Exams and Working Out. How to not lose your gains and progress?
Many youngsters who visit the gym dread the thought of an upcoming exam time-table. You have been enjoying yourself for the entire semester, worked out six days a week, ate right and were consistently working on pushing yourself forward towards your fitness goals. But now, you are supposed to drop all of that for like a month or so, shut yourself in a room and bang your head against the books. When you study, your main focus is on that so you start eating anything you could find near you in order to concentrate solely on the topic at hand. Since you are practically sitting at one spot all day and not training at all, your body goes in a calorie surplus state and you end up putting on weight the wrong way. Many of us also tend to lose our gains we made over the months. That is something really heartbreaking. The efforts you had put in to build your body just goes down the drain and you would have to start afresh.
Trying to stay fit while not losing focus is something that can be achieved if you take care of these 2 things: Your training and your diet.
Since you won’t be able to devote time to visit the gym during exams, you will not be having any access to the weights or equipments unless of course you have them at your place. However, all you need is your Bodyweight.
Bodyweight Training:
Exercises like push ups, squats, pull ups and abdominal movements like crunches that you may have been using sparingly at the gym are actually the best exercises to develop muscle endurance, maintain strength and increasing your core strength.
We guarantee you that if you do the routine suggested in this article you will actually grow stronger and get leaner than before and you would perform much better once you return back to the gym.
So, here’s the basic concept.
We all take breaks when we study, right? For example, If I was able to study for 2 hours with complete concentration, I would allow a half an hour to 45 minute break. This is the time that I would use to train.
Try to complete as many sets as you can of the following exercises in a time period of 15-30 minutes, keeping the rest periods restricted to a maximum of 45 seconds in between the exercises.
#1- Push Ups
#2- Bodyweight Squats
#3- Pull Ups (Off any beam type structure in your home.)
#4- Sit Ups
That’s it.
I used to shoot for around 100 push ups, 150 sit ups, 100 squats and about 50 pull ups in an entire day and completed them in about 3-4 sessions (1 session eventually, in a matter of 2 weeks!) per day. Each session would actually be very helpful and I felt fully recovered and ready to go back to study in about 15 minutes. Every time you take a break, do one session.
Remember to set a number for the repetitions to be performed in each exercise before the day begins. Also, this number should be relevant to your strength level.
If you are unable to perform the push ups, do them on your knees. If you are unable to perform the squats, try sitting on a stool and then getting up.If you are unable to get a single pull up, try hanging from the beam and holding on to it for as long as you can. I assume you would have sufficient space in your house to perform the above exercises.
Diet:
Here are a few points that are going to be easy to follow and won’t require much efforts from you. Eat as much roughage as you can, so that you are full even without consuming more calorie dense foods. Buy roasted channa packets which are easily available at any shop or make them on your own. Use them as snacks. Try to consume only 2 meals per day. Drink as much whole milk as you can. Keep dry fruits near you all the time. Check the best sources of Protein available to you and keep tab.
Give this routine a go for your next exams, you would, without a doubt, get stronger, leaner and hence won’t miss a beat when you resume your weight training post exams.
