If you’re anything like me, in the wake of the latest pandemic you found yourself adhered to the couch, staring into your phone, looking for hints about what the future had in store. It turns out this is not an ideal strategy for health, fitness, or keeping stress from eating your soul.
News of quarantine plans were emerging, and it was becoming obvious that I was about to find myself in the house seven days a week, which my brain told me I could fuel entirely with takeout and booze. Luckily, a different part of my brain knew I needed something to get me off the couch, off my phone, and to keep myself accountable. I figured what better way to do that than to adjust my training from a thrice weekly program built around unadulterated efficiency to a daily program built around simplicity and consistency. I figured this would help me stay on track and not succumb to stress.
I opted to break this daily workout into 5-10 micro-workouts performed on the hour. This would ensure that I was getting up frequently, moving around, and not crushing myself with a monster-sized high intensity workout, only to sink deep, deep into the couch cushions for the remainder of the day, eating, drinking, and stressing.
I also figured I should incorporate something from a 13th century mathematician because saying it like that made it sound kinda like witchcraft. (On an unrelated note, stress is bad for the brain and staying sane.)
Anyhoo, The Fibonacci Sequence came to mind because The Fibonacci Sequence rocks (and because Gérard de Bruxelles was the obvious choice and I wanted to get all esoteric with my 13th century mathematicians).
WTF is the Fibonacci Sequence you ask? Is it the name of the remake of the remake of The Italian Job?
Well, it turns out yes
…but it’s also this:
To get the sequence going, start at 0 and add 1 to it (that equals 1, for those who are counting), then add 1 to the prior sum (1+1=2). Then add the two prior sums, ad infinitum:
So, we get 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21… And that’s as high as I can count, so that’s what I used to construct the following workout program — designed to keep me moving and sane and to keep me from falling off a cliff of food and booze while locked in the house.
So here is The Plan (first I’ll just show you what I’m doing and then explain the whys and give you options to customize it for your level of fitness and available equipment)…
Each day:
-Wake-up
-Have coffee
–Foam rolling
-Set a timer for 1 hour on my phone. Every time it goes off, for a minimum of 5 sequences and a maximum of 10 sequence:
0 (escape from the couch cushions)
1 series of Croc Breaths
1 series Multi-Segmental Rolls
2 Weighted Chin-ups (w/ 24 Kg bell)
3 Double Kettlebell Presses (w/ 24 Kg bells)
5 Weighted Push-ups (w/ 45 lbs plate on back)
8 Double Kettlebell Squats (w/24 Kg bells)
13 Bent Rows (w/24 Kg bells)
21 Swings (w/24 Kg bell)
Why it works:
It creates a micro-workout that lasts about 5 minutes and gives the nervous system ample opportunities to groove good movement patterns while providing a gentle challenge for the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems.
The key is to select movements and loads that are not so challenging that they require a significant warm-up before each sequence, and that won’t create too much fatigue as you repeat the sequence several times each day. (There is also a micro-warmup/reset from the breathing and rolling patterns built into each sequence.) In other words, choose movements and loads that would have allowed you to do at least twice as many reps.
You may notice that I’m performing this workout with just a pair of kettlebells and a 45 lbs plate. With that equipment limitation in mind I setup the exercises so that the ones that are more challenging for me to do with those loads are in the low rep ranges, and the ones that are quite easy with those loads are in the high rep ranges. For most of us this will amount to upperbody movements earlier in the sequence and lowerbody movements later in the sequence.
How to customize the workout
The structure of the workout is as follows:
0: Alarm goes off
1: Breathing pattern
1: Rolling/PNF pattern
2: Vertical Pull
3: Vertical Push
5: Horizontal Push
8: Squat
13: Horizontal Pull
21: Hinge
But, feel free to swap any of the pushing, pulling, squatting, and hinging movements to a different rep range depending on your abilities and equipment (for instance, Horizontal Pulling and Squatting will probably be swapped in most low-equipment programs).
Below are some minimal equipment exercise options for each pattern, just plug in the ones that speak to you, that you’re comfortable with/familiar with, that you feel you can do with limited warmup, and that won’t be so challenging that you can’t perform the sequence repeatedly over the course of the day. And if you make a mistake, don’t worry about it; you can swap out that exercise or rearrange the order of exercises on the next sequence:
Breathing:
-Croc Breathing
-3 Month Position Breathing
-Supine 90/90
-Standing Belly Breaths
Rolling/PNF:
-Multi-Segmental Rolls
-Hard Roll
-Getup
-Quadruped Reach/Bird-Dog
-Chop & Lift (Supine, Half-kneeling, Tall-kneeling, Standing)
-Cross-Connect
Vertical Pull:
-Supine Band Pulldown
-Plank Position 1-Arm Band Pulldown
-Glider Army Crawl (on forearms; gliding disc/towel/paper plates under feet)
-Chin-ups
Vertical Push:
-Glider Supine Wall Push-away
-Glider Reverse Army Crawl
-Hand-stand Push-up
Horizontal Push:
-Wall Push-up
-Incline Push-up
-Push-up
-Decline Push-up
-Glider Archer Push-up
-1-Arm Incline Push-up
-1-Arm Push-up
Horizontal Pull:
-Band row
-Split-stance 1-Arm Band Row
-Seated Glider Rope Pull (seated on glider, rope attached to a stable object, pull yourself forward)
-Inverted Row
-Suspension Trainer (e.g., TRX) Row
-1-Arm Suspension Trainer Row
Squat:
-Supported Squat (holding stable object to reduce load)
-Bodyweight Squat
-Quadruped Squat (on all-fours, knees up, rock forward and backward)
-Split-Squat
-Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (AKA, RFESS / Bulgarian Split-Squat)
-Jump Squat
-Single Leg Squat (off of box/chair/couch)
-Pistol Squat
(Although not a strict squatting pattern, I should also mention Reverse Lunges, Lateral Squats, and Lateral Lunges)
Hinge:
-Bodyweight Hinge
-Supine Glute Bridge
-Single-leg Glute Bridge
-Quadruped Hinge (like “downward dog” but with slightly bent knees)
-Single-leg Quadruped Hinge
-Glider Single-let RDL (like a glider reverse lunge but with a straight back leg)
-Glider Supine Hamstring Curl
-Single-leg Glider Supine Hamstring Curl
-Natural Glute Ham Raise
(I actually made three versions of the workout to keep things fresh over the course of the week. If you’re like me and have some workout ADD, consider making a few variations.)
Now get off the couch, set a timer, and reclaim your soul!
