Many people want to exercise but feel they don't have the time to spend an hour or more a day in the gym.

Thankfully, there's no need to do all your exercise in a single block of time. You can split the session up into short 1-10 minute micro workouts that you perform a few times throughout the day, adding up to a decent amount of work that takes very little dedicated time to complete.

What Are The Benefits and Drawbacks of Exercise Snacking?

The biggest benefit to exercise snacking is the time saved. You can squeeze short bursts of exercise just about anywhere in the day, for example on your breaks at work or between house chores.

The biggest drawback is that you probably won't be able to use any heavy gym equipment such as a Bicep Curl Machine or Belt Squat Machine, mostly limiting you to bodyweight or resistance band exercises. If you have a mini dumbbell set in your home gym, this can add additional options.

Are Micro Workouts Effective?

Absolutely! In fact, many well regarded powerlifting and bodybuilding programs use a similar method called greasing the groove. On their rest days they'll do exercises like push ups, pull ups, and sit ups throughout the day.

This accumulates a large amount of training volume without having to be in the gym.

For example, if you performed one set of 10 push ups every hour starting from 9am until 9pm then you would have done 130 push ups throughout the day, and only spent a combined total of 15-20 minutes doing them.
Do that every day for a month and you'll have done anywhere between 3640 and 4030 push ups depending on how many days were in the month. Add that up over a year and you'll have done a whopping 47,450 push ups! If you do the same thing with pull ups, lunges, and sit ups added in then you can see some serious results without having to set foot in a gym.

Just remember that consistency is the key, you won't see results unless you stick to it. A small amount of effort done regularly will always produce more results than going all-in for a week or two, then burning out and stopping.

Micro Workout Exercises

Here are some examples of exercises that use minimal equipment, and can be easily performed in short 5 minute sessions.

• Pull ups

• Incline push ups

• Banded lunges

• Resistance band upright rows

• Ring rows

• Dips (on gymnastic rings or on a Dip Station)

Whether you're a complete beginner or a dedicated powerlifter, utilising micro workouts is a great way to get in a lot of exercise without spending time in the gym.

So be sure to try them out, they just might be the perfect fit for you.

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Tags: Misc > Lifestyle