not nearly enough. Nothing is more frustrating than doing what you think is the healthy thing only to reap none of the benefits. For most, that means losing weight, and if you’re just working out for 10 minutes, you’ll be doing some good for your body, but you won’t lose weight. And that’s a problem, because when it comes to the bottom line Instant Recess is about one thing.

Downsizing.