Setting up a baseline exercise regime
The header image is completely irrelevant, but it came up when I image-searched for “travel exercise” and I loved it, so it was a done deal at that point…
Firstly, I want to apologise for the lack of a post last week. I’m aiming for at least one a week and I totally messed up this time. Between moving out of my apartment, finishing a big project in work, preparing for a trip to Boston, trying to cram in lots of time with a good friend who’s now emigrated and then having said trip to Boston, I basically failed to make time for writing.
During this (relatively) quiet month, I’m going to try and pre-draft a few weeks worth of posts so that busy times in future just mean grabbing five minutes of online time to pull the publishing trigger on a pre-written post, worst comes to worst. That should reduce the chances of another break.
Now back to the regularly-scheduled programming!
As mentioned above, I spent the last ten days in Boston. I was over there partly as a holiday and partly for business, working on new ideas with my colleagues in the beautiful Boston surrounds, having just finished a big project that had been consuming most of our time up until that point.
This hoiday took me way out of my regular routine. I had an inconsistent sleeping pattern, irregular eating and diet plan, far more alcohol than I would usually drink in a ten (or maybe hundred!?) day period and no access to my usual exercise equipment/gym. The only upside was that I was walking many miles a day in what must be one of the US’ most walkable cities, so I wasn’t entirely unhealthy.
After allowing myself to take the first couple of days off, I started to get that mental itch familiar to anyone who trains regularly. A quarter desire to move and strain my muscles and three quarters growing convinced I was losing every ounce of muscle I’d ever built, giving up every hard-earned degree of flexibility and getting noticeably fatter by the second. The curse of nearly everyone who’s ever enjoyed the effects of regular exercise! I needed to do something, fast.
The problem was that my usual go-to home exercise routines were stymied in this case by a complete lack of time and equipment. The trip was pretty much all-go and I didn’t want to keep other people waiting around for me while I got an hour-long workout in. In addition, without a pullup bar and/or some gymnastic rings, a TRX or some dumbbells, I had no way that I could think of to balance out the copious amount of pushups I wanted to do. Of course I’d forgotten to bring any of my trusty resistance bands, which could also have done the job in a pinch.
I also wanted to try and work in some stretching-type activity to keep me loose, and I definitely didn’t have time to hit everything in all but the most efficient way possible. It occurred to me that something yoga-style would probably work best, but with more of a strength element than the predominantly flexibility-focused routines I’d experimented with before.
I needed to establish a baseline exercise regime for myself, that I could reliably perform anywhere that I had enough floor space to lie down in.
Luckily, I read a lot of fitness stuff–possibly too much–and I had the vague idea that I’d seen something that fit the bill not too long ago. After some memory-powered Googling, I realised that what I’d remembered was not from a fitness source at all.
Enter Hugh Howey, the self-publishing phenomenon. Hugh is someone I follow because of his writing career, not his training credentials. Much like myself, he’s no fitness professional, just a normal guy with an interest in staying healthy.
The article that had been tickling my memory was from a few months back — Hugh posted about a short yoga/strength routine he’d begun to do and felt great benefits from – The Five Tibetans. He’d cleared up back and shoulder injuries under the influence of the routine (a.k.a. the Tibetan Five Rites) as well as felt it had improved his overall energy levels and sense of wellbeing. It sounded perfect from an everyday exercise standpoint, so I jumped right into it.
Fifteen minutes later, after appending some press-ups, squats and handstand holds, I felt I’d gotten a damn good, efficient and fast training session in that had me warmed up and ready for the day. The Five Rites even included an exercise–the table-esque 4th movement–that I could feel hit my upper back and keep my own bad shoulder in good shape. I felt great after it, and resolved to do it every day of the trip, no matter how tired or hungover I sometimes was.
The following day, I added on Paul Wade’s Trifecta (from Convict Conditioning 2) to get a bit of joint work and even more flexibility in. I’m not at full bridge level yet, so I went for that table position again except with my fingers pointing behind me and held for time. I’m also not at full-blown twist level, so I do a version with straight legs and one arm acting as a support. Thankfully, the L-Sit is something I’ve put a lot of work into, so I can do the full version of that move!
For me, this resulted in a very quick, very portable session that I’ve continued since the end of the trip on Monday. I feel energised after completing it–my muscles feel warm and used as well as stretched and I’m usually breathing a little harder than normal by the end. I intend to make it my baseline morning movement routine going forwards as it hits many of my problem areas as well as meaning that, even if I miss my later-in-the-day training, I’ve always done something.
I’d urge you to work something similar out for yourself. It may be that the Five Tibetans are all you need to have a great morning training session–if I only have time for one thing, it will be what I go to–and that’s fantastic. If not, try adding on a couple of things aimed at your weaknesses, or just for fun. Feel free to do something completely different, like the mobility routine mentioned in the book (which I usually do after work nowadays to get some energy up after a long work day), but do try to do something active every morning. As Hugh shows, the Five Tibetans can be done in five minutes with some practice–less than fifteen even for a complete beginner–and everybody can make time for that much movement in their morning.
Combine a solid morning movement regime with some toilet squats throughout the day, some pomodoro-powered in-work movement and some more focused training and chances are you’ll quickly end up one of the healthiest people you know, looking and feeling great.