Traditional workouts can eat up a lot of our precious time. Commuting to/from the gym, waiting to use the equipment, and doing an hour-long routine is a huge commitment. Doing it multiple times a week is overwhelming, at best.
Add that to all the other daily pressures of being human, and going to the gym regularly can feel unsustainable.
This often leads us to putting our workout routine on the back burner. But if we want to live a healthy, functional life, exercise is non-negotiable.
Fortunately, there are convenient alternatives, like micro workouts. With this approach, we get all the benefits of a standard workout in highly customizable, bite-sized pieces.
What are micro workouts?
Micro workouts – aka exercise snacks – are intense bursts of physical activity that are done for a few seconds to minutes. Between 3 to 10 minutes is common. Exercises are repeated throughout the day, with a few hours in between.
Micro workouts help us quickly add healthy movement into our day. We can do it before we shower, while watching TV, between meetings, or whenever we have free time.
Workouts can include a mixture of aerobic (cardio) and strength exercises. For convenience, exercises usually only use bodyweight. But equipment like weights, a stationary bike, or resistance bands can be used.
Benefits of micro workouts
- Saves time
- Encourages physical activity
- Improves strength
- Less recovery time needed
- Convenient – can be done anywhere, anytime
- Boosts body’s ability to metabolize fat
- Lowers triglycerides (a type of fat) in the blood, which reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke
- Increases cardiovascular health
- Improves sense of personal wellbeing
Sample routines
The CDC recommends adults get 75 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly. That’s only 15 minutes/day, 5 days/week.
Exercise difficulty will vary depending on fitness level. The simplest way to tell if exercise is vigorous is the talk test. If talking becomes difficult, and we’re only able to say a few words (not full sentences), we’re exercising at the right intensity.
Cardio micro workout routine
- 60 seconds jumping jacks
- 60 seconds high knees
- 60 seconds burpees
- 60 seconds jump rope
- 60 seconds butt kicks
Repeat 3 times per day
Strength micro workout routine
- 20 pushups (or as many as possible)
- 20 squats
- 10 lunges/leg
- 15 second plank
- 10 mountain climbers (on each side)
Repeat 2- 3 times per day
Other exercises incl:
- Jogging/sprinting
- Climbing or jogging up stairs
- Power walking
- Shoveling
- Dancing
- Running on the spot
- Intense hiking
- Kickboxing
- Playing basketball
Summary
Keeping up with our physical fitness can be a challenge, and it’s meant to be. Workouts need to be difficult enough that our body is challenged. This helps us gain new skills (like balance and flexibility), grow muscles, and strengthen our heart and lungs.
That said, working out should still be accessible. Limited time shouldn’t stop us from living healthy lives.
Micro workouts let us split our routine into manageable chunks. That way, we can tackle our fitness goals throughout the day, in a way that works for us.
Sources
https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/apnm-2018-0675
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5954292/
https://beyond.ubc.ca/exercise-snacks/
https://www.healthline.com/health/strenuous-exercise#whats-strenuous-exercise