These 5 Minute Workouts Let You Stay Fit During the Busiest Holiday Season

Adding tiny 5 minute workouts to your regular daily routine during the holidays may provide you with surprising benefits this year. All too often, we become too busy and too tired to focus on fitness during the busy holiday season. After all, our schedules are packed, we don’t get the sleep we need, we don’t eat for nutrition and don’t have much left to give on the average day.

That said, focusing on adding 5 minute workouts here and there can provide cumulative benefits. These are advantages we simply wouldn’t have if we skipped our usual workouts altogether. Certainly, the exercises we’d usually do during the average day would be preferable.

However, when it’s between having to skip our typical fitness routine or replacing them with 5 minute workouts, the latter is easily the better choice.

Do 5 Minute Workouts Make a Worthwhile Difference?

When it comes to being active, every little bit counts. Certainly, 5 minute workouts aren’t enough for your regular healthy fitness routine. You need more than five minutes per day over the long term. However, using this technique can help you to make sure you get your minimum because it places exercise within reach.

After all, 5 minute workouts are easier to fit into your schedule, even when you’re at your busiest. If you do one first thing in the morning, one when you arrive at work (power walk from a farther spot in the parking lot and use the stairs instead of the elevator, for example), one at lunch time, and one when you get home, you’ll already have twenty minutes of exercise complete. If you watch an hour of television, use your commercial breaks to fit in another one or two 5 minute workouts. Manage that and you’ll have completed a half hour of exercise without ever having to schedule a traditional longer workout.

How to Get the Best 5 Minute Workouts

When you don’t have a lot of time, the key to your success is usually intensity. Use your minutes to their fullest. Push yourself. Run on the spot as fast as you can. Do jumping jacks. Hold a plank position until you can’t anymore, followed by downward-facing dog poses. These exercises don’t necessarily require any equipment or skill. That said, if you’re out of breath by the end, you’ve done yourself a favor.

How Many 5 Minute Workouts Are Enough?

The fast answer is: as many as you can fit into your day. If you can tally up 30 minutes of exercise, that’s great news. However, if all you can complete is one 5 minute workout, so be it. That’s far better than no workouts at all, particularly if you truly apply yourself and reach a high intensity during that time.