The Best Home Workout Tool Is in Your Bathroom
I know what you’re thinking and no, it’s not the scale.
In an ideal world, we would all religiously spend an hour (or two!) at the gym each day. Even in our socially-distanced, my-gym-is-still-closed world, we still might squeeze in a 45-minute Peloton HIIT workout as we try to burn away our quarantine 15.
And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Although I aspire to a perfect workout track record, there are more days than I care to admit that just get away from me. The best solution I’ve found is a few minutes of intense exercise first thing in the morning. I try to take full advantage of those magical few minutes each day before I wake up my kids for school or check my emails for work.
Allow me to introduce the humble bathmat.
You probably have one in front of your sink or tub. Failing that, placing a folded towel on the ground can work pretty well too. After brushing my teeth and putting in my contacts, I lay right down on the mat and try to get in five solid minutes of exercise before showering.
You might be surprised to learn how valuable a short burst of exercise can be. The New York Times has put together a seven-minute workout requiring only a chair, a wall, and your body weight. On the one hand, it’s a pretty uncomfortable and demanding few minutes to put yourself through first thing in the morning. On the other hand, you’ve squeezed in a workout before you’ve even sat down for coffee.
Studies have shown that as little as four minutes of exercise can increase cardiometabolic health. It can even significantly decrease mortality risk for individuals with poor levels of fitness to start.
Unfortunately, I lack both the chair required for the Times regime and the willingness to do jumping-jacks for fear of waking my family. That’s where my bathmat comes in. I’ve found a variety of exercises I can easily do lying down.
Drop and give me 20!
While doing pushups isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, it’s a phenomenal five-minute workout, including breaks. You can do a set of 20, then brush your teeth. Drop down and do 20 more, then put in your contacts. And so on until you simply can’t lift yourself off the mat. The average person burns 44 calories from 100 pushups (the exact number depends on body weight).
Pro-tip on doing many repetitions of an exercise: descending by set is the way to go. Although it seems logical to break them into an equal number of reps, each set is substantially more challenging than the last. Struggling through the final few sets hurts both your form and your psyche. By descending the reps by set, you can make each group equally hard. For example, I like to break 100 reps as follows: 30–25–20–15–10.
Pushups aren’t your thing? Try the Five Minute Plank challenge. If you’re not shaking by the end of it, I’m in awe of your abs of steel.
Any five minutes of work is satisfying. Sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts, mountain climbers, Russian twists, you name it. It’s also quite gratifying to watch your progress in just a few weeks. You’ll find the pushups come a bit easier, or you can hold a plank for a full minute before taking your first break. Celebrate those victories!
I’ve found that five minutes makes a significant difference in my alertness and ability to face the day. Plus, if everything goes haywire later and I miss my planned gym time or run, at least I got in a bit of exercise. I don’t feel quite so bad.
I’m not suggesting that you’re going to win a World’s Strongest Man competition on five minutes of bodyweight exercise each morning. You should view this as a supplement for your regular workout, not a replacement. That said, give it a shot and see if you don’t feel better about yourself all day.
You may never take your bathmat for granted again.
