Banish Workout Blues - The 3-Minute Rule

It’s 6:30pm on a Wednesday evening, I’m sat on my hotel room bed, tired after a long day at work, feeling low, bored and sluggish. I had a session planned tonight that would surely produce killer shape, though the thought of it makes me want to curl up and nap, maybe until morning.

I understand this workout will reenergize me, build strength & fitness, drop body fat, get me closer to those goals and align me with the person I’d like to be.

However, that point is only reached after 60 minutes of sweat, pain, panting and dry retching. This isn’t the reality, simply the image my brain creates when feeling like a slob on the sofa at 7:00pm in the evening. Second guessing your workout, goals and wondering if training is even worth it.

I then remembered…the 3-minute workout rule.

This rule is shockingly simple but easy to overlook.

When faced with the workout fear, scrap the plan and bag yourself 3 minutes of activity.

Worst Case Scenario
3 minutes will reenergize you, get the heart pumping and blood flowing, oxygenate tissues and mobilise some joints. After 3 minutes if you’ve no intention of proceeding, stop and return to the sofa, nothing lost, a small win gained. This is rarely the case however.

Best Case Scenario
On this evening I decided to scrap the workout and take a slow jog to the beach and back, which was approximately 3 minutes away.

I arrived at the beach after a slow amble and turned to return home. As I turned, the beach road caught my eye, so I decided to run to a green looking shop that interested me about 500 meters away. On my very slow trot to the shop I got side-tracked by an uphill path through a wooded area that looked picturesque, I decided to trot up there instead.

Halfway up 2 trees that looked like goal posts reminded me of the start line in a race. About 100 meters ahead I could see a bench, I challenged myself to sprint (run fast more like) to it. Reaching the bench, glutes and calves pumped with heart thumping I felt invigorated and alive. I proceeded to walk back down and performed another sprint, and another, and another until I’d completed 8 uphill runs. I even got the benefit of pensioners cheering me on, with one 70-year-old gent remarking “can’t you run faster than that, lad!”

Following the final uphill dash, I sauntered back to the hotel feeling proud and motivated. I ran upstairs and wrote this entire article from scratch. I had absolutely no intention of writing tonight prior to the 3-minute workout.

When you feel like crap, de-motivated, bored, low, shoot for 3 minutes, the magic number!
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It doesn’t need to be a run. Stretching, light core work, skipping, jumping jacks, exercise bike, anything will do the trick. You could even select 1 weights exercise to perform in the gym rather than the 8 you had scheduled. Just wait and see what happens after!