Your thoughts on a brief morning workout

ashesfromfire

So, I live a generally active life. I walk and bike everywhere I go, a few mile a day for school on foot, then 10 biked miles round trip for work, then general things like a couple miles for groceries or what not. My job keeps me on my feet, walking for 8 hours - approx 30 hours a week. But I don't exercise consistently. Between working nearly full time and going to school full time, I've been considering how I could add more fitness into my life. I was considering doing pushup and situps every morning, right after I wake up. I can only do a few pushups and maybe 10 sit ups (kinda pathetic, I know) So I was thinking of accurately tracking how many I can do and increase by maybe 5 each week. I'm also considering incorporating lunges and/or squats to this as well, so I work more of my body. I'm clearly not going to get crazy buff from this, or even burn enough calories to log, but I was wondering what y'all think. Or, if you were gonna do a quick morning workout, what exercises would you do? And at what rate would you increase?

urloved33

personally as I evolve in my workouts...(they get easier) i increase what I am doing to keep challenging myself. Its a personal thing..you haVe to assess yourself or get a trainer to get the answers to your questions. To be balanced a full body workout is needed but brief workouts have their benefits...all work outs have their benefits. ..do what you can.

KimmersM

For my morning workouts I've been googling "20 minute bodyweight amrap" (as many reps as possible) for ideas. That way I have a structured plan that I know will take 20 minutes of my time. For example, today I repeated a circuit of 15 squats, 15 push ups, and 15 sit ups for 20 minutes. If you write down your total number of reps, you can repeat the workout in a few weeks and see if you've improved.

sofaking6

I would maybe just change up the exercises every day, like have a Monday set, a Tuesday set etc. Pushups are great but you don't want to do them if you're fatigued from the day before and your form suffers. Sit ups are fine but they only work a section of your abs and you'll feel much better getting your whole core stronger. Same for your bottom, squats are great but so are lunges etc.

So maybe something like:
Monday: 10 pushups, 10 situps, 10 squats
Tuesday: 10 tricep dips, 10 bicycle crunches, 10 rear lunges
Wednesday, 10 bicep curls (use soup cans or water bottles), 10 second superman, 10 calf raises

etc

Try increasing by 1-5 per week and get a feel for how your body responds, then you can adjust that rate up or down.

ETA and yes I definitely think it's worth it. Especially anything you do that makes your core stronger, makes your life better.

ashesfromfire

sofaking6 wrote: »

I would maybe just change up the exercises every day, like have a Monday set, a Tuesday set etc. Pushups are great but you don't want to do them if you're fatigued from the day before and your form suffers. Sit ups are fine but they only work a section of your abs and you'll feel much better getting your whole core stronger. Same for your bottom, squats are great but so are lunges etc.

So maybe something like:
Monday: 10 pushups, 10 situps, 10 squats
Tuesday: 10 tricep dips, 10 bicycle crunches, 10 rear lunges
Wednesday, 10 bicep curls (use soup cans or water bottles), 10 second superman, 10 calf raises

etc

Try increasing by 1-5 per week and get a feel for how your body responds, then you can adjust that rate up or down.

ETA and yes I definitely think it's worth it. Especially anything you do that makes your core stronger, makes your life better.

cool thanks, I do have 5, 10, and 30lbs weights so I wont be soup canning it

futuremanda

I think using the time to work on some fitness goals is a great idea. I'd recommend things that have some interest for you -- like you said, logging how many push-ups you can do, and working to increase that as a goal. Set up some milestones for down the road. Say: 20 knee push-ups. 5 full push-ups. 10 full push-ups. 20 full push-ups. 1 one-handed push-up. etc. You can probably find progressions available on the web to see what might be reasonable (knowing that you may actually progress faster or slower than that). Goals keep it fun and would have you excited to get out of bed and give it a go.

There are also plenty of great routines for all time slots available free on YouTube. Yoga, pilates, bootcamp, HIIT, whatever, from like 3 minutes +, so if you wanted something with some structure, there's a world of variety, and something that would fit!

However, since I already do bodyweight exercises as my workout, if I were going to add in a morning routine, I'd do yoga. I'm not getting as much yoga as I'd like lately, and it's lovely. It's great for strength and balance and flexibility, it relaxes me, and there are plenty of routines that are designed to be invigorating.

sofaking6

ashesfromfire wrote: »

sofaking6 wrote: »

I would maybe just change up the exercises every day, like have a Monday set, a Tuesday set etc. Pushups are great but you don't want to do them if you're fatigued from the day before and your form suffers. Sit ups are fine but they only work a section of your abs and you'll feel much better getting your whole core stronger. Same for your bottom, squats are great but so are lunges etc.

So maybe something like:
Monday: 10 pushups, 10 situps, 10 squats
Tuesday: 10 tricep dips, 10 bicycle crunches, 10 rear lunges
Wednesday, 10 bicep curls (use soup cans or water bottles), 10 second superman, 10 calf raises

etc

Try increasing by 1-5 per week and get a feel for how your body responds, then you can adjust that rate up or down.

ETA and yes I definitely think it's worth it. Especially anything you do that makes your core stronger, makes your life better.

cool thanks, I do have 5, 10, and 30lbs weights so I wont be soup canning it

Oh gosh I should have figured that from your pic!!! My bad

mpeters1965

I do a morning workout three days a week, also right when I get up. I started with sets of 10 of whatever I was doing (arms or glutes or core) and then when it got easier, I moved to sets of 15. Now I am on sets of 20. It doesn't work for everything but it's kept me going forward. I have been getting exercise ideas from the MFP blog. It often has pictures to demonstrate. Mine looks kind of like this (20 of each). Bicep curls, overhead presses, squats, tricep curls, tricep presses, ballet squats, forward arm lifts, side lifts, one minute wall sit, pushups (on my knees), 30 second plank, donkey kicks, 30 second plank again (cause I can't do a minute straight!). Then I swap between various leg, glute and ab exercises until the end and stretch a bit. Takes about 30 minutes as long as I don't rest too much. Sometimes the lack of coffee makes me less than focused!