Morning Workout

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Thisentryis part 4 of 5 in the series SERIES - How to start the day right

This post is part of a series

We’ve been talking about healthy ways to start your day this week. We’ve covered what to eat, what to drink and what to supplement your morning with. Now we’re going to talk about a little bit of exercise.

Before we talk about what to do, I want to talk about exercise itself. Some people are afraid of exercise, they associate work outs with sweaty gyms, overmuscled men and steroids. That may be the stereotype, but it has very little to do with the workout routines of most normal people. The quick 5 minute work out I’m going to be describing here will not bulk you up, it won’t cause you to have those odd bulging veins and it won’t make you smell like a sweaty gym.

So what will this workout do? Well, to answer that we need to look at what workouts do for you in general. Here are the benefits of working out:

Burn Calories - This should be on obvious one. As you work out, you’re using energy. This energy means calories burned. However, this isn’t the primary benefit of a workout. Even strenuous workouts with very heavy weights don’t burn that much calories compared to a good cardio session. You’re just not burning that much energy.
Tone Up - Look at the people around you. You’ll see differences in body type. There are people who manage to be skinny without looking healthy and there are those who are not quite skinny but still have that incredible healthy look to them. For a good example of that, look at most athletes or dancers. None of them is super skinny but they all look really good. That’s the difference between being toned and being skinny. Skinny just means low body fat. Toned means relatively low fat with a high amount of muscles. That’s an important note for most women who are reading this. Working out will not make you a body builder. That’s a very specialized kind of work out which I am not talking about here. A good workout will just tone up your muscles, giving you that look that dancers, swimmers and other athletes have.
Strength and Flexibility - A good work out will cover most areas of your body. It will increase your flexibility and your strength. These are two very important things, especially for some of you just now hitting your 30’s. Past your mid 30’s, our bodies start naturally losing muscle mass. That’s a normal part of aging. However, it can be reversed with a proper workout routine. There’s no need to grow less flexible and weaker as you grow older.
Short Term Metabolism Increase - While a workout doesn’t burn many calories in and of itself, it does rev up your metabolism. Your body notices that you’re doing harder work than usual and responds by increasing your energy level. There are various studies that show metabolism levels can increase by 10 to 20% after a workout.
Long Term Metabolism Increase - And here’s the even better part. Muscles burn a lot more energy than fat. I’ve seen studies that show a pound of muscle can burn between 20 to 50 calories a day. By way of comparison, a pound of fat burns about 1 calorie a day. That’s the amount of energy your body needs to sustain that piece of flesh. So if you add just 1 pound of muscle to your body through a mild workout routine, you just added 20 to 50 calories to your daily metabolic output. Multiply that by 365 days and you’ll see that a pount of muscle burns between 7300 to 18250 calories a year. To understand what this means, remember that your body uses fat as its fuel reserves. Each pound of fat fuel holds 3000 calories. So if you spend 3000 calories more than you eat, you’ll lose a pound of fat (that’s actually a simplification since your body does have some other sources of energy, but I’m not going to get into those details at the moment) So if you add 1 pound of muscle and don’t add to your food consumption, you will lose between 2.5 and 6 pounds of fat a year. And that’s why working out is one of the best things you can do to lose weight.

Ok, I’ve talked enough about why it’s important, now let’s talk about what to do. First, if you can afford it, invest in a decent set of dumbbells. There are some very cheap ones available like these from Amazon, Apex Polished Chrome Adjustable Dumbbell Set. I like these because they’re adjustable, which means you set the weight higher and lower. I actually own a pair myself. However, if you want to start out a bit cheaper, get a nice comfortable set of Neoprene weights like these Neoprene Dumbbells. If you don’t want to spend the money, don’t worry about it. You can easily improvise weights from things you have around the house or you can just do these exercises without weights at first.

Now, lets talk about the exercises themselves, we’re going to focus on nice, slow workouts, that we can easily and quickly in the morning. Remember that form is the most important thing in working out. So don’t get all wild when you do these. Keep your movements slow and controlled.

First set - Lunges. These will work out your legs. Do five lunges with each leg.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/DBLunge.html
Second set - Squats. Great for the legs but we’re also moving up a bit and working on the butt. Yes ladies, even guys work on toning their butts :) Do ten of these.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/DBSquat.html
Third set - Crunches. Your basic ab exercise. Ten of these. Note that the example video in the following link shows crunches being done with a weight and on a bench. You can just as easily do these on the floor and start out without the weight.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/WtCrunch.html
Fourth Set - Bent Over Rows. Another set of ten to work out your back. Again, the example video uses a bench and dumbbells but you can easily do the same thing using a chair and holding some books in your hand or a bottle of water.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/BackGeneral/DBBentOverRow.html
Fifth Set - Ten dumbbell flies for your chest. Again, these are just fine to do on the floor as opposed to the workbench shown in the video.
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/PectoralSternal/DBFly.html

That’s it, you’ve done your morning workout. If you do all of these with good form, which means slowly, and you take a 10 second break between each, you still won’t spend more than 5 minutes. But you’ll spend a bit of energy, stretch out and get your metabolism off to a nice high energy start. As you improve and this workout becomes easy, you may want to consider the following:

Add more weight - This is good if you want to build bigger muscles. Most men choose a low number of reps with high weights.
Add more reps - This is good if you just want greater tone. Most women choose a high number of reps with a low weight.
Add more exercises - Add sets that will work on your shoulders, arms and other muscle groups we didn’t really touch here.
Add a short cardio section - 25 jumping jacks, a minute of skipping rope and other such activities can be a great energy booster and a good addition to your morning workout.

One warning. If you have any serious injuries or medical conditions, please consult with a physical trainer or doctor before starting any workout routine. My fiance for example has a serious back injury from years ago. In no way would I recommend that she just start out with this morning workout without talking to a doctor first. For the rest of us, spend 5 minutes in the morning working on your body, you won’t regret it.

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