You Can Do This 10-Minute Workout at Home With No Equipment – The New York Times
You don’t have to be an athlete to face daily athletic challenges. Whether it’s lifting your luggage into the overhead compartment of an airplane or squatting on the floor to play with your kids, many daily movements require a combination of strength, stability and flexibility.
Like an athlete, if you want to do these things well without risking injury, you have to train. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week, and two weekly sessions of strength training that target all the major muscle groups.
But life is busy. If you only have 10 minutes, there’s still a lot you can do, using just your body weight, that can ward off creaky knees, stiff backs and aching necks.
One way to create a fast and effective workout is to focus on the concept of mobility, which involves increasing strength, stability and flexibility, said Cedric Bryant, the president of the American Council on Exercise.
“When we think of mobility, we think about movement,” he said. This means strength training using dynamic moves, like lunges, that work groups of muscles, rather than individual ones, like, say, a bicep curl.
“The body never does just a bicep curl” in daily life, said Jessica Valant, a physical therapist and Pilates instructor based in Denver.
Another way to build strength for everyday life is to do exercises that target important moving body parts, like the shoulders, hips and spine, by strengthening them while going through their ranges of motion.
“Your spine is the center of your torso, the hip is what connects your legs to your torso, and the shoulder is what connects your arms to your torso,” Ms. Valant said. “These are the main areas that you use to reach and lift and pull. If you can work to keep those mobile, you are going to help yourself with 90 percent of the activities that you do every day.”
Mark Lauren, a fitness expert and former trainer for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command, said that in his own fitness routine, he methodically exercises the shoulders, spine, hips and legs, incorporating the full movement of each joint. This lets him work out quickly and efficiently to build strength and mobility.
If you are actively working to develop a full range of motion for these body parts, he said, “everything else tends to take care of itself.”
To create the most efficient body weight routine for increased strength and mobility in everyday life, we talked with experts about what exercises they recommend and why. The five exercises they settled on build full-body strength and will leave you feeling more capable and agile.
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