As 2017 rolls along, you’ve undoubtedly made health and fitness a part of your New Year’s resolutions. Pardon the cynic in me, but I’m willing to bet the value of a high-priced condo that some of us have missed our target already. And I’ll bet that your number one lament is “not having enough time.”
But when trying to carve out 60 to 90 minutes a day for a workout, remember this: doing something is always better than doing nothing. And if anyone appreciates the value of big gains made in incremental contributions, it’s lawyers. Working in tenths, we can bill thousands of hours in a year. So we can surely find the time to exercise.
Here are three simple strength-training exercises you can do right in your office. They only take two minutes each — a whopping 6 minutes per day. Surely, we can all spare that.
Wall sits
Lean your back against a wall and “sit down,” using your own legs as support. Keep your knees at 90 degrees and your back against the wall. You’ll feel the tension in your quadriceps (the big muscles at the front of your legs). Try to hold this positions for 30 seconds. Once you’ve repeated this exercise for two minutes, buy yourself some new pants because by then, your hulk-like leg muscles will have ripped through your old ones.
Plank push-ups
Find some floor space behind your desk and start by doing a slow, controlled push-up. Before starting your next rep, hold for a moment at the top in plank position. Try to do one push-up, with a plank in the middle, every five seconds. After 30 seconds, you’ll have done seven push-ups. To help you make it to a total of two minutes, play the Rocky theme song in the background. It only makes you stronger.
Calf raises
Pop your shoes off and use your hands to support yourself lightly against the wall, or against a chair. Now rise up onto the balls of your feet. Aim to hammer out a set of 50 reps in two minutes. When senior management walks by your office and asks you what the hell you’re doing, simply remind them that in order to work on your freakishly cut calves, you sometimes have to get freakishly creative.
Paul Attia is a husband, father of four, business-owner and assistant Crown attorney in Toronto. You can follow him on Twitter at @PapaAlphaBlog.
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