Are small and frequent training sessions good or bad?
I'm using Pomodoro Technique (working on some tasks for 25 minutes, then taking 5 minutes break, and so on). In those 5 minutes breaks I like to do some training - like 3 sets of push-up and 3 sets of chin-ups. So I end up doing these training sessions about a dozen times a day.
Is it good for my health and fitness, or can it cause overtraining and injuries?
(2)2 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
I don't think there's anything wrong with doing mini workouts throughout the day, especially if you wouldn't do them otherwise. Unless you're specifically trying to improve your pushups and chinups, you may want to include some other simple body weight exercises as well. Some I could think of off the top of my head:
Squats
Planks
Sit-ups
Lunges
To answer your question about overtraining and injury separately:
Overtraining is putting your body through greater stress than it is equipped to handle. If you were talking about adding external weights to your pushups and chin-ups then you might hit that threshold. You can do pushups daily and not put your body through enough stress to overtrain it. However, if you are talking about hundreds of pushups throughout the day you might be pushing it.
Injury is caused by bad technique and muscle imbalance (which causes the former). It's important to make sure you exercise the whole body. You get the most bang for your buck with complex exercises that get a large number of muscle groups at the same time. So you may have a routine that you alternate each day. 5 minutes is enough to squeeze out a rep of 10 "whatevers" easily. You run the risk of letting your muscles get "cold" so be sure to warm up before you do your rep each time.
So as long as you are talking body weight, and you have specific goals of what you want to do throughout the day in your five minute breaks, it could work. You'll want your 5 minute routine to be something like this:
Warm up for a minute
Push out a rep of one or two exercises for three minutes
Stretch (cooldown) for a minute.
You may want to pair a set of ab workouts (crunches, iso-ab plank, etc.) with your pushups/chin-ups.
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © freshhoot.com2026 All Rights reserved.