Stay Active With 5-Minute Fitness Snacks
Many of us would like to be more active, but it is difficult to find time, especially now that many of us combine telecommuting with full-time childcare. Even if you’ve used spring weather before to spend more time outdoors, the summer heat can prove to be a deterrent enough to keep you and your family at home and on the couch.
So what are you doing? One option is to set aside 30 to 45 minutes every day (or at least every other day) for a series of bodyweight exercises at home, but for many this is unrealistic. Even if you can squeeze 30 minutes of plank and squats into your schedule (plus the time it may take to shower and / or change afterwards), it can all feel too boring and repetitive to be tempting.
Jeff Hayden of Inc proposes to solve the problem by breaking the bodyweight exercise block into a series of five-minute “fitness snacks”. Ideally, you could wrap up these five-minute snacks in whatever quarantine-friendly T-shirt and shorts you are currently wearing (leave the Zoom shirt on the back of your chair) without working out enough sweat that keeps you from getting on with your day.
All you have to do is choose five or six basic exercises that suit your current skill level and target different muscle groups – don’t just do push-ups, good – and then do each of these exercises for five minutes whenever you want. feel like you need to increase your activity a little.
Here’s how Hayden shared his recent workout:
- Snack 1: Five sets of 20 push-ups (rest 30 seconds between sets).
- Snack 2: Five sets of 15 pull-ups (rest 30 seconds between sets).
- Snack 3: Three sets of 30 air squats (rest 40 seconds between sets).
- Snack 4: Two 2.5-minute planks (20 seconds rest in between).
- Snack 5: Four sets of 20 jump split squats (20 seconds rest in between).
- Snack 6: 100 burpees (embarrassed to say how long it took)
I know some of you are thinking, “I can’t do five sets of 20 push-ups right now,” and that’s okay. Do one set of 20 push-ups, or three sets of modified push-ups , or whatever you like. If you don’t know how to pull up yet, we have tips on how to make pull-ups easier . It doesn’t even have to be rhythmic gymnastics; you can spend five minutes stretching, you can walk up and down the stairs, or you can take a break and have a dance party with your kids.
The key word here is active . If you can take multiple breaks into your day, you will not only get a break from work (bonus points if you eat without looking at the screen at the same time), but you will also gain mental and physical development, which is often correlated with physical activity. You can use fitness snacks as a way to take time out, or use them to socialize with your family. It’s up to you.
And when you’re done, you can go straight back to what you were doing, because these days we are all dealing with a lot of problems, I know. But if you challenge yourself to be a little more active, five minutes at a time, you can see the benefits reflected in all other areas of your life.