Busting the myth of you "need" a day off".

The "days off" of our ancestors were likely more intense than our current days of working out.

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I realize a lot of my procrastination comes from lack of energy and being overwhelmed by the task at hand.

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A simple solution I found, that I came back to time and time again is exercise.

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It’s very hard to have “bad days” when you decide to get a sweat in every day.

It's still one of the best tools out there for mental clarity, that is actually healthy.

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If you could sell the benefits of exercise in a bottle, people would pay zillions for it.

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challenges I tried before

I had several tries, challenges

- a month of 100 pushups + 100 squats every day

- running 3k every day for 3-5 months at a time

- working out 3-5 times a week

but I always stopped for some reason.

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time off

No idea who started this "you need to take time off", people just tend to say that, I don't think anyone thought it through. Our ancestors never really had time off, were arguably moving more on a daily bases than some of today's top athletes. And certainly there's no evidence to support taking time off moderate exercise, on the contrary, not stopping seem waaaay better.

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excuses

sometimes I’d blame injuries, other times life things, or travel, with what I now believe was an underlying baseline of lazyness that would just try to cling on to the first thing that came up, just to do less. funny how that works, more on this later.

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price of stopping

whenever I’d stop I’d also just do a lot less in general, my mood would seem worse, problems would seem bigger than they are.

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2024 - no more stops

So this year I decided I’ll just keep going.

Hopefully I can until the day that I die.

Hopefully that's rather later, than sooner.

And what do you know, working out it helps with life extension as well.

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Why I go every day

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It’s a mental break, I feel like I almost get two days like this out of one.

Double productivity ftw.

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Going became a lot easier after deciding to go daily.

I don’t have to think about it, I just do it.

I’m always kind of warmed up in some sense, so I can get the ball rolling much faster.

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It taught me a lot, and it opened up the way for the next streak I want to add, which is  building something new, every day, weather it's writing, or coding, or creating something new in general.

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A few principles I follow:

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‍it's only a "support activity"

meaning not my main thing. Good to keep in mind when my body is giving me signals to "send it".

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rarely push hard

I usually go 50-70%, if I go to the max, I don't push that particular thing for a 5-7 days.

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have a fallback

If I mess up for whatever reason, I go 30%, which currently is 100 pushups + 100 squats a day, so I can "tick the box".

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I had various injuries and went through and ilnesses, the latest one was bronchitis, where weirdly enough I had pain walking and just overall a miserable state. Still I tried doing my sets, and what do you know, after the first 20 my body warmed up, I began breathing easier, and always got a boost of life force at the end of these mini workouts. In earlier days doctors would prescribe daily walks with most illnesses, some still do, stating it's one of the most effective tools.

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progressive overload

essentially it means doing a bit more every time. More can be more weight, more intensity, more reps, speed variations, etc, but I only do more to keep things fun, discover new limits.

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take it slow

I'm not looking for huge temporary spikes, break PR's fast, etc. I think of it more as a long term, lifestyle thing. I do the progressive overload over a long time, I usually only notice the progress looking back, and there's rearely an immedate goal I need to hit. I do have some 1 years / 6 months to make sure I don't get too complacent.

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30 min per day

I do max 1 hour workouts, usually 30 min day, maybe twice a day. ideally that's a 10k run and a quick 30 min lift session in the evening (either push, pull or legs)

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keep it around the sweet-spot,

there's a sweet spot for recovery and training in general, but I'd argue there's a lower spot if you want to be creative and productive. Meaning moderate exercise is better if you want to perform brainy tasks after.

If I come out of a workout brain dead and I can't be productive after, I consider that messing up.

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too sore

or injured and I can’t train the next day - I consider that messing up.

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don't train where it hurts,

meaning I always de-load particular areas a workout,  to make sure I recover well.

I rarely push through pain. Again this is not my main thing, but a base for all the rest of the things in my life.

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make it social,

often I invite friends to work out or for a walk, climbing, gym instead of regular sitty meetings, coffee, beer.

Friends seems to appreciate these meets more as well, and I rarely talk to people who are vehemently against it.

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I keep it fun,

it's often the highlight of my day, or at least I feel great every day after the workout, and the next day as well. something I couldn not imagine a few years ago.

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patience and keeping it loose

even though I'm a mega tracking nerd and I tracked every 5 minutes of my day for weeks at some point, I don't track much in this department, except the workouts I do.

It all just goes into apple notes for now. I rarely look at weight or gainzzz, I let it be a nice surprise.

The main focus of this acvitivity is to support everything else, something that I think is often overlooked in the fitness world.

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Milestones

100 day celebration

- bench 100kg x2 - new PR

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150 day celebration

150 navy seal style burpees in about an hour

That's 3 pushups/burpee, so 450 pushups. I was legit nervous starting this one as I've never done this many before in one go, and my shoulder tends to blow up around the 70 mark, but overall it went reasonably well, and I might repeat this with 2,3,400..?

It's a quote uncomfortable exercise while you do it, but after a bit of rest it felt like I could do more.

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More soon, including what I do, when and how.

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Stay tuned, follow on socials for updates.

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cheerio

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And if you're having trouble staying consistent - join my workout buddy experiment

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