Productive Lazy Fitness

Have you ever had one of those days... or months... when your brain refuses to cooperate and productivity is as hard to obtain as a legendary item?

That’s been my life recently. Besides having way too much on my plate, self-inflicted, I am vastly under-slept. One thing I’ve learned is that when my body is tired I sleep better. Today, being exhausted, I figured I wouldn’t be able to make any decent progress on any tasks. So, why not prioritize feeling better physically? I tossed today’s tasks into my pomodoro and set it to 20 minutes of work, with 3 minute mobility breaks.

The whole concept seemed counter-intuitive. I didn’t expect to get much done, just to maintain some sanity. To the contrary, and my surprise, not only did my mood improve significantly, but my focus also improved, despite the fatigue.

I believe the biggest factor is that I wasn’t taking “passive breaks”, like texting, scrolling on my phone, or watching a video. I was actually engaging and present with my body. The 3-minute time limit for physical activity meant I didn’t become exhausted and was actually energized. In similar fashion, the 20-minute time limit for work left me excited to get back to work.

That said, I hate exercise. More specifically, repetitive exercise. I do not like picking things up and putting them down in an infinite loop. So, for my breaks I focused on mobility; sitting in a deep squat, toe touches, stretches and later, things like dead hangs and farmer’s walks. All of these are easy to execute even on low-energy days, and are insanely beneficial.

A few months ago, I fell into extreme competitiveness with my childhood self. Why am I proportionally weaker than I was as a child? Absolutely not. That’s crazy. So I decided to start with calisthenics, but with my negative strength stats and maxed out laziness trait that was a HARD “No!”. So, I started with something simpler, working on my deep squat. Later, I added strength exercises like dead hangs and farmer’s walks.

These exercises that I gravitate towards are easy to execute and lean heavily into the isometrics category. Exercises that force you to engage with your muscles, focus your mind, and build stability. Doing these exercises have actually resolved a lot of aches, pains and struggles.

I encourage you to give it a shot yourself. Incorporate bits of active play and movement into your daily routines; a couple minutes here to challenge yourself. Be able to climb, jump rope, do bridges and all of the other BASIC things we could do as kids without thinking.

It’s amazing how much small tidbits of effort culminate into real change.

Here’s a Lazy Fitness Activity Tracker to help you stay motivated.