There are a few easy ways how to keep sane while writing a master thesis. And I am not talking about stuffing your face with wine gums until your belly hurts – been there, done that, doesn’t help in the least. I am talking sports, which I haven’t for a while on the blog. As you might remember I joined a gym last months. Ever since Jay and I worked out three times a week at the gym and I added some cardio and my kickboxing class on Wednesday into the mix. Kickboxing had to step back for two weeks in a row now, since instead important appointments needed to be met on my Wednesday evenings. This week was also pretty busy on Jays and my side due to studying and master thesis and since I have no car I cannot go the gym alone. I accepted this and worked around – that’s something I learned during my health journey: if things don’t work out as you planned, keep calm and find an alternative.
I started with a more regular running schedule and love it so far. On Sunday I managed to run 8 km, which I haven’t done in over a year. I must say I am pretty proud and considering that I will most likely keep up the running in my semester abroad, I am starting to flirt with the thought of running a half-marathon next year. There, I said it.
But all the cardio in the world won’t keep my muscles defined as strength training does. As I mentioned in a lot of posts before I am a strong believer in bodyweight exercise for muscle growths. If you’d like to take your workouts wherever you go and don’t want to spend money on a gym membership, I can recommend You Are Your Own Gym by Mark Lauren, it’s like the bodyweight exercise bible.
And for those of you who are stuck at their desks studying or writing on their master thesis and would love to get their muscles sore without spending a lot of time on it, I have this “little method” I use when sitting all day on my buttocks, head deep in the books.
It consists of some challenging bodyweight exercises with a number of reps you could never do in one go. You set yourself a goal to do X-repetitions of up to 4 exercises in a day, then you divide them into as many sets as you need to be challenged by the reps, but able to complete even the last one with a good form. For me today I decided to do 5 sets of 20 Squats, 10 Push Ups, 20 Leg Raises and Candle Pushs plus 20 Tricep Dips. After each set I’ll make a stroke on a note pad and by the end of the day I’ve completed a bad-ass number of reps.
Here is a pictured guide through my suggested bodyweight exercises:
Squats
(source: http://www.running.competitor.com)
Push Ups
(source: http://www.thefatlossninja.com)
Leg Raises and Candle Pushs
(source: http://momfabfun.com/)
(source: http://www.fitsugar.com/)
Tricep Dips
(source: http://www.health.com)
Hope you have fun with this little routine and enjoy the movement. Another thing I’d like to do is practice one or two yoga poses again and again over the day. But I’ll leave this one for a later post. Successful studying!