What's On My Mind - February 2024
What’s On My Mind - February 2024
A Fitness Trend I’m Noticing
Workout “Snacks”
This Month’s Health Challenge
Improve your Sleep by Being Maximally Awake
A Fitness Trend I’m Noticing
Workout “Snacks”
This one is gaining some momentum and I think this trend is amazing!!!
If you follow along with me and what I believe to be The Specifics of a Healthy Lifestyle, then you’ll see right where these exercise snacks fit in - Daily Non-exercise Activity. Back in my September 2023 What’s on My Mind email I discussed the valuable impact things like 10,000 steps a day and 10 minute walks after meals can have on our health and recovery and workout snacks work in a very similar manner.
Less formal than a workout, a workout snack is simply spending a few seconds to a few minutes doing things that get your heart rate up. Maybe it’s running up the stairs, maybe it’s doing some push-ups, burpees, or air squats, maybe it’s jumping on an air bike and sprinting hard for 4 seconds. Short walks are great, but you can save some time and possibly get a bigger impact with a little more intensity.
Breaking our sedentariness with movement throughout the day has profound and compounding effects on health and fitness. The fitness world seems to be obsessed with how to improve recovery and want the answer to come in supplement form, but our daily non-exercise activity habits will likely drive exponentially greater recovery than any supplement.
At a minimum, break each sedentary hour with some movement. A little bit, spread out throughout the day, day after day makes an enormous difference. Personally, when I am working at my standing desk, I use my coffee, bathroom, or lunch breaks to trigger my exercise snack habit. Maybe I’ll run up and down the stairs, maybe I’ll do jumping jacks or sprint in place, maybe I’ll do some push-ups, etc. I’m not too concerned with the specifics of what I do as my main goal is to get my heart rate up, even if it’s just for 20 seconds.
This Month’s Health Challenge
Improve Your Sleep by Being Maximally Awake
These exercise snacks fit in perfectly with this month’s health challenge. A crucial part of our circadian rhythm and quality sleep comes from the amount of sleep pressure we build up during the day through activity. Each morning, to promote wakefulness and to start building sleep pressure for the upcoming night, I expose myself to bright light as early and often as possible, take a cold shower, and warm-up a bit by doing 10 minutes of mobility. Throughout the day I shoot for at least 1-2 exercise snacks during each hour that I’m standing at my computer. I usually workout in the late afternoons with classes at the gym and start to wind down my energy and mind after I leave. Don’t worry, things that build sleep pressure don’t make you sleepy in the moment, they make you so awake that when it’s time to go to bed, your body is eager for restorative sleep.
This month’s challenge is to integrate one or more habits into your day that promotes wakefulness…which in turn promotes sleepiness later.
Quote of the Month
“Warning: Before beginning a program of physical inactivity, consult your doctor. Sedentary living is abnormal and dangerous to your health.” Frank Forencich
