Check out these Quick 3 Minute Body Weight Exercises for the Home and Office

Warning: the following workout consisting of body weight exercise that you’re about to learn are far different than anything you’ve likely ever seen before — and will result in such a dramatically leaner, stronger body that your closest friends may no longer recognize it.  Well alright, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little about your friends not being able to recognize you, but this anytime-of-day mini-workout is tailor made for all you “too busy” people who like to use the excuse that you don’t have enough time to go to the gym regularly.

Instead of doing your familiar cardio routine for 45-60 minutes, 2-3 times a week… you’ll be doing a series of quick body weight exercises in brief bursts all throughout the day, for just a couple of minutes at a time… 5 days a week.  Now obviously if you work an office job, you can’t be shy about doing a few exercises in your office or having your cubical-mates see you.  Actually, I’ve heard that some practitioners of mini body weight workouts have inspired a few of their co-workers to join them.  Now that’s the spirit!…

If you work from home or are a stay at home mom, there’s no reason why you can’t fit these in throughout the day.  The program consists strictly of body weight exercises performed for about 2-3 minutes, 6-8 times per day, and doesn’t require any gym equipment.  Try to work as many sessions into your day as you can manage to.  If you’re on a 9-5 schedule I recommend doing these quick 2-minute workouts every hour on the hour, with the exception of lunch.

Some of the best body weight exercises to focus on:

* squats
* pushups
* forward, reverse, or walking lunges
* floor planks (holding the plank position from forearms and feet)
* floor ab exercises such as lying leg thrusts, ab bicycles, etc.
* one-legged body weight Romanian deadlifts
* Or, just go up and down a nearby staircase a few times if one is available!

If you know of other good body weight exercises feel free to add them to your routine. If you want to keep it simple or don’t want to get down on the floor you can just stick to squats, lunges, and push-ups and still get great results.  The good thing about these body weight exercises is that you’re doing enough in 2 to 3 minutes to get your blood pumping, heart rate up a bit, a large portion of your body’s muscles worked, and body temperature raised.  However, it’s usually not enough to break a sweat in this brief a time — so you shouldn’t have to worry about getting all sweated up at the office.  At most, you might just get a little moist on the skin.

Here’s an example of several body weight exercises for use at home or the office (adjust the reps based on your present abilities):

Mon/Wed/Fri
9 am – 10 pushups/15 bodyweight squats, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am – plank holds (hold the planks as long as you can taking short rest breaks for a total of 3 minutes)
11 am – 5 pushups/10 bodyweight squats, repeat for 4 sets
1 PM – plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
2 PM – 8 pushups/12 bodyweight squats, repeat for 3 sets
3 PM – plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
4 PM – max pushups/max bodyweight squats in one set (no repeat)

Tues/Thurs
9 am – 6 fwd lunges each leg/6 rev lunges, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am – one legged Romanian deadlifts (RDL) 6 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat 1X for 2 sets
11 am – 3 fwd lunges each leg/3 rev lunges, repeat for 4 sets
1 PM – one legged RDL 3 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat for 4 sets
2 PM – 5 fwd lunges each leg/5 rev lunges, repeat for 3 sets
3 PM – one legged RDL 10 each leg/floor abs for 30 sec (no repeat)
4 PM – max fwd lunges each leg/max rev lunges in one set (no repeat)

In order to progress these particular routines, you could add 1 or 2 reps to each set per week, or introduce more difficult versions of each exercise.  For example, close grip pushups, one leg raised pushups, squats with arms raised straight over head, etc.  Think about what you’re accomplishing with these “mini” body weight workouts… you’ve increased your heart rate and pumped up your muscles 6-8 different times throughout each day — thus burning a lot of extra calories and stimulating your metabolism.  Even though each “mini” workout is short, you’re getting lots of repetitions for every muscle and you didn’t even have to break a sweat!

Try adopting this mini body-weight workout routine out for 3-4 weeks before going back to your usual gym routine.  I think you’ll find it’s a great way to break out of a plateau and stimulate new areas of your body.  Try mixing in a cycle of these “mini” workouts every couple of months to keep things fresh and avoid hitting a plateau.

And by all means, don’t worry about what other people at work think…have the courage to try something a little different.  In the end you’ll be the one laughing at those “blubber-bellies” who are giving you funny looks while grubbing down their donuts!

And just because you want to eat healthy doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy food just like your blubber-belly buddies do… check out Mike Geary’s post on 55 lean foods and see how you can have the best of both worlds!…

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Learn more about Mike Geary’s Top Rated Abdominals Training Program: The Truth About Abs. It’s been the #1 selling abs workout program on the net for 5+ years. You’ll learn more about body weight exercises and Mike’s crunchless approach to building a great set of abs!