In recent times, the relevance of health and fitness has gained tremendous significance. It is now an established fact that eating clean and healthy food and exercising regularly pave the way to better health and improved fitness.
Eating clean has become easier with the convenience of ordering essential groceries online. But for workouts, the routine has always been the same old. This routine involves going to the gym 4-5 times a week and working out for about 45-90 minutes. The workout includes lifting heavy weights and working on individual parts of the body.
With the ‘Work from home’ culture slowly growing, the latest research has supported a revolutionary new concept where you can gain physical fitness without lifting heavy weights or even going to the gym, from the comfort of your home! This concept is called Microworkout.
What are Microworkouts?
Micro workouts are short bursts of intense resistance training that last about 10 minutes per session, and doing these multiple times in a day.
This might sound strange, but the latest studies support this, as Microworkouts end up taking far lesser time despite their repetitions. A person can clock as many as 3 workout sessions in just 30 minutes and do the same 4-5 times a week.
The key to this method proving to be effective is the intensity you are able to put in, during each 10-minute burst of your micro workout. In effect, you work out just for 10 minutes and get many hours to recover before your next burst of exercise. Each time you give your ‘100%’ to each short burst of exercise, thereby enabling a far superior muscle-building workout.
The Cycle of Training and Eating
If you think fitting 3 workout sessions in a day is tough, you’ll be surprised at how easily and comfortably they fit, without you even noticing any drastic changes in your schedule.
You only need to adjust your workouts in such a fashion that they are in sync with your meal timings, such that you can work an appetite for your meals and even manage your blood sugar levels well.
A simple adjustment like fitting a 10-minute workout before breakfast helps create a good appetite. It can be followed by a wholesome breakfast including avocadoes, eggs, multigrain bread, etc.
The next micro workout can be scheduled just before lunch. Lunch can include nutrition-dense foods like chicken, millets like ragi, jowar, yoghurt etc.
Before you realize you can easily reach the final micro workout for the day, and simplest way to do it is just to take 10 minutes off before your dinner time and pop a superfast burst of exercise. You can easily follow it up with a light meal including simple ingredients like tomatoes, carrots, beetroot and broccoli. You can steam these veggies with seasonings of your choice, or make a hearty soup that soothes your soul.
No matter what you create out of these ingredients, it can assure the best partner for your workout. Indulging in short Microworkouts is extremely convenient, as you save the hours you spend working out at the gym and the time spent for the round trip as well. What’s more? It even keeps your muscles pumped and ‘show off’ worthy all day long!
For a micro workout, all you need are a pair of dumbbells and you are ready for your micro workout. Studies have supported the fact that you do not need to spend hours working out at a gym, but the same kind of muscle building can be done easily by simply increasing the frequency of repetitions of your exercise. This is what a micro workout does.
The time duration of these sessions is short and if you put in your full intensity before you know your workout session is completed.
Examples of Microworkouts
If you like to follow the gym routine of targeting body parts, you can do that easily. The key is to keep in mind that these are short bursts of exercises and so have to be strenuous and challenging.
You have to sweat it out! If the workout becomes easier for you, you simply up your game with new resistances or new weights.
One important thing that needs to be remembered is to ensure you breathe during your workout, as these are intense bursts of exercise.
A gym-like workout can be fit into 3 small parts, as follows:
First Microworkout
Scheduled preferably before your breakfast, you can start with exercises like:
- Push Press – Repeat 10-15 times per minute. Continue for 5 minutes.
- Push-ups – Repeat 15-20 times per minute. Continue the same for 5 minutes.
Second Workout
Once done with the first session, you get a few hours to recover from the session. The next is the mid-morning or afternoon micro workout. You can easily fit this session while you take your lunch break. Here is what you can try during your second session:
- Front Squat – 10-15 repetitions in a minute. Continue for the next 5 minutes.
- Dumbbell deadlift – Do 10-15 repetitions in a minute. Continue for 5 minutes
Third Microworkout
After getting several hours to recover from the afternoon micro workout, you reach the final workout of the day. Before you realize it, you reach the final micro workout for the day successfully.
This workout can be fit easily just before dinner, so you get the nutritional support from your dinner and a whole night’s rest to recover from the final workout.
Here is what you can try:
- Bent over row – Repeat 10-15 times in a minute. Repeat for 5 minutes
- Hang power cleans – Repeat 10-15 times in a minute. Continue for 5 minutes.
Microworkout for Non-Gym Buffs
If you prefer alternative ways of exercising, a micro workout is still for you!
Yoga
You can start with ‘Suryanamaskar’ 10 repetitions in 10 minutes. One session before breakfast, lunch and dinner. Once it becomes easier, you can increase your speed and repetitions.
Freestyle Home workout
This also can be fit into a simple micro workout setup. Find simple 10-minute-long home workout videos and follow them once before breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can increase your repetitions or add resistance or even opt for more challenging home workouts once you get used to your current schedule.
Once you get a hang of these exercises you can easily increase the repetitions per minute. Completing these Microworkouts 4-5 times a week done with full intensity can save you gym memberships, or Workout studio memberships, save you time spent on travelling and save you the hours you spend working out. The same results can be achieved easily at home. You can use the time you save to prep some delicious nutrition-packed meals that will go a long way in helping you achieve your fitness goals.
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