Bodyweight Workout Challenge for the Office Job
Recently, I was asked to come up with a simple task list for a client instead of a full-blown workout. This client was struggling with setting aside time for a workout and instead asked if I could give him a simple list of exercises he could do throughout the day with the goal to:
Break up his sedentary office desk life
Keep his metabolism up
Maintain or build muscle
Burn calories so he could continue to eat a little extra throughout the day
Given these parameters, I created this template list to show people two very important lessons:
It takes a lot of effort to burn calories
While it is possible to out-train a bad diet, it is incredibly difficult and unsustainable to try
You may have heard that “sitting is killing us” and some facts about how sitting for long periods of time strains the lower back, decreases muscle tone, increases body fat, and increases chance of cancer or death.
While this may be true for sitting still for 6-12 hours of the day, these scary outcomes can be minimized through movement. In fact, this man studied hunter-gatherers and found that they also spent about 10 hours a day sitting, which is around “normal” time for most blue-collar workers. Nevertheless, they are different because those 10 hours are not all done at a time- among other things, they are frequently interrupted.
It is natural for us as humans to want to sit down and rest. However, our ancestors rested as much as we do, but allowed interruptions in those rests, and that is how our bodies are designed to function. Whether it’s watching for prey on the horizon or chasing little humans around a suburban home, the body is designed to move often throughout the day.
So here you are, sitting in your office, ready to defeat the effects of long-term sitting. While I can’t do the calculations for every person at every age, I have come up with this short list to do during your breaks to stay active, strong, and live long.
These calculations are based on an average build 200-pound person. If you weigh more, or less, you can adjust around that. For example, if you weigh around 150lbs, add an extra 25% of reps to achieve the same amount of calorie burn.
Let’s assume this 200lb person wants to be able to eat around 3,000 calories per day. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? This person’s BMR would estimate to around 2,200 calories so they would need to add 800 calories of activity to maintain their current weight. Assuming they are sitting 8 hours a day, we would want to add an extra 100 calories per hour. This is actually pretty difficult. Here’s what it looks like:
9am: 200 burpees
10am: 312 squats
11am: 240 push ups
12pm: 500 jumping jacks
1pm: 332 lunges
2pm: 400 crunches
3pm: 332 sit ups
4pm: 200 glute bridges
Honestly, I don’t know how a person could even get any work done with this schedule. Even the most fit of athletes would take at least 5 minutes to perform any of these activities. Unfortunately, it would take too much time away from work. Not to mention how incredibly sore a person would be if they went from no workout days to this schedule the next day!
I recommend a more balanced approach. Taking this list of exercises, one can do a few of them during the day. Set a timer, get up, and do even 5-10 of any of these exercises will keep your heart, muscles, and mind much more healthy. But also include some form of activity either before or after work. Go for a walk, lift weights, run, bike ride, do extra body weight exercises when you get home… overall it doesn’t matter as long as it’s an activity you enjoy and can do for the rest of your life.
I recommend this schedule:
Every hour choose one of the following:
50 burpees
78 squats
60 push ups
125 jumping jacks
84 lunges
100 crunches
83 sit ups
50 glute bridges
For our 200lb example, this would burn about 200 calories. Which can easily be consumed in food, but it’s a great start to keeping up motivation to go complete an extra 400-600 calorie workout as well.
Of course, if you’re wanting a challenge, here is a list that will burn 400 calories:
100 burpees
156 squats
120 push ups
250 jumping jacks
166 lunges
200 crunches
166 sit ups
100 glute bridges
While I did break this exercise up by calories, ultimately any movement is going to yield much better results than no movement. By breaking up your work day with little bursts of activity, you will see much better weight control, more motivation to exercise, and walking up the stairs to the office won’t be quite as difficult.
If you try this out, let me know your thoughts! I’d love to hear whether some of this has been achievable and made a difference in your life. You can reach out to me on my social media handles down below.