Simplifying Fitness

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m a proud minimalist.  I find that simplifying various aspects of my life has resulted in less stress and frazzled-ness as well helped me to prioritize my time better.  I had posted before on using natural products for hair care and simplifying the wardrobe, and I think it’s time to talk about fitness.  Seven or eight years ago, I led quite a sedentary life.  My work was inside an office, usually 12-14 hours a day; I had never enjoyed exercise and usually tried to make excuses to avoid activities that involved exertion like walkathons or long hikes.  Although I wasn’t overweight, I was the quintissential “skinny-fat” or person with minimal lean muscle mass and strength.  Then, about 8 years ago, I decided I really needed to make some life changes, improve my health and get rid of lower back pain that was made worse by sitting in a chair all day.  I decided to try to exercise in a way that I could enjoy on a regular basis.

These days, I have kept up a certain amount of activity, but I still would like to get stronger and shift some body-fat to muscle.  I have been doing a combination of some walking each day, strength training about 3 times a week which involves body-weight exercises, dumbbells, or sometimes pilates, and sprinting once per week.  Thus far, I’m enjoying myself and I can feel the muscles getting stronger. The exciting thing is that my fitness activities do not involve a gym, expensive equipment, or long, prolonged workouts.  Some more description below of helpful sites, and if anyone has any recommendations to get rid of saddlebags, I’m all ears.

–100 push-up challenge — there are several of these challenges out there that help to guide you to building up strength.  In addition to push-ups, there are squats, burpees, and other challenges.  Journaling your progress is also useful.

–Simplefit – I have recently been using the general simplefit protocol to structure brief workouts. They use only 3 exercises: pushups, pullups, and squats, to create a set of workouts that help you to build strength and endurance.  I am currently modifying the pullups, but hopefully will be able to do a full pullup at some point.

–Walking — there are a number of internet programs that allow you to track your walking and map out additional routes.  I now think of walking as an alternate transportation rather than exercise.  It also saddens me how so many areas are unwalkable due to lack of sidewalks or unsafe crossings, fortunately, there are many walkable areas where I live.

–Sprinting — Mark Sisson has a great post with video on his sprint routine which he does on a beach.  Adding sprints once per week has been a recent addition to my fitness routine and one that I am loving.  In addition to the health benefits of sprinting, it can be a lot of fun.

shared at Works for Me Wednesday