An Exercise Snack: get fit in half the time

So not many people, fitness professionals included (hai; it's me) LIVE to exercise. Most people who say they do are probably lying or are paid to be very fit. For the majority of people fitting in the recommended amount of exercise on top of an already stressful existence can often be either inaccessible or just ADD to their daily stress. I say, screw that.

Enter EXERCISE SNACKS.

(Scroll to the bottom of this post for the follow along workout but as ever if you want to learn more ready why it works👇)

Sounds good right? Exercise snacks are like bite-sized portions of physical activity sprinkled throughout your day.

Forget the idea of sweating it out for hours in a crowded gym – think of exercise snacks as the mini doughnuts of the fitness world – small, delightful, and utterly satisfying. It could simply be doing a set of jumping jacks in your pajamas, or perhaps sneaking in a few squats whilst inspecting the contents of your fridge, or having a quick stretch on a conference call when you're sneakily on mute. The idea isn't to become an olympic athlete but to stem the tide of sedentary behaviours that are so easy to fall into when working at a desk. It's fitness, but actually accessible.

It sounds too good to be true right? Like there's no point in even bothering. But small steps really do build very long staircases!

This is why every workout I upload onto this blog is 20 minutes or under. I want you to be able to snack on these guys and be able to get back to your day revitalised WITHOUT it having to chew up your whole day or leave you feeling exhausted.

The cool thing? Snacktivity is a whole area of research (it's fun to read the word "snacktivity" in quite a serious, boring research paper) that supports the idea that taking exercise in smaller bursts with whatever equipment (or lack of) that you have available can be more accessible and sustainable for people who are very busy or find the whole world of fitness to be inaccessible.

So, get fit in way less time?

Let's get on with it with this week's 15 minute full body snack workout👇

This workout uses a step (a yoga block will suffice) and one 2-3kg dumbbell. If you have none of these things it doesn't matter it works well without. I originally wrote some of the moves for my client who wanted to improve ankle range of movement for rollerskating so the lower body movements are quite dynamic and involve change of direction. This is great for increasing your power and speed for sports that do require a fast change of direction (like racket sports) or activities that require stable legs (for example for hiking). There are also push up variations (I know gross) that you maybe haven't tried before so my hope is it will distract you from the fact that you're doing push ups. Plus by the end you will have completed 90 seconds of push ups which is VERY COOL GO YOU.

I hope you enjoy this week's workout- I would rate it as moderate to advanced. It is doable as a beginner as i provide modifications as always but I would start by taking more rests and slowing things down as needed!

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