Simple + Minimal Exercise Routine
A couple of weeks ago, I worked on starting my Zettelkasten and just to try it out and see how it worked, I started with exercise. Using it and a few resources, I was able to come up with a list of various strength, mobility, and flexibility exercises that target various areas and a very basic framework with which to apply them. I won't be posting all the exercises here, but I will show the system, my focus areas, and my general guidelines it is based on.
My dream is to be able to do this anywhere and at anytime.
My motivation to exercise is certainly not to get ripped or super swole. As anybody who knows me could probably guess, that's a bit out of reach, as I am a tiny stick with the metabolism of a squirrel. So knowing that, I wanted my system to take the least amount of time and have the least amount of gear to haul around (preferably zero). I also knew after having purchased and selling gear multiple times that having exercise gear doesn't really inspire me to exercise, anyway, so I aimed mostly for bodyweight exercises for this reason.
After doing a cursory amount of research, I aimed to focus on these different areas[1] in the main part of my workout:
- Upper Body
- Lower Body
- Core
- Cardio
The other category mentioned was flexibility, which I decided to use as a bookend for my workout.
After digging around and settling on a bunch of options for exercises in each of these categories, I am using a high intensity interval training framework described in this blog post[2], "using full-body exercises, while training in a shorter amount of time and doing a circuit".
- Dynamic stretching[3] of whole body, top to bottom[4]
- Circuit using one exercise from each of the four categories above in timed increments in any order
- Repeat step 2 with a short break until you feel well exercised
- Flexibility exercises of joints[5][6] and static stretching of whole body, top to bottom
Using bodyweight exercises, this can essentially be done in tiny space with nothing, which is really useful for getting me to do it instead of making excuses.
Examples
These are some examples of circuits I have been using. One of these circuits per session, 4x through the circuit with 30s on each exercise and 10s rest in between each:
Circuit 1:
- Pushups
- Squats
- Situps
- Shoulder to Foot Taps
Circuit 2:
- Superman
- Lunges
- Mountain Climbers
- Jumping Jacks
Circuit 3:
- Pullup Superman
- Lunges
- Bicycle Crunches
- Jumping Jacks
HIITimer
I made a super basic program that utilizes the native TTS on your computer to help time your exercise routine and loads exercise presets from plaintext files you can create and edit.
References:
http://www.fitnessauthority247.com/fitness/fit-for-life-the-top-five-areas-to-work-on/
https://themovementathlete.com/workout-in-small-spaces/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjcZ7FqS5JE
https://www.hss.edu/conditions_dynamic-static-stretching.asp#dynamic
https://www.reddit.com/r/flexibility/comments/6cwsap/complete_guide_to_improving_ankle_mobility/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPKpk8WC_I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlewUVQliFA
- 20201023: Added example circuits
- 20201028: Added HIITimer program