Being in a cluttered space can make us feel overwhelmed and bogged down. As new seasons approach, it’s time to freshen up our wardrobes, our routines, and our homes. In today’s conversation, Robin Long shares how decluttering your space could bring you the stress relief you’ve been searching for.
Robin takes a balanced approach to health and fitness that is applicable to every aspect of your life. She provides practical and tangible steps you can do at home to reduce stress and benefit your physical and emotional health.
Show highlights: what you can look forward to in this episode!
What is The Balanced Life Sisterhood
Why The Balanced Life does Off-The-Mat Missions
What decluttering has to do with your health
Robin shares studies that explore how clutter negatively impacts mental health
Small tips to get started cleaning out the clutter
Ways to decipher whether to make a home for an item or get rid of it
Using the “Neat Method”
The difference between decluttering and organizing
How to keep decluttering moving in your house
Tips to keep toys uncluttered and organized
How Robin keeps toys and the home “fresh”
The nightly “Sanity Sweep”
How to “maintain” the order as you declutter
The importance of optimizing spaces that bring you life
Now what? There is SOOO much out there, it can be overwhelming.
You end up collecting information for weeks…but take zero action.
If this sounds like you, we understand. It’s frustrating!
No worries though, you’re in the right place to kick it into gear. We’ve helped thousands of beginners get started (and reach their goals!) as part of our online coaching program.
Today, I’ll share with you 3 different ways to get things going, that have been tested by nerds just like you.
As Coach Matt discusses above, there are three areas we want to focus on when trying to level up your fitness:
Exercise
Nutrition
Mindset
When someone joins our coaching program, we often think about developing habits around these three pillars.
As I often share with folks when discussing our coaching program:
It’s not just a matter of handing over a bunch of workouts and shoving them out the door – we want to approach people’s goals and fitness more holistically.
What’s the first move in each category?
Well, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to fitness.
However, if you twist my arm about it, I will admit that there are a few key habits that I generally have my clients start on.
These habits can be good for a beginner to experiment with as their “first step” for getting in shape.
Let’s go over a few of them now.
“Get Fit” Strategy #1: Exercise
When people decide they want to get in shape, they often start exercising more.
It’s not a bad strategy.
What exercise should we start with?
Our recommended first step here…is actually a first step.
That’s right, a simple walk can be a great way to start exercising.
Just put on some shoes and head out the door!
Occasionally, I’ll have some clients bulk at this, claiming “That’s not enough! I need to do more!”
While it’s great they’re looking for a challenge, I encourage them not to dismiss the power of walking.
Here’s why:
When we become people that regularly make time for a walk, then we become people who regularly make time for longer workouts too.
In other words, building the habit is the hardest part. Not the exercise itself.
So we start with a walk. Maybe we aim for two or three times a week.
Don’t overthink this – whatever time you can do right now is good. Whether it’s around the block, or to the mailbox and back – just make sure you set the intention and do something.
When you start googling a bit, you’ll find lots of contradicting information on how to level up your diet.
People will claim you should:
Break up with bread.
Eat less meat.
Stop with all the ice cream.
Tragic.
In our coaching program, we often DON’T start with any “eat and drink less” talk.
We actually do the opposite, with “eat and drink MORE” talk.
What do we specifically recommend you eat and drink more of?
Water
Vegetables
For our coaching clients trying to get in shape, sometimes we have them start by drinking a glass of water or eating a vegetable at one of their meals.
When we start with adding – instead of subtracting – we accomplish a few things:
First, it starts creating a more positive association with nutrition.
Next (and related), it tends to be a big mental relief from the constant restrictive nutritional talk that we’re used to hearing.
Lastly, by making a focused effort to add healthy things to our meal, by default, it often replaces other less than healthy things.
This is another step that might seem “too easy” or “not enough” right now, but doing them consistently can still prove challenging.
And doing these things consistently is what’s going to build long-lasting changes.
If you want additional help with these two actions, I have a couple of resources for you:
Guide to Proper Hydration.Not only will tell you how much water to drink, but we’ll also provide tips for staying hydrated all day.
How To Make Vegetables Taste Good.Don’t like veggies? No problem. This guide will show you 10 different ways to make your greens something you enjoy eating.
But if you’re looking for a “Just tell me what to do!” – then have a glass of water or a vegetable at one of your meals.
If you’re doing that already – add one of them to another meal. Rinse and repeat.
What’s that? You already drink water and have a vegetable with every meal?
Well, you can work on having your meals look a bit like this:
A good night’s sleep can make everything easier. Conversely, poor sleep consistently can make everything harder.
My clients often have success improving their sleep habits by:
Avoiding screen time within a half-hour of bed.
Going to bed and waking up at the same time – even on the weekends.
#2) Journaling.
Grab anything you can write with (even your phone or computer), and write down some reflections from the day.
You can focus your journal on:
Any wins you had.
Things you’re grateful for.
Things that frustrated you.
Your journal is a safe spot for you to get things out of your head and process them, which can quickly reduce stress.
Personally, capturing my thoughts at the end of the night helps me put the day behind me. Our minds are for creating ideas, not storing them (h/t David Allen).
Whichever of these three that you decide for stress management, look to do it consistently several times a week. Just only pick ONE right now.
We’ll work on the others down the road.
The Key to Getting In Shape: Consistency
If you want to take the first step to level up your life, think about habits around the following:
Exercise – Take a walk a few times a week. Don’t worry about the distance, just worry about the intention and habit.
Nutrition – Add a glass of water or vegetable to one meal. If that feels good, do it again with another meal.
Mindset – Pick ONE stress management habit. This could be some brief meditation, journaling, or improving your sleep habits.
That’s it. Simple habits to have you move more, get proper nutrients, and destress a bit.
There’s nothing here that’s going to sound revolutionary.
That’s the point.
The action itself isn’t challenging. The challenge is doing the action consistently.
So yes, the actions we proposed today might appear easy for you to do.
If that’s the case, then do them. Once you have these habits locked in, we can work on leveling them up to more complex tasks.
Start now, then course-correct later.
If you want a roadmap for building one habit on top of each other, I got a few options for you.
I’ll share them with you now, because I’m nice like that.
Here are three ways to build healthy habits alongside Nerd Fitness.
#1) Our Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.
You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the image below for more details:
#2) If you want an exact roadmap on how to get in shape, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
You never have to question the next step. Your next new habit will always be one adventure away.
Try your free trial right here:
#3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out at home” guides, an explanation on the 15 Mistakes That Newbies Make, and much more!
Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit
The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.
Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.
Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.
So you’ve hit a workout or weight loss plateau the size of a…well, an actual plateau, eh?
Have no fear, our step-by-step guide will get you back on track! (Plus, the most badass Bruce Lee quote you’ll ever read).
Whether you’ve stalled in your weight loss journey, strength training, or some other fitness benchmark, today we’ll tell you exactly how to keep progressing by sharing with you the exact tools we use with our coaching clients.
I know how demoralizing plateaus can be, especially when it comes to strength training and weight loss – they can be a total momentum killer!
It’s actually why we built our newest app, Nerd Fitness Journey! It’s designed so when you wake up in the morning, you know the exact next step to help you reach your goals.
You can try it for free right here, so this plateau can be a thing of the past:
What is a Plateau?
A plateau occurs when you stall out on progress despite continuing to do “all of the right things,” usually including:
Our bodies go from losing weight consistently to getting stuck at a certain number. Or we go from building muscle and getting stronger, to having a week or two where we can’t seem to lift anything heavier.
We call this point in our training “The Plateau,” and we don’t like being stuck on them.
When we work hard for something and don’t see progress, we get unhappy.
How Do I Know If I’ve Hit a Plateau?
I get a lot of emails from people who tell me they’re stuck in a plateau.
They talk about how they’ve been eating right, exercising, and getting enough rest and they can’t seem to make progress!
They throw their hands in the air, freak out, get discouraged, and give up or quickly move onto the next plan that they hope will work.
When somebody comes to me saying they’ve plateaued, my first response is always:
“Have you REALLLLLLLLY plateaued? REALLY?”
In a strong majority of the cases, plateaus are really just issues with concentration, tracking, and discipline in disguise. Before you think you have plateaued, consider the following:
1) HOW IS YOUR NUTRITION…REALLY? Oftentimes we think we are being diligent, until we realize that after a few weeks of eating great we’ve started slacking. “Oh I’ve been good, just this one time…” and “Hmmm, sure why not” become more commonplace as we start to fall back into old habits. Track your calories for the next week and check your numbers.
There’s simply LESS of you that your body needs to maintain.
Here is the estimated daily resting calorie burn (“sit on your ass all day”) of a 35-year old male nerd at 3 very different weights:
300 lbs: 2,600 calories.
250 lbs: 2,300 calories.
200 lbs: 2,000 calories.
You might have hit a plateau simply because you’ve reached an equilibrium of calories consumed to calories burned! This means you need to adjust your calorie intake to continue losing weight.
If you are trying to bulk up, are you eating ENOUGH calories to promote muscle growth? Rededicate yourself for two weeks, track your meals, and see if progress picks back up!
2) HOW ARE YOUR WORKOUTS…REALLY?If you are weeks or months into a workout plan, I bet the initial luster of “NEW! PROGRESS! WINNING!” has worn off.
Have you been skipping that last rep, cutting out an exercise here or there, or getting bored and wanting to go home?
I know when I hit a plateau at the gym, it’s generally because I haven’t been pushing myself as hard as I had been previously. Track your workouts diligently for two weeks and see if these changes kick you back on track.
3) HOW iS YOUR SLEEP?…REALLY? This is one that most people skip out on. They are exercising, eating right, but for whatever reason they’ve been slacking on their sleep.
It’s might be too much television…
We all know sleep is important– lack of sleep leads to increased levels of stress, less time for our bodies to rebuild muscle, to recover from strenuous activity, and more.
I know that if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, then my performance in the gym the next day will suffer.
Can you honestly say you’ve spent two weeks with quality sleep, nutrition, and exercise?
In many cases we think we’re stuck, in need of some sort of drastic change or adjustment to kickstart progress again. Now, there are definitely instances where we ARE stuck or stalled, and that’s when things need to change.
However, before we cover the dreaded plateau, let’s get a few things clear.
Why Am I Plateauing?
To start, linear progress cannot continue indefinitely:
If you are learning to squat and you start with just the bar, adding 5 lbs a week (which is how you should learn to squat!), you will eventually reach a point where your body cannot build the strength/muscle fast enough to continually add 5 lbs a week. If it DID work that way, in three years everybody would be squatting 1,000 pounds.
You will run into the same issues with weight loss. For example, it’s easier for you to lose 3 pounds a week when you are at 300 lbs than it is to lose 3 pounds a week when you are 150 pounds….there’s more of you to “lose” when you’re bigger and thus progress will be easier. If you could lose 2-3 pounds a week every week forever, at some point you’d disappear, and we don’t want that. Weight loss might slow to 1 pound every other week.
Your margin for error gets smaller. When you are at a higher body fat percentage, or just getting starting with training, you can make a lot of progress quickly due to there being MORE of you to lose, or MORE gains to make quickly. As you start to make progress, you can’t keep making big progress without making more and more dedicated effort.
Adaptive thermogensis. Our bodies WANT to maintain the extra body fat we have (“I don’t know when I’ll need this, better save”), and are actively working in unison to preserve it – so even after a few pounds, it’s going to be a persistent challenge to keep progressing. It’s a subject a dive in deep in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?” If you’ve stalled on your weight loss journey, this might be the problem, as your body is adapting to the body fat being lost.
Your progress at a consistent pace will definitely slow down, which can FEEL like a plateau.
If you’ve been training for more than a few months, you might need to slightly adjust your expectations. Maybe this week you can only add 2.5 lbs to the bar. Or 1lb. Maybe your muscle-building will crawl to 1 lb gained a month.
It happens to all of us. Even Batman.
Now, if your progress stalls out COMPLETELY or you actually regress, AND you are doing all of the right things, then congrats!
You MAY have plateaued.
Like in games like World of Warcraft, at some point you will stop gaining experience from killing rats – you could spend all day doing so but because you’ve hit a certain level they no longer provide you with value.
It’s time to move onto attacking spiders, then orcs, then dragons.
When you started out, just doing 5 push-ups might have felt like a full workout. Now you can do 50 push-ups for a warm-up and not break a sweat.
Our bodies are constantly adapting and learning to manage the stresses we put on it, seeking the path of least resistance.
Back to our gaming analogy:
If it’s something worth doing, there will most likely be grinding involved, and that’s why I need to talk to you about The Dip.
No not a strength training type of ‘dip’, though those are good to help bust through a plateau too!
You can learn more about how we help build plateau-less workouts at Nerd Fitness by downloading our free Strength Training 101 eBook when you sign up in the box below:
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Is a Plateau Normal? (The Dip)
I want to introduce you to Seth Godin, author of The Dip.
We all hit plateaus in our lives and quests for health and happiness. In order to be successful at the task at hand, we need to grind our way through that low point (or flat point) until we can climb out and continue progress.
Here’s a visualization of the dip:
When you first start something new, you can make quick progress and everything rocks because you see big changes.
However, after a few months, the reward you get from your effort decreases and it seems like you’re rapidly slowing down:
In the first few weeks of weight loss, everything is GREAT! The scale is moving, your clothes are getting looser, progress is exciting because it’s coming so quickly. Then, you might have a few weeks where you’re really trying hard and yet…the scale stalls or increases.
When building a new running habit, each new run is exhilarating – you rapidly progress from wheezing and coughing after two blocks to now being able to run a whole mile! A few months later, that progress slows, and you find yourself struggling with the same distances and speeds even though you’re doing all of the right things.
When lifting weights, the first few months can be life-changing.Squats, deadlifts, pull-ups,push-ups. Every session in the gym is an opportunity to see massive progress compared to the time before, except for that week or two when you walk in and you have to lift less than before! What gives!?
When we hit that dip/plateau where our hard work seems like it goes unrewarded, it’s easy to give up and say, “I’m a failure.”
Not true.
We will all experience a dip when it comes to progress on things that are important to us.
If we want to TRULY be successful, we need to anticipate the dip’s arrival and plan for it so that it doesn’t completely derail us.
Much like grinding out experience points in an RPG, sometimes we need to grind out practice in life, workouts, nutrition, and more…until we can hit that sweet spot for progress again.
So, how do we stay dedicated, focused, and motivated through the dip?
How do we progress during the plateau when we feel like our hard work is a waste of time?
We focus on small wins, and find a way to get a teeny tiny bit better.
What Should I Do When I Hit a Plateau? (Setting Personal Records)
In order for us to crawl out of a dip or off a plateau, we need to find a way to make a small win every day.
Think of these small wins like “a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
The longer we’ve been training, the older we get, and/or the more advanced we get in our training, the more likely we’ll be to hit plateaus and the more necessary it will be to grind out small victories, prepare for dips, and power through them.
Here’s how you can grind out your own small wins and prove to yourself that you are still progressing when you are in the dip:
1) TRACK EVERY SET, REP, AND WORKOUT. Find a way to be better today in SOME WAY than you were yesterday, and prove to yourself that you are still making progress – even if it’s progress in a different way than you were progressing before.
If you are stuck at 3 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds on the bench press and haven’t been able to go up to 155 lbs for a few weeks, try 3 sets of 6 reps of 150 pounds.
Or 4 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds.
Then come back to 3 sets of 5 reps of 155 a few weeks from now, and see if you can do that.
If you wait 60 seconds between sets, try waiting 90 seconds instead and lift a different amount
As long as SOMETHING has progressed in some way – your total amount of weight lifted, decreased time between sets, one extra rep, or one more pound lifted – it proves to yourself that you made progress. Remember, progress makes us happy.
We are transformers (Joe especially), and our small changes add up too.
It’s these tiny, small victories that can push us over the edge. Enough small victories and we can reach that tipping point, that end of the dip where progress continues again.
Find a way to set a tiny win in SOME WAY each day that shows you that you are getting better/faster/stronger.
Here’s an example: I have been working on handstand balancing. For the past few months, my progress has stagnated and even gone in reverse on some days (helloooo Dip!).
I continued to work on building the habit of handstands for five minutes a day (Hard Hat challenge for the win!). Progress felt nonexistent, but I knew that my continued dedicated practice was adding up in ways that didn’t make themselves readily apparent.
I had “stalled,” so I focused on getting tiny wins: increasing flexibility in my wrists, staying against the wall as long as I could, practicing my kick-ups, tightening my core, etc.
Despite not being able to balance for longer than 10 seconds at any point in the past, I kicked up into a handstand, without even touching the wall (something else that had never happened before), and I held my handstand for 24 seconds!
I still have a ways to go before I’m holding perfectly vertical handstands for 60+ seconds, but months spent grinding out practice in the dip have paid off.
I made it through the plateau, and my progress has continued rapidly after struggling for months. Those months of struggle were teeny tiny wins in different ways that added up until I hit that tipping point where progress exploded.
3) TRACK OTHER METRICS OTHER THAN THE SCALE. The scale can lie. The scale will DEFINITELY slow down even if you are making progress in healthier ways, simply due to the fact that you have less weight to lose than you did before! You might also be dealing with extra water weight, or bloat, or menstruation, or anything in between.
So, track other things! Here’s what you can track to help keep you motivated while plateauing:
Take biweekly photos. Who cares if the scale isn’t moving. Are you looking better? Are you FEELING better? Do your clothes fit better? That is progress.
Take measurements. Spend 5 bucks on a cloth tape measure (or one of these), and measure the important parts of your body. Maybe the scale isn’t moving, but you took half an inch off of your waist. Or maybe you added a quarter of an inch to your arms.
Track your body fat percentage.A simple caliper is enough to show trends. Remember Saint? His weight went UP but his body fat percentage dropped. Had he only been tracking the scale, he might have panicked during his ‘dip.’ Fortunately, he was tracking more metrics and used that momentum to catapult himself to victory.
The goal is to consistently prove to ourselves that we are moving one step closer towards our goal.
This is exactly the system we used when we built Nerd Fitness Journey.
When you’re working through the app, not only are you doing fun missions, but you’ll see how tasks build up to your larger goal. There’s no getting stuck or frustrated, just log in and work on the next adventure.
If you want, you can sign-up for a free trial right here:
5 Tips and Tricks for Overcoming a Plateau
The above is just the beginning. This will also help you make progress and get out of that dip:
1) Shock your workout. Our bodies crave efficiency, and love to be as lazy as possible, but we truly thrive on chaos. So introduce some chaos into your system!
Note: This is NOT the same as “muscle confusion” (which is a made-up marketing term to sell DVDs). We’re still progressing, lifting more, and doing the same exercises – we’re just throwing in some variation occasionally to help stimulate progress.
If you do the exact same thing over and over and over, your body becomes more efficient at that activity.
In fact, your body can learn and adapt after doing the same thing enough times so that it burns fewer calories to carry out the process. So mix it up!
Trying to increase your deadlift? Rather than just doing a 1-rep max, do a day of higher volume, or train the deadlift twice a week.
Want to squat better? Squat with higher frequency. NF Senior Coach Staci followed an advanced Smolov Squat program for 13 weeks (Warning: not for beginners). Your body can adapt and overcompensate by getting stronger.
Want to improve your upper body strength/size? Try doing a PLP program along with your regular workouts. Starting with 10 total reps of Pull-ups, Lunges, and Push-ups, and every day add a rep, for 50 days.
2) Adjust your diet. Your body can also become quite efficient with calories (not to mention the oft-mentioned but controversial “starvation mode” theory), and can sometimes struggle to progress.
As we lay out in “Why can’t I lose weight?,” if you’ve lost a decent amount of weight, your body now burns significantly fewer calories each day (there’s less of you to manage!) This means you need to adjust your calorie intake!
ONLY after that doesn’t work would I recommend the following:
Consider throwing in one day a week of OVER eating, along with days where you are intermittent fasting. Keep your body guessing and see if that shocks your system back into weight loss mode.
Consider adjusting your macronutrient breakdown. Keep your protein intake high, and adjust your carbs and fats. Some people feel better or worse with high fat or low fat, high carb or low carb.
3) REST! I’ve heard it said “there’s no such thing as “overtraining, just under-recovering.” Are you getting enough sleep?
Maybe you’re a new parent and trying to maintain your old workout routine on 2 hours of sleep a night.
Or work has you stressed like crazy and it’s causing you to eat like crap.
Rest is such an important part of a healthy lifestyle that it needs to be prioritized too. In the book Essentialism, this is referred to as “Protecting the Asset.”
You are the asset.
If you are trying to do too much, or you’re caught in a plateau, consider a week off, refocusing on sleep and recovery, and come back refreshed.
Again, nature loves chaos. If you are focused solely on weight loss, you might feel like you have stalled out. So shift your focus. Work on handstands. Or running faster.
Try something different. Give your body a chance to recover and then come back to it.
If you’re solely focused on the scale and it stalls out, it can be depressing. So put the scale away for a month, and instead focus on the process of getting stronger and eating better. Stop stressing and remember to enjoy the game you’re playing.
5) Accept that we have bad weeks. We are complex pieces of machinery.
We just have bad weeks and can’t lift enough or we GAIN weight when we expected to lose weight. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you human.
So on days when you feel great, PUSH yourself harder. On days when you feel like crap, scale back the heavy lifting and focus on more reps or better technique.
The greatest predictor of success in our lives is grit (which can be developed). Grit is what you need to slog through these slow weeks. These dips are where we find out who’s truly dedicated. I know you are, and you know you are.
Remember, look for any sign of progress in any way to reveal that “light” at the end of the tunnel.
If you are stuck on a plateau when it comes to strength training, consider working with one of our Yodas in the 1-on-1 Online Training Program at Nerd Fitness! No guilt, no shame. Just somebody to keep you accountable, expert guidance from somebody that knows you, and peace of mind knowing you’re doing the right thing!
How did you break through your plateau?
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee
Hopefully, I’ve covered everything you need to know about plateaus. What’s that? You were expecting some lame joke about plateaus somewhere?
You know me too well. Okay, how bout this one:
Did you know that a plateau is the highest form of flattery?
Get it?
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
I want to hear your story:
Have you successfully busted through a plateau? Leave a comment with how you got out of it.
Are you currently stuck? If so, what’s ONE SPECIFIC piece of advice you’re taking from today’s article to apply to what you’re going to do this afternoon?
Let’s hear it! I’m excited to hear how I can help.
-Steve
PS: We know starting with this stuff can be intimidating. If you’re looking to take it to the next level:
1-on-1 Online Coaching: A coach from Team NF gets to know you better than you know yourself and builds a workout program and nutritional strategy that fits your busy life, your body type, and your goals.
Nerd Fitness Journey: a fun app that will show you the path for overcoming any plateau. Sign up for a free trial below:
So you’ve hit a workout or weight loss plateau the size of a…well, an actual plateau, eh?
Have no fear, our step-by-step guide will get you back on track! (Plus, the most badass Bruce Lee quote you’ll ever read).
Whether you’ve stalled in your weight loss journey, strength training, or some other fitness benchmark, today we’ll tell you exactly how to keep progressing by sharing with you the exact tools we use with our coaching clients.
I know how demoralizing plateaus can be, especially when it comes to strength training and weight loss – they can be a total momentum killer!
It’s actually why we built our newest app, Nerd Fitness Journey! It’s designed so when you wake up in the morning, you know the exact next step to help you reach your goals.
You can try it for free right here, so this plateau can be a thing of the past:
What is a Plateau?
A plateau occurs when you stall out on progress despite continuing to do “all of the right things,” usually including:
Our bodies go from losing weight consistently to getting stuck at a certain number. Or we go from building muscle and getting stronger, to having a week or two where we can’t seem to lift anything heavier.
We call this point in our training “The Plateau,” and we don’t like being stuck on them.
When we work hard for something and don’t see progress, we get unhappy.
How Do I Know If I’ve Hit a Plateau?
I get a lot of emails from people who tell me they’re stuck in a plateau.
They talk about how they’ve been eating right, exercising, and getting enough rest and they can’t seem to make progress!
They throw their hands in the air, freak out, get discouraged, and give up or quickly move onto the next plan that they hope will work.
When somebody comes to me saying they’ve plateaued, my first response is always:
“Have you REALLLLLLLLY plateaued? REALLY?”
In a strong majority of the cases, plateaus are really just issues with concentration, tracking, and discipline in disguise. Before you think you have plateaued, consider the following:
1) HOW IS YOUR NUTRITION…REALLY? Oftentimes we think we are being diligent, until we realize that after a few weeks of eating great we’ve started slacking. “Oh I’ve been good, just this one time…” and “Hmmm, sure why not” become more commonplace as we start to fall back into old habits. Track your calories for the next week and check your numbers.
There’s simply LESS of you that your body needs to maintain.
Here is the estimated daily resting calorie burn (“sit on your ass all day”) of a 35-year old male nerd at 3 very different weights:
300 lbs: 2,600 calories.
250 lbs: 2,300 calories.
200 lbs: 2,000 calories.
You might have hit a plateau simply because you’ve reached an equilibrium of calories consumed to calories burned! This means you need to adjust your calorie intake to continue losing weight.
If you are trying to bulk up, are you eating ENOUGH calories to promote muscle growth? Rededicate yourself for two weeks, track your meals, and see if progress picks back up!
2) HOW ARE YOUR WORKOUTS…REALLY?If you are weeks or months into a workout plan, I bet the initial luster of “NEW! PROGRESS! WINNING!” has worn off.
Have you been skipping that last rep, cutting out an exercise here or there, or getting bored and wanting to go home?
I know when I hit a plateau at the gym, it’s generally because I haven’t been pushing myself as hard as I had been previously. Track your workouts diligently for two weeks and see if these changes kick you back on track.
3) HOW iS YOUR SLEEP?…REALLY? This is one that most people skip out on. They are exercising, eating right, but for whatever reason they’ve been slacking on their sleep.
It’s might be too much television…
We all know sleep is important– lack of sleep leads to increased levels of stress, less time for our bodies to rebuild muscle, to recover from strenuous activity, and more.
I know that if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, then my performance in the gym the next day will suffer.
Can you honestly say you’ve spent two weeks with quality sleep, nutrition, and exercise?
In many cases we think we’re stuck, in need of some sort of drastic change or adjustment to kickstart progress again. Now, there are definitely instances where we ARE stuck or stalled, and that’s when things need to change.
However, before we cover the dreaded plateau, let’s get a few things clear.
Why Am I Plateauing?
To start, linear progress cannot continue indefinitely:
If you are learning to squat and you start with just the bar, adding 5 lbs a week (which is how you should learn to squat!), you will eventually reach a point where your body cannot build the strength/muscle fast enough to continually add 5 lbs a week. If it DID work that way, in three years everybody would be squatting 1,000 pounds.
You will run into the same issues with weight loss. For example, it’s easier for you to lose 3 pounds a week when you are at 300 lbs than it is to lose 3 pounds a week when you are 150 pounds….there’s more of you to “lose” when you’re bigger and thus progress will be easier. If you could lose 2-3 pounds a week every week forever, at some point you’d disappear, and we don’t want that. Weight loss might slow to 1 pound every other week.
Your margin for error gets smaller. When you are at a higher body fat percentage, or just getting starting with training, you can make a lot of progress quickly due to there being MORE of you to lose, or MORE gains to make quickly. As you start to make progress, you can’t keep making big progress without making more and more dedicated effort.
Adaptive thermogensis. Our bodies WANT to maintain the extra body fat we have (“I don’t know when I’ll need this, better save”), and are actively working in unison to preserve it – so even after a few pounds, it’s going to be a persistent challenge to keep progressing. It’s a subject a dive in deep in the article “Why can’t I lose weight?” If you’ve stalled on your weight loss journey, this might be the problem, as your body is adapting to the body fat being lost.
Your progress at a consistent pace will definitely slow down, which can FEEL like a plateau.
If you’ve been training for more than a few months, you might need to slightly adjust your expectations. Maybe this week you can only add 2.5 lbs to the bar. Or 1lb. Maybe your muscle-building will crawl to 1 lb gained a month.
It happens to all of us. Even Batman.
Now, if your progress stalls out COMPLETELY or you actually regress, AND you are doing all of the right things, then congrats!
You MAY have plateaued.
Like in games like World of Warcraft, at some point you will stop gaining experience from killing rats – you could spend all day doing so but because you’ve hit a certain level they no longer provide you with value.
It’s time to move onto attacking spiders, then orcs, then dragons.
When you started out, just doing 5 push-ups might have felt like a full workout. Now you can do 50 push-ups for a warm-up and not break a sweat.
Our bodies are constantly adapting and learning to manage the stresses we put on it, seeking the path of least resistance.
Back to our gaming analogy:
If it’s something worth doing, there will most likely be grinding involved, and that’s why I need to talk to you about The Dip.
No not a strength training type of ‘dip’, though those are good to help bust through a plateau too!
You can learn more about how we help build plateau-less workouts at Nerd Fitness by downloading our free Strength Training 101 eBook when you sign up in the box below:
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Is a Plateau Normal? (The Dip)
I want to introduce you to Seth Godin, author of The Dip.
We all hit plateaus in our lives and quests for health and happiness. In order to be successful at the task at hand, we need to grind our way through that low point (or flat point) until we can climb out and continue progress.
Here’s a visualization of the dip:
When you first start something new, you can make quick progress and everything rocks because you see big changes.
However, after a few months, the reward you get from your effort decreases and it seems like you’re rapidly slowing down:
In the first few weeks of weight loss, everything is GREAT! The scale is moving, your clothes are getting looser, progress is exciting because it’s coming so quickly. Then, you might have a few weeks where you’re really trying hard and yet…the scale stalls or increases.
When building a new running habit, each new run is exhilarating – you rapidly progress from wheezing and coughing after two blocks to now being able to run a whole mile! A few months later, that progress slows, and you find yourself struggling with the same distances and speeds even though you’re doing all of the right things.
When lifting weights, the first few months can be life-changing.Squats, deadlifts, pull-ups,push-ups. Every session in the gym is an opportunity to see massive progress compared to the time before, except for that week or two when you walk in and you have to lift less than before! What gives!?
When we hit that dip/plateau where our hard work seems like it goes unrewarded, it’s easy to give up and say, “I’m a failure.”
Not true.
We will all experience a dip when it comes to progress on things that are important to us.
If we want to TRULY be successful, we need to anticipate the dip’s arrival and plan for it so that it doesn’t completely derail us.
Much like grinding out experience points in an RPG, sometimes we need to grind out practice in life, workouts, nutrition, and more…until we can hit that sweet spot for progress again.
So, how do we stay dedicated, focused, and motivated through the dip?
How do we progress during the plateau when we feel like our hard work is a waste of time?
We focus on small wins, and find a way to get a teeny tiny bit better.
What Should I Do When I Hit a Plateau? (Setting Personal Records)
In order for us to crawl out of a dip or off a plateau, we need to find a way to make a small win every day.
Think of these small wins like “a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
The longer we’ve been training, the older we get, and/or the more advanced we get in our training, the more likely we’ll be to hit plateaus and the more necessary it will be to grind out small victories, prepare for dips, and power through them.
Here’s how you can grind out your own small wins and prove to yourself that you are still progressing when you are in the dip:
1) TRACK EVERY SET, REP, AND WORKOUT. Find a way to be better today in SOME WAY than you were yesterday, and prove to yourself that you are still making progress – even if it’s progress in a different way than you were progressing before.
If you are stuck at 3 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds on the bench press and haven’t been able to go up to 155 lbs for a few weeks, try 3 sets of 6 reps of 150 pounds.
Or 4 sets of 5 reps of 150 pounds.
Then come back to 3 sets of 5 reps of 155 a few weeks from now, and see if you can do that.
If you wait 60 seconds between sets, try waiting 90 seconds instead and lift a different amount
As long as SOMETHING has progressed in some way – your total amount of weight lifted, decreased time between sets, one extra rep, or one more pound lifted – it proves to yourself that you made progress. Remember, progress makes us happy.
We are transformers (Joe especially), and our small changes add up too.
It’s these tiny, small victories that can push us over the edge. Enough small victories and we can reach that tipping point, that end of the dip where progress continues again.
Find a way to set a tiny win in SOME WAY each day that shows you that you are getting better/faster/stronger.
Here’s an example: I have been working on handstand balancing. For the past few months, my progress has stagnated and even gone in reverse on some days (helloooo Dip!).
I continued to work on building the habit of handstands for five minutes a day (Hard Hat challenge for the win!). Progress felt nonexistent, but I knew that my continued dedicated practice was adding up in ways that didn’t make themselves readily apparent.
I had “stalled,” so I focused on getting tiny wins: increasing flexibility in my wrists, staying against the wall as long as I could, practicing my kick-ups, tightening my core, etc.
Despite not being able to balance for longer than 10 seconds at any point in the past, I kicked up into a handstand, without even touching the wall (something else that had never happened before), and I held my handstand for 24 seconds!
I still have a ways to go before I’m holding perfectly vertical handstands for 60+ seconds, but months spent grinding out practice in the dip have paid off.
I made it through the plateau, and my progress has continued rapidly after struggling for months. Those months of struggle were teeny tiny wins in different ways that added up until I hit that tipping point where progress exploded.
3) TRACK OTHER METRICS OTHER THAN THE SCALE. The scale can lie. The scale will DEFINITELY slow down even if you are making progress in healthier ways, simply due to the fact that you have less weight to lose than you did before! You might also be dealing with extra water weight, or bloat, or menstruation, or anything in between.
So, track other things! Here’s what you can track to help keep you motivated while plateauing:
Take biweekly photos. Who cares if the scale isn’t moving. Are you looking better? Are you FEELING better? Do your clothes fit better? That is progress.
Take measurements. Spend 5 bucks on a cloth tape measure (or one of these), and measure the important parts of your body. Maybe the scale isn’t moving, but you took half an inch off of your waist. Or maybe you added a quarter of an inch to your arms.
Track your body fat percentage.A simple caliper is enough to show trends. Remember Saint? His weight went UP but his body fat percentage dropped. Had he only been tracking the scale, he might have panicked during his ‘dip.’ Fortunately, he was tracking more metrics and used that momentum to catapult himself to victory.
The goal is to consistently prove to ourselves that we are moving one step closer towards our goal.
This is exactly the system we used when we built Nerd Fitness Journey.
When you’re working through the app, not only are you doing fun missions, but you’ll see how tasks build up to your larger goal. There’s no getting stuck or frustrated, just log in and work on the next adventure.
If you want, you can sign-up for a free trial right here:
5 Tips and Tricks for Overcoming a Plateau
The above is just the beginning. This will also help you make progress and get out of that dip:
1) Shock your workout. Our bodies crave efficiency, and love to be as lazy as possible, but we truly thrive on chaos. So introduce some chaos into your system!
Note: This is NOT the same as “muscle confusion” (which is a made-up marketing term to sell DVDs). We’re still progressing, lifting more, and doing the same exercises – we’re just throwing in some variation occasionally to help stimulate progress.
If you do the exact same thing over and over and over, your body becomes more efficient at that activity.
In fact, your body can learn and adapt after doing the same thing enough times so that it burns fewer calories to carry out the process. So mix it up!
Trying to increase your deadlift? Rather than just doing a 1-rep max, do a day of higher volume, or train the deadlift twice a week.
Want to squat better? Squat with higher frequency. NF Senior Coach Staci followed an advanced Smolov Squat program for 13 weeks (Warning: not for beginners). Your body can adapt and overcompensate by getting stronger.
Want to improve your upper body strength/size? Try doing a PLP program along with your regular workouts. Starting with 10 total reps of Pull-ups, Lunges, and Push-ups, and every day add a rep, for 50 days.
2) Adjust your diet. Your body can also become quite efficient with calories (not to mention the oft-mentioned but controversial “starvation mode” theory), and can sometimes struggle to progress.
As we lay out in “Why can’t I lose weight?,” if you’ve lost a decent amount of weight, your body now burns significantly fewer calories each day (there’s less of you to manage!) This means you need to adjust your calorie intake!
ONLY after that doesn’t work would I recommend the following:
Consider throwing in one day a week of OVER eating, along with days where you are intermittent fasting. Keep your body guessing and see if that shocks your system back into weight loss mode.
Consider adjusting your macronutrient breakdown. Keep your protein intake high, and adjust your carbs and fats. Some people feel better or worse with high fat or low fat, high carb or low carb.
3) REST! I’ve heard it said “there’s no such thing as “overtraining, just under-recovering.” Are you getting enough sleep?
Maybe you’re a new parent and trying to maintain your old workout routine on 2 hours of sleep a night.
Or work has you stressed like crazy and it’s causing you to eat like crap.
Rest is such an important part of a healthy lifestyle that it needs to be prioritized too. In the book Essentialism, this is referred to as “Protecting the Asset.”
You are the asset.
If you are trying to do too much, or you’re caught in a plateau, consider a week off, refocusing on sleep and recovery, and come back refreshed.
Again, nature loves chaos. If you are focused solely on weight loss, you might feel like you have stalled out. So shift your focus. Work on handstands. Or running faster.
Try something different. Give your body a chance to recover and then come back to it.
If you’re solely focused on the scale and it stalls out, it can be depressing. So put the scale away for a month, and instead focus on the process of getting stronger and eating better. Stop stressing and remember to enjoy the game you’re playing.
5) Accept that we have bad weeks. We are complex pieces of machinery.
We just have bad weeks and can’t lift enough or we GAIN weight when we expected to lose weight. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you human.
So on days when you feel great, PUSH yourself harder. On days when you feel like crap, scale back the heavy lifting and focus on more reps or better technique.
The greatest predictor of success in our lives is grit (which can be developed). Grit is what you need to slog through these slow weeks. These dips are where we find out who’s truly dedicated. I know you are, and you know you are.
Remember, look for any sign of progress in any way to reveal that “light” at the end of the tunnel.
If you are stuck on a plateau when it comes to strength training, consider working with one of our Yodas in the 1-on-1 Online Training Program at Nerd Fitness! No guilt, no shame. Just somebody to keep you accountable, expert guidance from somebody that knows you, and peace of mind knowing you’re doing the right thing!
How did you break through your plateau?
“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee
Hopefully, I’ve covered everything you need to know about plateaus. What’s that? You were expecting some lame joke about plateaus somewhere?
You know me too well. Okay, how bout this one:
Did you know that a plateau is the highest form of flattery?
Get it?
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
I want to hear your story:
Have you successfully busted through a plateau? Leave a comment with how you got out of it.
Are you currently stuck? If so, what’s ONE SPECIFIC piece of advice you’re taking from today’s article to apply to what you’re going to do this afternoon?
Let’s hear it! I’m excited to hear how I can help.
-Steve
PS: We know starting with this stuff can be intimidating. If you’re looking to take it to the next level:
1-on-1 Online Coaching: A coach from Team NF gets to know you better than you know yourself and builds a workout program and nutritional strategy that fits your busy life, your body type, and your goals.
Nerd Fitness Journey: a fun app that will show you the path for overcoming any plateau. Sign up for a free trial below:
As seasons of life shift, so do our morning routines. Maybe you have one, maybe you don’t, maybe you want a more set routine, or maybe you do better going with the flow. Regardless of what season you’re currently in, having habits we integrate into our mornings can help us set ourselves up better for our days.
In today’s episode, Robin shares her current morning routine and the reasons why she prioritizes them in the morning. Whether you’re looking to make a new routine, want to switch yours up a bit, or you’re just getting started, this episode is packed with tangible and rejuvenating ideas.
Show highlights: what you can look forward to in this episode!
How to adapt and create a morning routine that fits for you
Embracing seasons and readjusting your routine
Being proactive throughout your day instead of reactive
Why Robin likes to “get ahead” of the day
Starting off the morning with positive and grateful thoughts
As seasons of life shift, so do our morning routines. Maybe you have one, maybe you don’t, maybe you want a more set routine, or maybe you do better going with the flow. Regardless of what season you’re currently in, having habits we integrate into our mornings can help us set ourselves up better for our days.
In today’s episode, Robin shares her current morning routine and the reasons why she prioritizes them in the morning. Whether you’re looking to make a new routine, want to switch yours up a bit, or you’re just getting started, this episode is packed with tangible and rejuvenating ideas.
Show highlights: what you can look forward to in this episode!
How to adapt and create a morning routine that fits for you
Embracing seasons and readjusting your routine
Being proactive throughout your day instead of reactive
Why Robin likes to “get ahead” of the day
Starting off the morning with positive and grateful thoughts
As seasons of life shift, so do our morning routines. Maybe you have one, maybe you don’t, maybe you want a more set routine, or maybe you do better going with the flow. Regardless of what season you’re currently in, having habits we integrate into our mornings can help us set ourselves up better for our days.
In today’s episode, Robin shares her current morning routine and the reasons why she prioritizes them in the morning. Whether you’re looking to make a new routine, want to switch yours up a bit, or you’re just getting started, this episode is packed with tangible and rejuvenating ideas.
Show highlights: what you can look forward to in this episode!
How to adapt and create a morning routine that fits for you
Embracing seasons and readjusting your routine
Being proactive throughout your day instead of reactive
Why Robin likes to “get ahead” of the day
Starting off the morning with positive and grateful thoughts
No matter which at-home workout you pick, I want you to start with one important thing:
Warm-up!
I cover why you should always warm up in an article found right here. It doesn’t have to be much though, give it about five minutes to get your muscles active and your heart rate up.
This will help you do exercises properly and help prevent injury. You can run in place, do air punches and kicks, or some jumping jacks.
Here is NF Senior Coach Staci (you might know her incredible story) showing you many beginner options you can use to warm up as well:
If you’re curious, here’s my personal (advanced) warm-up:
Jump rope: 2-3 minutes
Jumping jacks: 25 reps
Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
Lunges: 5 reps each leg.
Hip extensions: 10 reps each side
Hip rotations: 5 each leg
Forward leg swings: 10 each leg
Side leg swings: 10 each leg
Push-ups: 10-20 reps
Spider-man steps: 10 reps
Our goal isn’t to tire you out, instead we want to warm you up.
That’s step one.
Completing your chosen at-home workout would be step two.
Below, you’ll find 8 sequences you can follow along with!
I warn you, the above sequence will hurt… in a good way. You should be proud if you can get through this three times.
Do you want to get as strong as possible so this workout ain’t no thang?
Sign up in the box below to grab our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll teach you all of these advanced bodyweight exercises!
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine
Sometimes, you just plain find yourself stuck in a hotel room. Maybe you can find the hotel gym, but I bet it’s terrible! It probably has 2 machines, a broken treadmill, and no free weights.
Ugh.
Instead, how about a 20-min workout you can do in the room itself! Utilize the furniture to its full potential.
If you don’t have time to run through the whole sequence, no problem!
Depending on how much time you have during the day, you can do your whole workout at once, or break up your training into four different sessions throughout the day (with each session being ONE of the exercises).
Here’s a sample day for your No-Equipment Workout:
Wake up, do 40 jumping jacks to warm up, and then do bodyweight squats.
At lunch, you grab your suitcase (if you’re at work, milk jug if you’re at home) and do inverted rows.
After work, you do another 50 jumping jacks and then do your push-ups.
After dinner, you do your planks while watching TV.
You could even split it up over two days if needed, but the goal would be to do it the whole sequence at once.
The main Angry Birds Workout article describes in detail Levels 1-6, but here’s Level 3 for you:
Bonus points if you somehow do this no-equipment workout in a cave, as that’s how Bruce Wayne would roll.[1]
This workout is separated into two days for you:
Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 1:
Rolling squat tuck-up jumps: 5 reps
Side to side push-ups: 5 reps
Modified headstand push-ups: 5 reps
Jump pull-up with tuck / Pull-up with Tuck-up: 5 reps
Handstands against wall: 8 seconds
Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 2:
‘180 Degree’ jump turns: 5 reps
Tuck front lever hold: 8 seconds
Tuck back lever hold: 8 seconds
Low frog hold: 8 seconds
This is a relatively advanced workout already, but if you want to progress to the next level, check out the main Batman Bodyweight Workout for tips on how to do just that.
NOTE: This is NOT a beginner program, and should not be attempted unless you have been training consistently and can do multiple repetitions of pull-ups and push-ups with great form.
Like this perfect push-up:
And this perfect pull-up:
Here’s how the PLP Progression works:
Day 1:
Pull-ups: 10 reps
Push-ups: 10 reps
Lunges: 10 reps (each leg)
Day 2:
Pull-ups: 11 reps
Push-ups: 11 reps
Lunges: 11 reps (each leg)
Day 3:
Pull-ups: 12 reps
Push-ups: 12 reps
Lunges: 12 reps (each leg)
How long do you keep doing this?
As originally envisioned by Chad Waterbury, the PLP Workout lasts 60 days.[3]
Yeah…by the end of it you’ll be doing more than 50 pull-ups.
There are two versions:
If you can do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 10 reps of each.
If you cannot do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 1 rep of each.
Complete your required reps each day in as many sets as you need, whenever you need to. The goal is to do it in as few sets as possible, but enough so that you can complete each rep with proper form.
If you want to advance to the Jedi Knight or Master Levels, check out The Star Wars Workout, which will also offer you a full description of each move.
Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit
Do you have a nearby playground? Why not work out there! If you have kids, you can do it together. Or let them ignore you.
The trick here is to couple your home workouts with adjustments to your nutrition.
We’re big believers that you can’t outrun your fork, so any successful weight loss plan will include a focus on building a healthy plate.
That will look something like this:
If you want some help on adjusting your nutrition, I’ve got two great resources for you:
The Nerd Fitness Guide to Healthy Eating. This massive resource will help you slowly adjust your nutrition, without forcing you to give up the food you love (yes, you can still eat pizza here and there). No more diets, instead we’ll work on building habits together.
Nerd Fitness Coaching. If you want to take it to the next level, one of our trained professionals can help you adjust your way of eating to help you reach your goals. No shame. No judgment. Just a like-minded nerd who will show you the way.
You don’t have to stick to these though! I have two resources to help you design your own no-equipment workout:
The 42 Best Bodyweight Exercises: This guide will teach you how to perform the best bodyweight exercises – no equipment required! Check it out if you are unfamiliar with any of the movements referenced in today’s guide.
How To Build Your Own Workout Routine: Once you’re comfortable with a handful of bodyweight exercises, use this guide to pull them all together into a full-body workout!
That should get you going on building a workout you can do in the comfort of your own home.
Want more? Alright, eager beaver, I got you.
We built THREE options for people just like you:
1) If you want step-by-step guidance, a custom workout program that levels up as you get stronger, and a coach to keep you accountable, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
2) If you want a daily prompt for doing workouts at home, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll help you start incorporating these bodyweight moves into your training.
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Alright, your turn: I’d love to hear how your home training is going!
Which workout above did you try? Did you make one of your own?
Leave a comment below with your results or any questions you have on working out at home.
For the Rebellion!
-Steve
PS: If you were going to buy one piece of equipment to utilize in your home, a kettlebell would offer you a lot of versatility:
No matter which at-home workout you pick, I want you to start with one important thing:
Warm-up!
I cover why you should always warm up in an article found right here. It doesn’t have to be much though, give it about five minutes to get your muscles active and your heart rate up.
This will help you do exercises properly and help prevent injury. You can run in place, do air punches and kicks, or some jumping jacks.
Here is NF Senior Coach Staci (you might know her incredible story) showing you many beginner options you can use to warm up as well:
If you’re curious, here’s my personal (advanced) warm-up:
Jump rope: 2-3 minutes
Jumping jacks: 25 reps
Bodyweight squats: 20 reps
Lunges: 5 reps each leg.
Hip extensions: 10 reps each side
Hip rotations: 5 each leg
Forward leg swings: 10 each leg
Side leg swings: 10 each leg
Push-ups: 10-20 reps
Spider-man steps: 10 reps
Our goal isn’t to tire you out, instead we want to warm you up.
That’s step one.
Completing your chosen at-home workout would be step two.
Below, you’ll find 8 sequences you can follow along with!
I warn you, the above sequence will hurt… in a good way. You should be proud if you can get through this three times.
Do you want to get as strong as possible so this workout ain’t no thang?
Sign up in the box below to grab our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll teach you all of these advanced bodyweight exercises!
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Home Workout #3: The 20-Min Hotel Routine
Sometimes, you just plain find yourself stuck in a hotel room. Maybe you can find the hotel gym, but I bet it’s terrible! It probably has 2 machines, a broken treadmill, and no free weights.
Ugh.
Instead, how about a 20-min workout you can do in the room itself! Utilize the furniture to its full potential.
If you don’t have time to run through the whole sequence, no problem!
Depending on how much time you have during the day, you can do your whole workout at once, or break up your training into four different sessions throughout the day (with each session being ONE of the exercises).
Here’s a sample day for your No-Equipment Workout:
Wake up, do 40 jumping jacks to warm up, and then do bodyweight squats.
At lunch, you grab your suitcase (if you’re at work, milk jug if you’re at home) and do inverted rows.
After work, you do another 50 jumping jacks and then do your push-ups.
After dinner, you do your planks while watching TV.
You could even split it up over two days if needed, but the goal would be to do it the whole sequence at once.
The main Angry Birds Workout article describes in detail Levels 1-6, but here’s Level 3 for you:
Bonus points if you somehow do this no-equipment workout in a cave, as that’s how Bruce Wayne would roll.[1]
This workout is separated into two days for you:
Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 1:
Rolling squat tuck-up jumps: 5 reps
Side to side push-ups: 5 reps
Modified headstand push-ups: 5 reps
Jump pull-up with tuck / Pull-up with Tuck-up: 5 reps
Handstands against wall: 8 seconds
Batman No-Equipment Workout Day 2:
‘180 Degree’ jump turns: 5 reps
Tuck front lever hold: 8 seconds
Tuck back lever hold: 8 seconds
Low frog hold: 8 seconds
This is a relatively advanced workout already, but if you want to progress to the next level, check out the main Batman Bodyweight Workout for tips on how to do just that.
NOTE: This is NOT a beginner program, and should not be attempted unless you have been training consistently and can do multiple repetitions of pull-ups and push-ups with great form.
Like this perfect push-up:
And this perfect pull-up:
Here’s how the PLP Progression works:
Day 1:
Pull-ups: 10 reps
Push-ups: 10 reps
Lunges: 10 reps (each leg)
Day 2:
Pull-ups: 11 reps
Push-ups: 11 reps
Lunges: 11 reps (each leg)
Day 3:
Pull-ups: 12 reps
Push-ups: 12 reps
Lunges: 12 reps (each leg)
How long do you keep doing this?
As originally envisioned by Chad Waterbury, the PLP Workout lasts 60 days.[3]
Yeah…by the end of it you’ll be doing more than 50 pull-ups.
There are two versions:
If you can do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 10 reps of each.
If you cannot do 10 straight pull-ups: Start day 1 with 1 rep of each.
Complete your required reps each day in as many sets as you need, whenever you need to. The goal is to do it in as few sets as possible, but enough so that you can complete each rep with proper form.
If you want to advance to the Jedi Knight or Master Levels, check out The Star Wars Workout, which will also offer you a full description of each move.
Bonus No-Equipment Workout: The Playground Circuit
Do you have a nearby playground? Why not work out there! If you have kids, you can do it together. Or let them ignore you.
The trick here is to couple your home workouts with adjustments to your nutrition.
We’re big believers that you can’t outrun your fork, so any successful weight loss plan will include a focus on building a healthy plate.
That will look something like this:
If you want some help on adjusting your nutrition, I’ve got two great resources for you:
The Nerd Fitness Guide to Healthy Eating. This massive resource will help you slowly adjust your nutrition, without forcing you to give up the food you love (yes, you can still eat pizza here and there). No more diets, instead we’ll work on building habits together.
Nerd Fitness Coaching. If you want to take it to the next level, one of our trained professionals can help you adjust your way of eating to help you reach your goals. No shame. No judgment. Just a like-minded nerd who will show you the way.
You don’t have to stick to these though! I have two resources to help you design your own no-equipment workout:
The 42 Best Bodyweight Exercises: This guide will teach you how to perform the best bodyweight exercises – no equipment required! Check it out if you are unfamiliar with any of the movements referenced in today’s guide.
How To Build Your Own Workout Routine: Once you’re comfortable with a handful of bodyweight exercises, use this guide to pull them all together into a full-body workout!
That should get you going on building a workout you can do in the comfort of your own home.
Want more? Alright, eager beaver, I got you.
We built THREE options for people just like you:
1) If you want step-by-step guidance, a custom workout program that levels up as you get stronger, and a coach to keep you accountable, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
2) If you want a daily prompt for doing workouts at home, check out NF Journey. Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).
Try your free trial right here:
3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our guide, Strength Training 101: Everything You Need to Know. It’ll help you start incorporating these bodyweight moves into your training.
Download our comprehensive guideSTRENGTH TRAINING 101!
Everything you need to know about getting strong.
Workout routines for bodyweight AND weight training.
How to find the right gym and train properly in one.
Alright, your turn: I’d love to hear how your home training is going!
Which workout above did you try? Did you make one of your own?
Leave a comment below with your results or any questions you have on working out at home.
For the Rebellion!
-Steve
PS: If you were going to buy one piece of equipment to utilize in your home, a kettlebell would offer you a lot of versatility:
How long do you think you need for a full body workout? An hour? 30 minutes?
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We keep things simple and realistic at The Balanced Life. And we know that 15 minutes of focused movement today can help us make progress on our goals.
You’ll finish this workout feeling energized, refreshed, accomplished, and ready to tackle the rest of your day.
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