Lazy Hobo Workout Scheme

Finally, a post that isn't really important to read!

So, I mentioned in The Basics that it's a good idea to stay in decent shape if you want things to be easy for you. The problem with this is that a lot of people don't want to put in the effort to stay in shape, because most fitness systems require a lot of time dedicated solely to staying in shape and exercising specific muscle groups.

If you're just looking to maintain a useful level of fitness, it's not that hard. You really can stay in good shape in ten or fifteen minutes a day, as long as you get in some incidental exercise too.

Incidental Exercise
This falls into two basic categories, transportation and fun stuff.

For transportation, just stop going places in a car, if you can. It's easy to get some cardio in by just walking or cycling (or skateboarding, rollerblading, etc.) to wherever you want to go. Personally, I use a bike for essentially all my transportation. It keeps me in good shape, and as long as I keep the bike in good repair and tuned up well, it doesn't take that much longer. Where I would have spent 30-40 minutes driving, I spend an hour on my bike. I also save all of the money I would have spent on gas, and most of the money I would have spent on repairs (maintaining a bike is generally inexpensive and easier to do yourself than a car, but you will have to accept maintenance costs as a reality of any form of mechanical transportation).

Anything remotely active that you enjoy in a recreational sense counts as fun stuff. Playing any sports, swimming, throwing a frisbee around, and anything similar counts as cardio. If you go to a park and play on the climbers for a bit, you can also help with strength, coordination, and flexibility.

Exercising on Purpose
This is the one that you sort of have to make yourself do. If you enjoy spending an hour a day at the gym doing specific exercises and if you have the time/motivation to do it, then good for you, you don't need to read this.

For the rest of us, we want something relatively quick that we can get done and cross off from our PDA before moving on to something else. A good way to do this is to use compound exercises, that is, exercises that work many muscles at once. All you should need for this type of workout is a chin-up bar, a barbell with collars, and some weights.

My current routine is:

Day 1:
5 supersets of:

• 10x chin-ups (overhand grip)
• 10x push press (moderate weight)

Day 2:
5 supersets of:

• 5x deadlifts (heavy weight) (NOTE: Proper form during deadlifts is ESSENTIAL to prevent injury)
• 25x squats (no weight, done as quickly as possible)

Day 3:
5 supersets of:

• 10x hanging leg raise (keep legs straight)
• 10x hanging knee raise
• 10x chin-ups (underhand grip)

Day 4: Rest.

As you can see, this hits essentially all of the muscle groups, requires little equipment, and can generally be done in 10-15 minutes a day. If you're particularly tired, I'd recommend doing a half-workout (half the reps per set) rather than doing nothing at all.

If motivation is your problem, a fellow by the name of "Corky52" has created an exercise scheme for people who spend too much time on the internet. The initial post is fairly rudimentary, but there's a graduated system of various fitness levels later on in the topic.