Thinking Outside the Box: Workouts

Today’s post is a follow up, or part 2, to last week’s post about the habits I’m working, and you can read that post here.

I spent several weeks in Kentucky and Utah the past couple of months, and I had to get creative a lot of days to get in my 30 minutes of working out 4 days/week habit I’m working on. My family was super supportive of my workout goal, so that wasn’t a problem at all. But I wanted to be as helpful as possible, so I tried to balance helping and still getting my workouts in.

Since I’m pretty sure I’m not alone with the struggle that can come with checking off habits on my to-do list even on those crazy, “real” life, throw-me-out-of-my-routine days, especially when it comes to working out, I’m sharing some things I’ve learned in the hope they can help others think more outside the box when it comes to keeping habits, no matter if that habit is work out-related or not. Thinking outside the box and getting creative is key to developing and maintaining any habit, and once we can learn to think outside the box with one habit, it helps us do the same with other habits. And this can help us be way more successful!

Here are some ways I thought outside the box with my workouts.

Create a new workout: Some days, those 30 minutes were completed 5-10 minutes at a time bouncing and walking with baby Jake, grandson #6.  I call this workout “Baby Dancing,” and since baby Jake weighed between 8-9 lbs while I was in Utah, he added some very cute resistance to our dancing routine. 😉

A bit at a time = a whole workout: Some days I’d do squats, push ups, lunges, leg band work, and other movements…5-10 minutes at a time. I keep a list of movements I can do on a Note in my phone, and they can be done with my body weight only, with dumbbells (I used Kam’s 5 lb dumbbells when I was in Utah), resistance bands, and even water bottles.

Move 1 Million App: Other days, I’d hit that 30 minutes total using the Move 1 Million app, which is an amazing app, BTW. Read the inspiring story behind M1M on their site! M1M runs for 2 1/2 minutes at the beginning of every hour, and I realized that if I hit the back arrow right as that 2 1/2 minutes was ending, I could do the routine again, which equaled 5 minutes of movement! When I was in Kentucky helping with my new niece, my 3 1/2 year old niece also enjoyed doing our “movements” (M1M), so I’d do it with her as often as possible. Once I had the routine memorized, I downloaded the music for M1M so I could get in 5 minutes of movement throughout the day to add to my 30 minutes total. I also introduced M1M to my in-laws, and we’d do it together some times. My father-in-law is in a wheelchair, so he did some of the arm movements as he could. My mother-in-law, who also has some health issues, would either sit or stand and do M1M with us. It really is something that anyone can do, no matter what.

Multi-tasking: Some days, I’d do movements while I was getting caught up on a show I’d missed.

Here are some great at-home (or anywhere) movements, most of which don’t require any equipment. For extra resistance, you can add dumbbells, resistance bands, or water bottles. My 50 oz water bottle came in handy too!

• Squats
• Hip Thrusts
• Squat Walks (Forward, backward, side-to-side)
• Push Ups (full, from your knees, against a wall, off a bed/couch, etc.)
• Arm Raises: Forward and to the side
• Tricep Dips
• Side Lying Leg Raises
• Standing 3-Way Leg Raises: Straight leg forward, straight leg to the side, bended knee backward to work the hamstrings
• Kneeling Squats
• Donkey Kicks
• Fire Hydrants
• Sit Ups
• Mountain Climbers
• Thrusters

Here’s a link to my favorite resistance bands and resistance band set (These are not affiliate links).

The key to thinking outside the box for workouts or for any habit is to get over the idea of what “counts.” I think we often box ourselves in with what we think “counts” based on our own limited, stuck-in-the-box thinking or from what others have said or done. And when we do this, we’re often adopting perfectionistic thinking—thinking that in order to “count,” something has to align with a certain standard, which often keeps us from accomplishing that thing. Or anything, really.

I’ll never forget something I heard one of my favorite writers, Jon Acuff, say about goals when people would tell him that what he was counting for a goal didn’t count:

“Is this your goal? Or is this Jon Acuff’s goal? If it’s Jon Acuff’s goal, then he should be able to say what counts.”

Powerful, right? And every time I start to tell myself that something doesn’t “count,” I remember this quote, and I decide what’s going to count for me and for my goals and habits.

How could you use “out of the box thinking” for a habit or goal you’re working on?