Micro Workouts

Does doing micro sessions throughout the day optimise for health & muscle?

Is it sometimes better to do something (only 5-10 minutes) than nothing?

Can training for 5-10 minutes multiple times per day accelerate learning and gains?

yes, Yes, YES!

Pumping a muscle with blood regularly without overly taxing the connective tissue can increase healing and growth. When a strong PUMP is brought to a muscle

Each time growth is stimulated in a muscle it’s like a dimmer switch being turned from OFF to DIM or BRIGHT.

When learning something new it’s important to refresh it often initially and then less frequently as time goes on.

Healing / Recovery work: Short range concentric work like sleds, band pulses

Strength: 2-5 sets of 1-5 repetitions with sub-maximal weights. Use whatever weights you don’t need to warm-up for. Gradually you’ll be able to use more weight without much preparation.

eg.

20kg barbell combo: Forearm pump (standing wrist curls and extensions), Curl, Standing press, Squat, Overhead Squat, Calf and Tibialis pump. This is a good fat loss combo.

2x5 Squats / Presses as a micro workout done daily can increase squat strength significantly over 14-21 days. Use 5-4-3-2-1 & 3x3 once a week each.

Skills: Juggling with the hands and feet as well as handstands are a great way to get rapid improvements in your skills. Fix a target in your mind and work on it multiple times per day for 5-10 minutes. With handstands you have to pay attention to the wrists. If the wrists are a problem using parallel bars can help.

eg.

Accumulate 2 minutes of handstands.

Accumulate 200 kicks

Accumulate 200 throws

1 minute rotations between juggling hands, feet and handstands.

Stretch Strength: Like with Micro strength you can work into stretch positions multiple times per day. This works better once you have a good base of tissue tolerance and stretch strength. For beginners it’s better for focus on stretch strength when tissues are warm after training them for strength for safer and faster progress.

Move between pike, pistol, back bridge, pancake positions for 5 minutes gradually adding more leverage / tension. Start gently.

Don’t you need steroids for that? The Bulgarian and other weightlifters were on steroids.

No… if you want to train with maximal weights and high volumes multiple times per day that is a different thing to practicing your movements and gaining some strength.