How To Boost Your Body With These Short And Powerful Micro-Workout Variations — The Options Are Endless

Why outdoors, despite the heat, and not in a gym with aircon? Moving your body in nature is far more fun and inspiring while boosting creativity and cognitive function.

In comparison, working out vigorously in a gym for an hour or more is mundane, noisy, and sends falsely interpreted signals of euphoria to your brain.

That high you feel during and briefly after your gym workout comes from the overstimulation of your stress hormone — cortisol. That’s your warning signal to slow down, which you ignore.

In addition, you’re experiencing an excessive flood of serotonin and endorphins — the happy hormones.

The problem with the hormone cocktail

Your “happy hormones” disguise the warning signal your stress hormone sends you.

In other words, you’re heading for danger by overstressing your heart.

However, your brain overrides that signal, so you carry on longer and harder, hurting your heart further.

Nature has the opposite effect on your body and mind

Just being in nature gives you an immediate sense of calm and positivity.

That’s from the negative ion floating around in the air.

“Negative ions are molecules floating in the air or atmosphere that have been charged with electricity.” Healthline.com

Any outdoor activity is easy to maintain and provides a stress-free, mind-calming time.

That’s why I love to perform my mini or micro-workout sessions wherever I go randomly instead of planned and structured.

So, let’s go and check out this little motivational 2 to 5-minute workout compilation I made for you

To be clear, I don’t need to work out for long. I always go short and hard and get things done in 10 to 15 minutes, tops.

1 — The chest and shoulder booster

You can complete this sweet set in 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how many sets you do.

The downward dog shoulder lean:

Lean forward as far as possible on your tip toes, putting most of your weight on your shoulders.

Go back into the downward dog position, rest, and repeat.

Push-ups and negative push-downs:

Start with 10 to 20 classic push-ups, then stay down and hold the push-down as long as you can until your arms are wildly shaking.

Rest, and repeat another set or two.

Incline feet-up push-ups and negative push-downs:

Grab yourself a chair or anything else, place your feet on the obstacle, and push up and down as often as possible.

Then, again, stay down, and hold that position until you break.

Rest and repeat.

2 — Lunge steps sprints, swim sprints, and plank combo

One morning, I completed the lunge step sprints on a steep set of stairs, then went to a pool to work.

However, I was soon inspired to jump in and knock out my 6 sprints.

That’s what working out and working outdoors do to you. It makes you want to achieve more, so you do!

It’s fabulous and comes with pleasure and no stress.

I finished the swim sprint routine, followed by a few 2-minute planks.

All done in 12 minutes!

3 — Steep incline push-ups, with line lunges, narrow grip push-ups

This last micro-workout took less than 5 minutes after I’d been for a 30-minute slow cardio swim in a very long pool.

As mentioned before, you can use any obstacle for incline push-ups.

Here, for example, I used the steep pool wall to boost my chest, shoulders, and core for this set.

Then I did a few line lunges along the pool wall and a set of narrow grip push-ups. Those are great for working your inner chest, triceps, arms, and core.

Please watch the 9-minute video here, where you can see all my little tricks and micro-workouts:

Enjoy my fun-filled, efficient, effective exercises. Video by Rob Hourmont

Final Thoughts

Exercise is essential for a healthy lifestyle and maintaining a lean body and sharp mind.

However, overdoing it will only backfire and hurt you in the short and long term.

That’s why it’s vital to stay sensible and not go crazy by lifting heavy weights daily in the gym.

Instead, spend far more time in nature, moving your body as it was designed to — naturally!

Reminder: Without an excellent diet (high-protein/fat, low-carb, and no sugar) and plenty of quality sleep, you’ll only waste your time and hurt your heart by training hard.

So take it easy, relax, eat well, sleep great, and exercise smart.

Please consider the big picture — your heart health — not only the maximum time spent in the gym to “look” muscular.

You’ll feel much better and last longer that way.

Rob

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