A few years ago, I couldn\u2019t do a single push-up\u2014and I certainly couldn\u2019t do a pull-up. I hardly exercised at all; and when I did exercise, it was sporadic: it never lasted more than a few days before I gave up. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n
Even after I shed 70 pounds of fat\u2014due mostly to diet\u2014I was in terrible shape. At age 28, I was doughy, flabby, and weak.<\/p>\n
Not anymore.<\/p>\n
At age 30, I\u2019m in the best shape of my life. I\u2019m in good shape because I\u2019ve found ways to enjoy exercising: I\u2019ve found ways to make exercise a daily reward instead of a dreaded task.<\/p>\n
I can point to three reasons exercise is now enjoyable.<\/p>\n
I do only exercises I enjoy. I don\u2019t enjoy running, so I don\u2019t do it. I attempted it for six months and discovered it wasn\u2019t for me. If you see me running, call the police\u2014someone is chasing me. Instead, I find other ways to do cardio: I walk, I get on the elliptical machine at the gym, I do bodyweight exercises that incorporate cardio.<\/p>\n
Exercise relieves stress. Although I enjoy exercising most in the mornings, I love hitting the gym (or the park) in the evenings if I feel tense or stressed. Exercising at the end of a long, stressful day also gives me time in solitude to reflect on what\u2019s important.<\/p>\n
Variety keeps exercise fresh. When I first started exercising, I used to hit the gym three times per week, which was certainly better than not exercising at all. Then, as I got more serious, I started going to the gym daily. This routine became time-consuming, and doing the same thing over and over eventually caused me to plateau. These days I mix it up: I walk every day, and I still hit the gym occasionally, but the thing that has made the biggest, most noticeable difference has been the variety of daily eighteen-minute bodyweight exercises.<\/p>\n
Eighteen minutes?<\/p>\n
I know, eighteen minutes sounds like an arbitrary number. That\u2019s because it is. When I started these bodyweight exercises, I didn\u2019t have a specific window of time in mind. But I timed myself for a week and discovered that almost every time I hit the park for my exercises, I was worn out within eighteen minutes. Thus, these are my eighteen-minute exercises (all of which you can do in your living room, outdoors, or just about anywhere).<\/p>\n
I usually alternate between the following exercises. You can of course pepper in your own favorites. And, yes, these exercises are suitable for men and women.<\/p>\n
Push-ups.<\/strong>\u00a0Like I said, a few years ago I couldn\u2019t do a single push-up. Eventually, I could do one (after doing modified push-ups for a while). After a while, I could do ten and then 20. Now I can do 50\u2013100. I tend to do three to five sets, resulting in about 200\u2013400 push-ups within my eighteen minutes.<\/p>\n Pull-ups.<\/strong>\u00a0Two years ago I thought I\u2019d never be able to do a pull-up. Eventually, I learned how to do one. Soon, two, and then four. Now I can do ten to fifteen in a row. I complete three to four sets, resulting in about 50 pull-ups within my eighteen minutes. I use monkey bars at the park. You can use a pull-up bar at home. A friend of mine uses tree branches. I hated pull-ups because they seemed impossible, but now it\u2019s my favorite exercise.<\/p>\n Squats.<\/strong>\u00a0I just started doing bodyweight squats, and I\u2019ve already noticed a huge difference. I\u2019m doing only three or four sets of 30 right now, but I\u2019ll continue to work my way up\u2014I\u2019ll continue to grow.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a specific routine or plan, I simply take a 30-second break between sets, bouncing from one exercise to the next. After eighteen minutes, I\u2019m spent. And I feel great afterward. I get that wonderful tired-but-accomplished feeling you get after a great workout. What used to be tedious is now exhilarating.<\/p>\n Qui<\/a> trovate l’articolo originale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few years ago, I couldn\u2019t do a single push-up\u2014and I certainly couldn\u2019t do a pull-up. I hardly exercised at all; and when I did exercise, it was sporadic: it never lasted more than a few days before I gave up. Sound familiar? Even after I shed 70 pounds of fat\u2014due mostly to diet\u2014I was… Leggi tutto »18-Minute Minimalist Exercises<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":356,"featured_media":5712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gian-gio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5713,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions\/5713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amicidellanatura.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}