“No, no, don’t get up” — How to Get a Complete Workout Without Leaving Your Chair or Couch [VIDEO inside]

Have you ever been in the middle of sitting around playing games or watching shows and suddenly thought to yourself, “hey, I am going to get up and do a complete, full-body workout!”

Mmm, yea, probably not…

More than likely, you’ve been in that position and thought:

“Noiice! I’ve got time for one more game (or episode) after this. Yeah… just one more…”

But what if there was a time when you already promised yourself that you would exercise that day? Suppose you already knew how long it would take and the approximate difficulty level of the workout up front. You just had to do it.

You get home and decide to treat yourself to a little leisure time to decompress after your day, perhaps to digest dinner a bit, and THEN you are going to workout.

Does that sound like something you’ve done before?

You’ve got it all figured out in your head, telling yourself you’ll workout later, but then…

You don’t.

Because you get tired. You’ve got food coma. It’s getting late in the night. You just want to be entertained, you don’t want to have to DO anything.

You say to yourself, “eh, I can skip today, I’ll workout tomorrow instead,” or “oh man it’s just that the couch is SOOOO comfortable.”

Oh yea, I’ve been there!

So, what if you didn’t even need to leave your chair to get a full body, quick workout in?

What if you knew exactly what to do from the comfort of being seated on your ass or without straying too far from your throne?

Well that’s exactly what we’re about to get into.

If you’re like me, you can remember a day when you literally turned your computer on as soon as you woke up and ate all meals at your desk (while continuing to play) before going to bed again late that night.

You’ve felt like, known, or BEEN that Jabba the Hutt from the “Make Love Not Warcraft” episode of South Park. (Ironically the day I am referencing I was indeed playing WoW non-stop… *shudders*)

Those were some dark times.

You KNOW how addicting it can be to sit and zone out.

You have subsequently come to use sitting around as a method for chilling out after a bunk-ass day at work or just because it’s what you like to do sometimes. And that’s fine. Now that you have a life again since those dark times (welcome back!), you probably get out more and give more of a shit about how you look and feel, as well as how you spend your time.

But it’s still tough to convince yourself to get up and exercise sometimes.

You may have to drive to the gym, which blows.

You may have to put on running shoes and actually go for a run, which realllllly blows.

You know some stuff that you should do for your health and fitness, but trying to get yourself to exercise in those modalities is like trying to enter a whole ‘nother world, a world that BLOWS.

Binge watching Netflix — or a great show like Game of Thrones, Band of Brothers, or The Wire all day —  or playing a fantastic game for hours, uninterrupted, just simply outcompetes things that blow.

So it’s understandable.

It’s hard not to want to watch/do awesome stuff when your hope is actually to do something good for yourself.

Because the good stuff you’re trying to do seriously blows.

But luckily, there is a better way.

I cordially present and invite you to:

Literally not get up at all. Literally give no fucks. Literally have 0 excuses.

(okay, you’ll probably still have some excuses, and yea, you’ll probably get up from your chair a bit too… there was bound to be at least one misuse of the word “literally” in there somewhere).

The choice is yours to press pause or allow your distraction of choice to continue, but if you can’t bring yourself exercise from your chair… I… I just don’t even know what to tell you.

I even created 2 follow along workouts for you to do with me:

So if you hit play on that video and you are sitting at your computer or on the couch, please try it and follow along.

You can choose between the version with a single dumbell/kettlebell or the 0 equipment version.

Here are the details for the workouts shown in the video:

The “No, No, Don’t Get Up” Workout With Weight:

1. One Arm Presses, 5 reps each side
2. Overhead Triceps Extensions, 10 reps
3. Isolation Curls, 5 reps each side
4. One Arm Rows, 5 reps each side
5. Box Squats, 10 reps (or Single Leg Box Squats, 5 reps each side)
6. Hip Thrusts, 10 reps
7. Weighted Twist, 5 reps each side (or Russian Twists, 10-20 reps)

Cooldown Joint Mobility & Stretching

1. Neck
2. Shoulder Rolls
3. Hands
4. Torso Twist
5. Hip Flexor Stretches
6. Hamstring Stretches

The “No, No, Don’t Get Up” Workout Without Weight:

1. Isometric Curl, 10 – 30 seconds
2. V-ups (or Bicycles), 20 – 30 reps
3. Isometric Bodyweight Squat, 10 reps (or Single Leg Box Squats, 5 reps each side)
4. Chair Dips, 10 – 20 reps
5. Supine Row under table, 10 reps
6. Feet Elevated Glute Bridges, 10 reps
7. Unstable/Uneven Incline Pushups, 10 reps (or 5 reps each side)

Cooldown Joint Mobility & Stretching

1. Neck
2. Shoulder Rolls
3. Hands
4. Torso Twist
5. Hip Flexor Stretches
6. Hamstring Stretches

So sure, you’re not going to stay seated non-stop during this, but you don’t really sit around non-stop when you’re gaming/watching stuff anyways, right?

You wind up getting up to go to the bathroom or to go grab some nachos/tasty beverages or when the delivery guy arrives with your hot and fresh pizza pie(s) – I presume you have to get up for that too?

You can even pick and choose from the exercises above and do them in any combination.

I always recommend starting small and simple.

Pick 2 to 3 things you’ll ACTUALLY DO and build from there.

Nobody is going to judge you if you start with the easiest possible stuff. Consider it your gateway into getting started and run with it (but not literally, don’t worry, you don’t have to run).

Lastly, if you want to make progress with this workout (which you should), I recommend building up to doing this workout around 5 times in a day during breaks from your gaming/viewing sessions. Hit that benchmark before you add reps, time, or change anything. Once you’re familiar with the challenge of doing everything with your home setup, you can adjust the details to your liking in order to keep the challenge-level up.

Best of luck to you as you embark on this quest to get better at being seated (and actually doing good stuff for yourself)!

For more detail on actual out of seat exercise progressions, programming, and building the habits to get fit, sign up for the 40+ page Heroes of Fitness Gamer’s Guide (you’ll get the 40 videos — including workouts — that go with it for free)!

Until I grace your internet again, ladies and lords,

-Tim

P.S. What game or show have you binged on recently? Also, let me know if you’ve tried the workout, I’d love to hear your feedback!