Okay, so you made a New Year resolution to exercise more this year. How will you achieve that? Exercising more and getting fitter is the most common New Year resolution and almost nobody can stick to it. The only way to improve is to schedule exercise into your week. If you don’t schedule time for it, you will never have time to exercise.
Schedule time for exercise
For me, this means going to the gym on the day that my kid goes to school. I’m semi-retired, but I don’t have that much time either. I need to work on my blog, clean up the place, take care of my rentals, check on my investments, and more. However, getting fitter is an important goal and I will schedule time for it. I will go to the gym in the morning after I drop my kid off at school. This will be hard at first, but it should be easy once it become a part of the routine.
Everyone circumstance is different and you will need to figure out a way to schedule exercise in your day. When I was working full time, I exercise during lunch every day. That was easy because it was part of the routine. After I quit my engineering career, my days weren’t structured anymore and it was tough to exercise when our kid is at home. Now that our kid started kindergarten, it’s time to get serious about exercise again.
My Workout Routine
Exercise for me means going to the gym. This isn’t the answer for everyone. Most people will get bored of just going to the gym and sports might be a better way to get active. However, the gym works for me. I’ve been going to the gym since college and I enjoy working out in solitude. It gives me time to move my body, rest my brain, and not think too much.
Okay for 2017, I will keep it simple and start with a basic workout routine. This workout should take about 60 minutes and improve my physical fitness. Here are the main points.
- Walk to the gym. This is about a half mile round trip.
- Follow the Armstrong pull up program. One of my fitness goals for 2017 is to pull up 15 times in a row. More detail about the Armstrong pull up program below.
- Weight Training. I’ll start with 2 exercises each day. These will be compound exercises that hit many muscles. I’ll dedicate a day to pushing muscles, pulling muscles, legs, and core. I’ll change it up once I become used to the exercises.
- Cardio. 15 minutes of cardio every day.
See, that’s a pretty simple workout routine.
Armstrong pull up program
This was a program used by Major Charles Lewis Armstrong (USMC) to prepare for setting a world record in consecutive pull-ups. This program can help anyone increase their number of pull ups. I can’t strictly follow the routine so I will make some modifications to fit my life.
Morning routine – 3 max sets of pushups. This doesn’t work for me so I’m skipping them. I have to get the kid ready for school in the morning.
Day 1 – Five max sets. This is simple. You just do as much pull ups as you can, 5 times. Last week, I did 7,4,3,2,1. That’s not great, but it is a start. Rest 90 seconds between sets.
Day 2 – Pyramid. Start with one pull up. Then do 2 and increase from there. Once you can’t complete a set you’re done. Rest for 10-15 seconds for each repetition in the previous set.
Day 3 – Do 3 training sets with normal grip. Then, do 3 training sets with palm toward your face. Lastly, do 3 training sets with wide grip. Rest 60 seconds between sets. A training set is just how much you can do to complete this day. Start with 1 or 2 reps. If that’s too easy, then increase the number of pull ups in the training set. You don’t want to start with too many reps because you won’t be able to complete 9 sets.
Day 4 – Do the maximum number of training sets. Rest 60 seconds between sets.
Day 5 – Repeat the day that was the most difficult in the previous 4 days.
Day 6 and 7 – rest.
The Armstrong pull up program is pretty tough. Currently, I can do 7 good pull ups and I hope to increase that to 15 by the end of the year. Pull up is one of the best exercises you can do and it will help me get fitter this year.
What’s your workout routine?
So what is your workout routine? My routine is pretty basic because I haven’t exercise regularly for about 5 years now. If I can be active every day that my kid goes to school, I will count 2017 as a win. It’s not starting off well, though. I was sick the first week of 2017 so I didn’t exercise at all. The second week, my kid only went to school one day. School was closed 4 days due to snow! Hopefully, next week I can exercise 4 times. School is closed for MLK day… We played in the snow quite a bit, though. That’s exercise too. I’ll log this on my fitness journal.
Anyway, if going to the gym doesn’t work for you, then you need to find a different way to get more active. Running is a great way to exercise more. It doesn’t work for me, though. Sports are great too, but we’ll probably have to wait until the weather is nicer to do that.
What do you think about my workout routine? What’s your workout routine look like?
