The Little and Often Approach to Exercise

Exercising at Home

Do you find it hard to fit longer workouts into your day regularly?

It’s common for most people to struggle with it, so don’t worry if you do.

The little and often approach might be one way for you to get more done without it feeling like you’re doing more. It’s an efficient way to exercise, when you have a limited amount of time.

How it works

This approach is about finding the small gaps in your day.

Let’s say you get up in the morning and have 5 minutes spare. Instead of going on Facebook, you decide to do 50 push-ups. It’s 50 push-ups you wouldn’t have done otherwise.

Later on, at lunch time, you have another 5 minutes so you do another 50 push-ups. That’s 100 in total for the day. Not bad.

Using exercise as a rest

Adding movement into your day can also help with your work.

Imagine you are working on a project and have spent the last 2 hours sat glued to your computer. Your body is feeling a bit achy, your neck sore and mind frazzled.

You can get motivated again and feel fresh but moving around. So you get up, you do 10 squats, some stretches, 10 walking lunges, 20 sit-ups and 10 push-ups.

You sit back down at your desk with a little more energy and having done some much needed movement.

Repeat that 5 times during your day and before you know it you’ve done 100 sit-ups, 50 squats, 50 walking lunges and 50 push-ups in your day. That’s not a bad workout.

It all adds up

Can you see how doing small amounts of work adds up to a large amount when done throughout the day?

It’s a very effective and efficient way to improve your mind and body. It improves your body by keeping it active, daily. Keeping the joints moving, the muscles moving and the heart working.

It’s low stress though because you aren’t doing it too intensively or for very long.

Targeting Body Parts

It’s also possible that you can use that small window of time you have to work on a specific muscle group, which means you will work it harder and more intensively without much rest. As a result, you should see better improvements and an improved body composition over time.

Action Steps

So here is a quick workout you can do any time, anywhere. It’s one I use often when I don’t have much time. You can change the reps to suit you:

  • Push-ups x 25
  • Leg raises x 25
  • Squat jumps x 25
  • Glute bridge x 25

Repeat that as many times as you can in the time you have. I aim to do 4-5 rounds. Shouldn’t take too long.

Something extra

If you fancy a bit more of a workout session, try out this upper body home workout I made. It’s 20 minutes on your abs, arms and chest.