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Intermittent Exercising at work versus 1 hour at the gym

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TechBoyJK

Lifer
They just setup a new gym where I work.

It's pretty small. One array of dumbells, 2 treadmills, bike, combo machine.

I normally go a public gym when I get off work, and do my routines then/tere.

I'm curious about possibly doing my routines bit by bit while I'm at work. I've already started doing it actually. Just went down and did 50 situps, 1 set of shoulder presses (8 reps), and some curls. (casually, not according to any plan).

I can basically sneak away from my desk for 5 minutes and do a few sets then come back. Hour or two later, do the same thing. I know it's not quite as good as doing it all at once, but it saves me a bunch of time by taking care of different routines when I have downtime at work.
 
I can't imagine this would produce enough stress to force your body to adapt in any meaningful way. But if you're just trying to stay active, knock yourself out.
 
Well, it's much better than not doing anything. It will be most useful for strength gains if you challenge yourself moderately-intensely. For solid endurance gains (cardiovascular in particular), you typically need to maintain your heart rate up for 10min or more. I'd say you could definitely stay strong and active. In addition, I've read that fat metabolizing enzymes reduce by up to 90% with prolonged sitting... so you'll be staving that off quite a bit with quick runs to the gym.
 
SociallyChallenged said:
Well, it's much better than not doing anything. It will be most useful for strength gains if you challenge yourself moderately-intensely. For solid endurance gains (cardiovascular in particular), you typically need to maintain your heart rate up for 10min or more. I'd say you could definitely stay strong and active. In addition, I've read that fat metabolizing enzymes reduce by up to 90% with prolonged sitting... so you'll be staving that off quite a bit with quick runs to the gym.
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I was wondering that.

Maybe do light weights during the day to keep myself limber and active, but still go hit up the gym after?

Question, let's say I have 10 minutes and I want to make something out of it. One routine and make it worthwhile? Or spread it out?
 
You might see some underlying health benefits over an extended period if you combine it with a great diet, but don't expect any "gains" without putting in real effort.
 
Sitting all day has been found to be worse than smoking, google it as I'm not exaggerating. If living longer is a "gain", I definitely say you'd be gaining something from being more active throughout your day.

You should be getting up from your desk at least every hour regardless for the sake of your health so I'd recommend spreading your workouts out. If you can get the equivalent of a 30+ minutes spread out throughout day in small 5 minute segments, go for it. It is infinitely more healthy for you than just sitting there.

Do 5 minute sessions of burpees, treadmill, weights, etc. every hour and you will see real results from it over time. Given your office gym doesn't sound like it has enough equipment to replace your real gym, it won't replace it, but as a supplement it will improve your health compared to just sitting and working all day.
 
There is research that says 3 mins of hiit is the same thing as walking an hour a day. They measured it by insulin sensitivity. I'll post the research when I get home.
 
GinormousNG said:
There is research that says 3 mins of hiit is the same thing as walking an hour a day. They measured it by insulin sensitivity. I'll post the research when I get home.
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Yeah, the problem with that is you shouldn't actually be taking 3min to do it though. You should be doing a proper 5-10min warm-up, some dynamic stretches, etc. And if you do it for 3mi, you don't nearly as many cardiovascular benefits or effects on things like serum cholesterol. I'd say 3min of HIIT is not the greatest idea for risk of injury. Going from 0 to 100 in the span of 180 seconds will make you regret it eventually.
 
So far I've basically only been doing stretches, and some warmup style exercises with dumbells. Well. that and situps.

Raises another question. What about trying to do like 50 situps everytime I go down there? Are situps something I need to warmup for? I can understand needing to warm up for a 5 minute HIT run, but I'm wondering if situps are any different.
 
You could take a Grease the Groove approach to your day at work. I've been wanting to do that at mine, but it will have to wait until I'm less swamped.
 
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