CAN YOU BUILD MUSCLE WITH MICRO WORKOUTS
Its the 1st of February 2021, and after six weeks of school holidays, I can honestly say I feel weaker and as unfit as I have in about six years. I don't feel like I am embracing The Fit Dad Project lifestyle. I have let me back injury and lack of time to workout derail the progress I was making with my strength and fitness for the last twelve months.
Given I love to help dads in my exact situation, I thought I would document my daily micro-workouts every day for the whole month of February.
Right now, with my schedule, the way it is, finding an hour a day, five days a week to work out isn't possible. Some days I can, probably two days a week on a Monday and a Wednesday but every other day it's just a chore with the school drop-off, school pick-ups, coaching clients, running my record label, DJing on the weekends on top of being a dad and a husband.
So what are micro workouts? Micro workouts are doing the equivalent of a full workout but spaced out over each day. I'm going to give myself a minimum of reps to do across three exercises: a pushing exercise, a pull exercise and a leg exercise. I'm going to do 50 push-ups a day. I'm going to do 50 pull-ups a day. And I'm also going to do at least 100 lunges of some sort every day.
I'm not going to do these reps or exercises all in one go I'm going to give myself micro-breaks every hour or every couple of hours to go and do a few of these reps.
You might be wondering if this is as effective as doing a workout all in one go? That's what I'm going to find out. I'm lucky enough to have a mini tennis court in my apartment complex. So I have somewhere that I can do chin-ups from home. When I'm at the gym, obviously I've got places to do chin-ups in between sessions, so getting those done every day shouldn't be a problem for a month.
I feel that given the amount of recovery I will get in between each set of exercises compared to a regular gym workout, I should maximise each rep more as I won't be fatigued.
For the exercises, I'm going to alternate between a pull-up grip that is palms facing out and a chin-up grip, with palms facing me so that I don't do too much damage to my shoulders. I'm going to mix up my push-up mechanics as well. I'll do some push-ups with my feet on the Swiss Ball. I'll do some push-ups with my wooden parallettes, and I'll do some push-ups just on the floor depending on where I am each day. Then obviously my lunges I can do anywhere and any time in the day. I will alternate between forward and reverse lunges until I get bored of those.
I've lost a lot of muscle since hurting my back again four months ago, so I'm going to take my measurements now and see how they compare with the measurements I take at the end of the month. I will also take a shirtless pic now, and a shirtless picture at the end of the month to see how they compare. It will be interesting to see if my body changes and if I gain much strength back.
So, this day one, and these will be my first reps from my 50 pull-ups, 50 push-ups and 100 lunges a day for 28 days.