Do you have an overwhelming home exercise program assigned to you by an exercise professional, such as a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, or physiotherapist? Maybe you have too many exercises to do and little guidance on how to choose what exercises to do. You might have been told to do ‘2 exercises each that exercise your legs, arms and core’. This method helps break it all down and makes the task of choosing exercises by yourself easier and less stressful.
Steps
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1Take your exercise printouts and three coloured markers. Choose one colour (e.g. pink) and let that be the colour for all your arm exercises. Go through all your printouts and underline the name of every exercise that works your arm muscles in pink.
- If you need help determining whether an exercise is targeting your arms or something else, ask your personal trainer or exercise physiologist.
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2Count up how many pink ‘arm’ exercises you have identified. Using your pink pen, write a number next to every arm exercise, counting up, so that every arm exercise has a unique pink number next to it.Advertisement
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3Choose another coloured marker (e.g. blue) and let that be the colour for all your core exercises. Go through all your printouts and underline the name of every exercise that works your core muscles in blue.
- If you need help determining whether an exercise is targeting your core or something else, ask your personal trainer or exercise physiologist.
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4Count up how many blue ‘core’ exercises you have identified. Using your blue marker pen, write a number next to every core exercise, counting up, so that every core exercise has a unique blue number next to it.
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5Choose another coloured pen (e.g. green) and let that be the colour for all your leg exercises. Go through all your printouts and underline the name of every exercise that works your leg muscles in green.
- If you need help determining whether an exercise is targeting your legs or something else, ask your personal trainer or exercise physiologist.
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6Count up how many green ‘leg’ exercises you have identified. Using your green marker, write a number next to every leg exercise, counting up, so that every leg exercise has a unique green number next to it.
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7On one of your printouts, write ‘arms’ using the pink marker, ‘core’ using the blue marker pen, and ‘legs’ using the green marker, to act as a key to help you remember what type of exercise each is. Stick your printouts onto a wall near where you will be exercising, and store your exercise equipment near it.
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8In your exercise book, write a list of the names of each exercise on the first page, using the appropriate colour marker. You will use this page to act as a tally page to track how often you are doing each exercise.
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9When you are ready to exercise, in your book, write today’s date. Using your chosen dice (making sure they have enough sides for all your exercises to come up), roll for your arm exercises. Write them both down. If you get the same number twice, you can re-roll until you get two different exercises.
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10Using your chosen dice, (making sure they have enough sides for all your exercises to come up), roll for your core exercises. Write them both down. If you get the same number twice, you can re-roll until you get two different exercises.
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11Using your chosen dice, (making sure they have enough sides for all your exercises to come up), roll for your leg exercises. Write them both down. If you get the same number twice, you can re-roll until you get two different exercises.
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12Warm up and then do the exercises the dice have chosen for you, at the frequency recommended by your exercise professional. Make sure to give yourself the appropriate rest breaks and drink water if you need it.
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13Mark off your exercises and cool down. When you have completed your exercises, mark them all off with a big tick in the book, and then make a mark for each one on your tally page. The tally page helps you notice if one exercise never seems to come up when you roll the dice.
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14Do this at least twice a week, giving yourself at least one rest day in between exercise sessions.
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15Share your exercise book with your exercise professional and tell them about your progress and any problems you have faced with any of the exercises.Advertisement
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Tips
- You may find that after a while, your exercise display fades into the background and doesn’t act as a reminder to exercise. This is normal and can be helped by making it a habit to exercise on certain days at certain times.Thanks
- If you find your dice are biased towards always or never giving you certain exercises (by the results on your tally page), you can choose to substitute other exercises from your list as needed. This is just a way to help take some of the decision-making and some of the associated anxiety out of the equation.Thanks
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Things You'll Need
- 3 different coloured markers/pens
- A printout of all your exercises
- Adhesive to stick your exercises on the wall
- A wall to stick your exercises to
- An online dice app, like https://freeonlinedice.com/ (or a set of polyhedral dice)
- An exercise book to record your workouts
- A pencil or pen to record your workouts
About this article
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 246 times.
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