Mini workouts throughout the day can lead to big results. This guide explains how to maximize short bursts of movement and microworkouts for weight loss.

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What’s the No. 1 reason why you miss a workout? Easy … you’re simply too busy. There’s just not enough time in the day to get through a crowded inbox, demanding children and a binge session of Stranger Things. 

I’ll spare you the lecture about finding time to enjoy that new Netflix comedy special and how you’d make the time if you made fitness and health a priority, but I digress.

Although, I guess I just kind of gave you that lecture on the sly, though, didn’t I? I’m good.

Anywho.

My goal is to help you break free from the rigors of life to show you just how easy it is to finally get in shape. There’s frankly too much misinformation out there that is confusing people into thinking that you need to be pushing yourself for an hour every day in order to lose a few pounds and fit in those jeans again.

This is simply not true. But nonetheless, this narrative persists.

As a result, you’ve likely tossed up your hands and quit before you even started because if you didn’t have enough time to go big, you just decided to go home altogether and not do this fitness thing.

What if I told you that you can actually fit some more fitness into your busiest days without actually having to run to the gym? You can have your workout cake and eat it, too.

Let’s take a look at my situation.

I’m a fitness coach and health enthusiast. And while I’m writing this, I’m juggling #Dadlife with my two kids bouncing around the walls of my tiny Brooklyn apartment. Both kids are under the age of five. Both kids need a ton of attention. Which means my focus can’t be 100-percent on a detailed, lengthy workout program.

Instead, my workouts are designed to fit my current lifestyle. Quick. Efficient. Effective.

And for fellow parents, I’ve laid out an easy to follow guide to working out with kids and busy life (I even included a handful of follow along workouts for you) in this article here. 

Being quick-paced with my training allows me to workout while the kids are eating lunch, or napping. I’m in, out and nobody gets hurt so I can get back to tea parties and bottle feedings.

Alright, that’s cool because this is my passion and I make time for those training sessions. But, what if you don’t even have time for that 25-minute routine? I’ve got you covered.

Today we’re going to talk about a concept called Greasing the Groove and how it fits into a new practice of performing mini workouts throughout the day called microworkouts for weight loss success. It’s basically an emerging trend in fitness that allows for more efficiency while still delivering quality return on investment.

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What are microworkouts? And how can they help you find time to workout with a busy schedule? 

In order to become a better golfer, you need to practice golf. In order to get better at math, you need to practice math. In order to get stronger, you need to practice strength.

That is the idea behind these mini workouts throughout the day, or microworkouts. It’s adapting a philosophy coined by legendary Soviet strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline called Greasing the Groove (or GtG for short). 

Why the focus on getting stronger? It’s a major part of powering a more efficient metabolism (which I explained here) and should be the key focus of your fat loss workout plan (which I laid out here).

Microworkouts involve brief bouts of strength training performed throughout the course of your day. The two are similar in nature. Like, cousins in the strength training world. Not kissing cousins, though, that would be gross

Adding microworkouts throughout your day will look like the following:

• Knocking out a set of kettlebell swings in between conference calls
• Dropping down and performing 20-30 pushups every hour on the hour during daylight
• Performing max reps of pull-ups every time you pass under your bar in the doorway

Let’s break it down with an example:

Perhaps you want to improve the number of push ups you can perform. Right now, you’re stuck at about 10 reps at the end of your current workout routine. Solid and clean form for the first 10 push-ups before the form and the struggle sets in.

That’s 10 total push-ups you performed today.

Now, if you were to perform 10 push-ups every two hours for an entire workday, that’s closer to 60, 70 even 80+ push ups you’ve performed in a given day.No, that’s not all in one set. But it does promote muscle improvement and endurance and actually leads to some strength gains so eventually you can crank out more than 10 reps in any individual set.

And when you are trying to find time to workout with a busy schedule, these short bursts of mini workouts practiced throughout the day (instead of one dedicated and lengthy session per day) is the perfect solution to your timing problem.

It is a great way to build strength without taxing your body as each set is submaximal, meaning you can do it nearly every single day since you prevent yourself from fatiguing and from overtraining by not training to failure on any of your sets.

These bursts of exertion might not lead to Men’s Health Magazine cover photo status, but they are nonetheless effective.

The many benefits of practicing microworkouts for weight loss

By performing the same movement with great form, we enhance neuromuscular pathways and improve efficiency. 

Better efficiency from your muscles results in increased strength. In other words, perfect practice makes perfect, in this case.

We’re going to steal this principle and adapt it for your fitness gainz (note: your level of improvement instantly increases exponentially when you apply the “z” to the end of the world “gain”).

If it works for Russian dudes as buff as Vladimir Putin, it can work for just the regular plebeians trying to prevent some bulge, right?

Over time, the brief bouts of explosive exercise make it easy in real world application. You’ll be able to pop up from your desk and quickly jaunt up or down a flight of stairs without feeling the creaks and pops and cracks that are commonplace from a more sedentary culture.

Now, that being said, with the many pluses come some minuses, too. This is not meant to be a long-lasting strength program designed to take the place of your more traditional routine. 

Since you are only working on a few exercises, you are only improving on those particular movements. There is little to no crossover into additional exercises for your benefit.

For instance, if you decide to work on your one-handed push-ups throughout your day, you will most definitely get better and stronger in the one-handed push-up. But, it will not make you more proficient at single leg pistol squats or pull-ups.

Not to mention, the risk for injury is not to be overlooked. When you pop up from your desk and start cranking out pull-ups or deadlifts, you’ll want to perform a quick dynamic stretch, or at least walk around for a minute or two at minimum.

With all that said, let’s get into how to make this work for you so you can find time to workout with a busy schedule, get stronger and get better at some awesome movements.

How to implement microworkouts for weight loss

Think about our prehistoric ancestors. They didn’t have a CrossFit Box or an OrangeTheory membership. They didn’t do SoulCycle or HIIT. They just lifted heavy shit, like dead animals and boulders, from time to time. They walked a lot. They sprinted and hunted and climbed. 

But they didn’t do this at a dedicated time every day as a means for fantastic body composition. They did it haphazardly throughout the day as a means to survive.

This is what you are doing. 

The key here is to keep your body fresh. You are not training to failure.

Repeat: you must leave a few reps in the tank each time you perform these short burst microworkouts. Failure will just lead to overtraining and overuse injuries. That defeats the entire purpose.

Instead, the goal is to perform lots of reps a day, spread throughout your day. Start slow. You can always add volume as you get better, stronger and more efficient.

It’s also important that you are picking movements that work the big muscle groups. So your exercise selection should borrow from the compound movements in variations of the following:

• Presses (like push-ups or overhead presses)
• Squats (or lunges)
• Hip hinges (hip thrusts or deadlifts or kettlebell swings work best here)
• Pulling movements (this is a fantastic opportunity to work on improving your pull-up)

Bodyweight movements, push-up variations and pull-ups, tend to work best––simply because there is no equipment needed, so you can perform them anytime, anywhere.

Important note: If you opt to perform push-ups, I highly encourage you to perform at least an equal amount of shoulder-saving movements, like a resistance band pull apart or rear delt fly. Push-ups are a fantastic chest and upper body builder, but without a countering pulling motion, you can lead to rounded shoulders and some imbalances. So at least a 1 rep of pull (band pull apart) for every rep of push (push-up) is recommended, and a 2:1 ratio of Pull-to-Push is actually optimal.

It’s also important to note that you should avoid jumping up and down with some burpees and mountain climbers or isolation movements like bicep curls. You want to strengthen muscle and do so with efficiency. The goal is not to elevate heart rate with a cardio-related routine. Nor is the goal to isolate a single body part (like the biceps). You want to focus on full body, compound movements.

Sure you might feel like you are doing more with a round of burpees every hour, but that is not necessarily the point.

Strength promotes muscle. Muscle promotes fat loss. Keep that in mind at all times.

You’ll perform this intermittent exercise throughout your day in order to survive and get to tomorrow. If you have time to get to the gym tomorrow, cool. If not, keep up with the microworkouts.

It’s that simple. 

Once you’ve picked one or two movements for your microworkout routines, it’s time to get to work with one of the following two setups:

Commit to performing a specific movement every time you walk by an apparatus (like a pull-up bar or a loaded barbell).

For example: “Every time I pass by this loaded barbell, I’ll perform 3-4 deadlifts.” OR “Every time Karen from HR sends me another email, I’m going to perform 40 kettlebell swings.”

Obviously this approach is likely not feasible if you have an office, but for those working at home, this could work for you.

Practice the “Every Hour on the Hour” (EHOH) approach

Set a timer for 60 minutes and performing your movement of choice for a given number of reps each and every hour.

While the intensity of the EHOH exercise approach is not at a top level, the volume is still high. And the key here is that you are only spending 5-10 minutes at a time performing your workout, rather than taking up 90 minutes for your regularly-scheduled gym-going affair.

An example day (using EHOH):

8 am: 10 pushups, 20 band pull aparts, repeated for 3 total rounds

9 am: 20 kettlebell swings, 10 dead bugs (per side)

10:00 am: 5 goblet squats, 5 dumbbell rows, repeated for 3 total rounds

Noon: 5 walkouts to push-up, 5 bodyweight lunges (per side) repeated for 4 total rounds

1:30 pm: 10 pushups, 20 band pull aparts, repeated for 3 total rounds

2:30 pm: 20 kettlebell swings, 10 dead bugs (per side)

3:30 pm: 5 goblet squats, 5 dumbbell rows, repeated for 3 total rounds

5:00 pm: 5 walkouts to push-up, 5 bodyweight lunges (per side) repeated for 4 total rounds

Take control of your fitness and use what you have at your disposal

Hopefully you’re beginning to see that just because you aren’t spending 90 minutes in the gym, you don’t have to sacrifice your entire fitness journey.

You just need to make some adjustments.

Yes, I’d prefer that you find the time to knock out a nice gym sweat sesh by picking up heavy stuff and then putting it down. And if you have time for a trip to the gym, by all means, knock yourself out. You can grab a great traditional strength training routine in this article.

But sometimes, that’s really just not possible. And that’s okay. Because something is better than nothing. And if you adapt that philosophy in your approach to health (and life in general), you’ll open up a world of awesome for yourself going forward. Promise.

Let me help you figure how to use microworkouts for weight loss … 

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Microworkouts for weight loss” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

If you enjoyed this post, maybe you’d like more knowledge bombs from me. I’d be honored if you join my mailing list to get regular updates every time I post something pretty dope.