Starting or restarting a fitness journey can feel overwhelming. Between a workout schedule, a solid plan, perhaps gym anxiety, and everyone on social media making it look easy, it’s no wonder people feel like achieving their goals is impossible. But what if you could work towards a healthier life with just one minute a day? No need to buy any equipment or change your diet. All you need is you and 60 seconds of commitment.
Key Takeaways
- Starting small, even if it’s just one minute a day, and staying consistent is more powerful than intense, sporadic workouts.
- Progress is about building habits, not achieving perfection.
- Your fitness journey is unique to you, and any exercise you do counts.
You might be at the beginning or returning after a long break. On the other hand, you may already exercise occasionally and are looking for a way to add variety to your routine. In any case, you can benefit from just one minute of exercise. Let’s take a closer look.
Your One-Minute Fitness Routine
It may seem trivial, but even just one minute of exercise can make a difference. This routine is simple and straightforward, consisting of four bodyweight exercises.
- Squats
- Push-Ups
- Jumping Jacks
- Planks
The goal is to spend 15 seconds on each of these exercises to complete your one-minute fitness routine. Let’s briefly look at the benefits of each of them.
Squats
Squats mimic the motion of sitting down and standing up. They’re a great way to strengthen your lower body, including muscles in the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. As a result, you’ll be able to get up from a chair more easily, climb more stairs, lift objects from the ground, and maintain good posture.
Push-Ups
Push-ups are a great way to strengthen your upper body. They work your chest, shoulders, triceps, and core muscles. This makes them extremely helpful for everyday tasks, such as opening a door, pushing a shopping cart, or simply getting up from the floor.
Jumping Jacks
Jumping jacks are a full-body exercise that involves jumping and moving the arms and legs in a coordinated manner. This exercise elevates your heart rate and is a form of aerobic exercise.
Planks
Planks engage your entire core, including your abdominals, back, hip flexors, glutes, and pelvic floor muscles. By doing planks, you’ll improve your core stability and strength. This can lead to better posture and balance, which can be especially helpful if you suffer from lower back pain.
Breaking Down The Barriers
If you’re starting or returning after a long break, these exercises may seem challenging. However, every exercise can be modified to suit your current fitness level.
- If you can’t do a squat, try holding onto the back of a sturdy chair for support, or use a chair and perform a sit-to-stand instead.
- If you can’t do a full push-up, try doing them against a wall or on your knees instead of on your toes.
- If jumping jacks are too intense, try marching in place or doing arm circles instead.
- If you can’t do a traditional plank, try a wall plank instead. This can be done by facing the wall and leaning forward with your hands against it.
Move within your comfortable range. The goal isn’t to execute these exercises perfectly. It’s about moving. If you consistently do these exercises every day, it won’t be long before you can do each of them for one minute. The same applies if you’re working with a modified version. So, focus on spending 15 seconds on each exercise while doing as many as you can. In fact, you might be able to spend more than 15 seconds on one or more exercises right now. If so, great!
Making Progress
Most people fail to stick with their fitness goals because they try to do too much, too soon. They imagine themselves quickly improving over a few weeks and achieving their fitness goals not too long after that. However, real transformation happens through tiny, consistent actions. One minute might sound insignificant, but it’s actually a crucial step toward a healthier you. Here’s how to make your one-minute fitness routine count:
- Do it immediately after waking up, or schedule it on your calendar and set a reminder.
- Use a timer on your phone.
- Focus on proper form over speed. It’s okay if you manage only one or two reps of an exercise. You’ll improve with consistency.
- Celebrate completing your one-minute fitness routine every time you do it.
During the first two weeks, your primary task is to complete the one-minute fitness routine every day. No pressure, no judgment. Just show up and work through each exercise. If you can do that most days of the week, by the third or fourth week, you might naturally want to increase from one to two minutes. By the fifth or sixth week, you could be looking at three- to five-minute workout sessions. However, it’s essential to remember that you set the pace. It’s your body, so it’s your rules.
Tracking Your Progress
Tracking your progress gives you a bird’s-eye view of all your efforts. You can use a notepad, a spreadsheet, or a fitness app. Minimally track the date, exercise, reps, and how you felt. Tracking isn’t meant to create stress or pressure you to exercise. It’s about creating awareness and helping you reach your goal.
Tracking your progress isn’t just about how many of each exercise you can do. It’s a holistic approach that helps you notice things, such as:
- Changes in your body
- The number of reps you can do
- Your energy level
- Improvements in your mood
- The quality of your sleep
These are just some of the physical and mental benefits of exercising consistently. While some soreness is expected, soreness that doesn’t go away, feeling rundown after a night of sleep, or pain are signs you need a break. Your body is the best indicator of whether you’re overdoing it, regardless of what any fitness tracker or fitness app says. Taking a day or two off to recover will not erase all your hard work.
Staying Motivated
Sometimes, motivation can appear out of nowhere, and you have a burst of energy to get something done. However, it’s finite, and the feeling never lasts. That’s why relying on consistency that builds a habit will make it easier for you to exercise. Even those most disciplined minds still need some motivation from time to time.
Strategies To Get In The Right Mindset
- Visualize your future self: picture your healthiest, most vibrant you. What does that person look like? How do they move? How do they feel? See what you’re working towards.
- Reward yourself: How will you celebrate crossing a milestone? Perhaps buying new workout gear, creating a new playlist for your next workout, or planning a self-care treat. Just don’t use food as your reward.
- Emotional resilience: Remind yourself that progress isn’t linear. Some days you will feel amazing, others might feel like a struggle. The key is showing up consistently and doing what you can.
- Review your fitness journal: Looking back at all the workouts you’ve tracked, from where you started to where you are now, can help motivate you to keep going.
Stay Focused On Your Progress
- Don’t compare yourself to others: Nothing kills motivation faster than comparing your progress to other people, especially those on social media.
- Avoid unrealistic expectations: Make sure your goals are specific and achievable.
- Control negative self-talk: Your subconscious can be mean. Stop your inner critic from talking down to you and turn those negative thoughts into positive ones.
- Ditch all-or-nothing thinking: You don’t have to be perfect and do everything in your plan to succeed. Remember that you’ll get there if you keep at it.
Many people thrive when they have a partner. You don’t have to go it alone. Consider sharing your journey with a friend, on social media, or in a fitness community. Saying it out loud and to others can be a powerful motivator. However, remember that it’s about you, and you make the rules.
Conclusion
Your fitness journey isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about becoming the best version of yourself. One minute might seem small, but it’s the first step to transforming into your best self. Every single day you show up is a victory, another step toward your goal.
The most important muscles to build aren’t in your body. It’s the muscles of consistency, self-compassion, and believing in yourself. You are stronger than you think, more capable than you know, and your potential is limitless. So, start your journey toward your ideal future self today, one minute at a time.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
