The 1-Minute Method & How To Do The Exercises

Pushup 

I started with this one because it’s the one everyone thinks they already know how to do. Sometimes they’re right, but I’ve seen some truly terrible pushup form, so let’s try to tidy it up a little bit. 

Your body should be straight, without sagging or piking at the hips, without bent knees and without a hunched back. Make a big chest and look slightly forward, to a spot on the floor a few feet ahead of you. Try to make this looking-forward movement come from the top of your chest rather than your neck. That will help you to keep a tight back. Keep your feet no wider than shoulder width apart. Imagine pushing yourself up on your elbows.  Don’t let them flare out or collapse inward, keep them in a straight line with your hands. Your elbows and upper arms should brush the outside of your chest when you do pushups. Don’t try to touch your nose to the floor: it encourages bad neck posture. Touch your chest to the floor instead, and make sure that your hips nearly touch the floor when your chest does, ensuring that your pushups aren’t ‘top half only.’

Pullups

Pullups are safer than pushups in that the weight of your body will usually stop too much funkiness from happening to your form. You can do them with your palms facing you if you want but it’s significantly easier and less beneficial because it loads the biceps rather than the latissimus dorsii and trapezius muscles that power your upper back. To get these, use a palms-away grip, and if you want to get them more use a wider grip. Don’t nod over the bar.  To avoid doing this and to get a better result from your training, try to touch the bar to your chest rather than getting your chin over it to make a rep.

Squats

Deeper is better. Full depth squats engage the hamstrings and glutes in a way that shallow ones don’t. If anyone wants to point out that only very limited strength can be built with bodyweight squats, go ahead, but remember: you read it here first. They are a lot better than nothing and a great way to build some leg and lower body strength and mobility, though. Try to feel your weight throughout your foot, but don’t let your heels come off the ground. It’s OK if your knees track forward over your toes a little but it’s not OK if they collapse inward or flare outward, or if you hear disquieting noises or get pain or discomfort in your joints. If that happens, the solution is simple: squat almost as low as your problem depth, and gradually get lower, paying attention to form as you go.

Turkish rollups

Lie on your back with your hands together in front of your chest, fingers facing the ceiling and palms touching. Straighten your legs. Now, curl up until you’re sitting erect with your hands overhead. Let your hands lead the way and unroll yourself off the floor as if you were doing it one spinal joint at a time.  These are easier on the lower back than situps or crunches, the traditional go-to abdominal exercises, and can be done in a yoga-like way with deep breathing if that’s what you prefer.

1-leg deadlifts

Stand on one foot and bend forward from the hips, keeping your back straight. It’s especially important that you keep your lower back straight. Slowly extend one leg behind you as you lean forward until your raised leg, hips and shoulders form a straight line level with the ground and at right angles to your supporting leg. This is a hip strength and mobility exercise that will benefit your lower back, and it’s considerably harder than it sounds! Remember to do both sides.

Jumps 

It doesn’t really matter what kinds of jumps you do as long as you use ones that require your legs, not just your calves. Calf bounces are out, but tuck jumps, high jumps, whatever you find best is great. As long as you’re getting explosive movement safely it’s fine!

All these exercises involve some resistance but they’re all so simple that you can do them at home or at work in many cases. I have a friend who used to do his exercises in the office when everyone else went to lunch! Others can use a local park. And let’s say you can do 10 pushups in a minute – a modest amount, you might think. But you’re doing them four times a day, five days a week – 200 pushups a week, a large enough number to expect some results.