The very best way to enhance your energy levels by far is to start becoming more active and to exercise.
This will give you a boost in just about every domain.
The first reason for this is that exercise will help you to enhance your cellular efficiency.
Inside each of your cells are tiny little ‘energy factories’ called mitochondria.
These are what take the energy (glucose) from your food and convert it into something used (ATP).
They’re also what breaks that ATP down to release the energy that drives muscle contractions, deep thought and breathing.
As we get older, the number of mitochondria in our system actually depletes. But when you’re a young kid, you have loads of them and they’re functioning much more efficiently.
So if you ever wondered why all Grandpa does is sleep, while little Tina rushes around the house all day on a sugar-high, that would be why.
But when you exercise, you boost the function and number of your mitochondria.
This doesn’t just help you to perform better in athletic activities – it also helps you to think better and to wake up more alert so that you can get more done.
That’s only one way in which exercise will boost your productivity.
Another powerful effect comes from improves cardio fitness, circulation and blood pressure.
In short, using your heart a lot will make you better at pumping blood around your body and providing you with oxygen, nutrients, etc.
The best form of exercise for this benefit is steady-state cardio.
Running long distance gives your heart’s ‘left ventricle’ time to enlarge and that means you can pump more blood around more easily.
But any form of exercise will help you increase your VO2 max, your resting heart rate, and your energy levels.
Exercise is also super good for your brain and will encourage more brain plasticity, improving your sleep.
Getting rid of fat will make you lighter, meaning you spend less energy moving around.
In short, if you can exercise, you will perform much better than ever before.
The only problem? If you’re currently not exercising at all, then you’ll find it hard to start.
This is why I’m happy to introduce the ‘QUICK’ routine to solve that problem…
A Basic Training Program to Boost Your Energy
The most important thing to start with is a simple training program that you just stick at.
This is where all these self-help articles and online training programs have gotten things a bit twisted.
It is very misguided when you see the people who walk around the gym with elaborate training programs and queueing for machines even before they’ve developed a basic level of fitness.
It’s even more misguided when people tell themselves that they haven’t started working out yet because they need to ‘find the right training program’.
Want to lose weight? Then you might have taken a quick look online to find advice.
Some people will be telling you to cut your carbs, others will be telling you to count calories and not worry about carbs. Others will tell you to eat more carbs and cut the fat!
Meanwhile, do you do steady-state cardio (jogging) or do you try HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)?
It’s all a lot to pick from! At this point though, it really doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that you are doing something.
If you aren’t already training, then get training right now on a regular basis – don’t wait until you’ve finished this article!
Don’t focus on improving your health or getting abs (though we’ll touch on that down the bottom) – just focus on getting good at training and actually sticking to a routine.
Anything is better than nothing and you don’t need to worry about training ‘wrong’ – your body is incredibly adaptable.
So here’s a very simple training routine you can use to just ‘start’ getting into shape:
The QUICK Workout Program
1. Push-Ups to Failure (keep going until you can’t do anymore, remember the number and beat it next time)
2. Pull-Ups to Failure
3. Kettlebell Swings to Failure (use a weight that allows you to do about 30, to begin with)
There is no pause in between each exercise and you should treat this as a circuit.
Ideally, you should aim to do 3-5 rounds with one-minute rest after the swings, but if you only have time to do one that’s okay.
Remember: it’s better to do something than nothing. If you have just 5 minutes at the end of the day, then just doing the push-ups is fine.
Perform the push-ups fast and keep your body rigid as you do. Make sure you go all the way down and back up for each rep.
Look for the ‘Bulfyss’ for a pull-up bar that fits into a door frame without needing screws.
This will set you back about INR 999.
If you don’t have a kettlebell you can buy them online for about INR 2199.
If that’s still off the cards, then you can replace the swings with jack-in-the-box reps.
Here you squat down, then explode up and splay your arms and legs apart.
With all these, you are starting by going to failure and then aiming to increase or maintain that number each time you come to do the workout.
So if you can do 30 push-ups right now, you’ll be aiming to increase that to 31 tomorrow.
In a year you’ll be maybe doing 70 or 100. Try to do this at least four times a week to see the real results.
Here’s A Detailed Fat Loss Program Program For The Gym
Why the QUICK Routine is Effective
This routine is the ‘only necessary exercise’ because it offers some cardio benefits when practiced with intensity and because it offers resistance training for all the major muscle groups.
The push-ups train the pecs, shoulders, triceps, and core, the pull-ups train the lats, biceps and core and the swings train the hamstrings, quads and lower back (erector spinae).
Overall, this is about as close to a ‘full body’ routine as you’re going to get in just three moves.
But what really makes this routine effective is simplicity.
You can use it anywhere, you don’t need much equipment and it’s completely flexible and adaptable.
If you can only do one round then that’s fine – and there’s never really an excuse not to be able to do 5 minutes of exercise.
The great thing is though, once you’ve done one round you’ll probably find you have the energy and determination to complete two more.
This is pretty much the workout I used when I have started training initially. I didn’t know what I was doing but I had just watched Bruce Lee’s film and decided I was going to work out regularly from then on. And I have been doing so for 15 years.
I have started training with weights 8 years back when I have enrolled myself for a bachelor’s degree.
Had I started researching complicated training regimes I probably would have gotten disheartened but by just doing a workout that I enjoyed and that was simple, I was able to have a six-pack and biceps while I was at secondary school.
Very often, simple is best! All that said though, the QUICK routine is designed very much for beginners and is not intended for those who want to build big muscle or crushing strength.
How to Get Abs
By the way, the QUICK program is also ideal for helping you to get abs.
Getting visible abs is mainly about diet with the aim being to reduce your body fat percentage to sub 10% thus making the six-pack visible underneath.
The other thing people forget though is their transverse abdominus.
This is the band of muscle around your mid-section that acts to hold in your stomach and internal organs, as well as to support your lower spine during lifts.
Crucially, this is what makes your abs flat and that in turn is what makes them look good.
Push-ups require you to keep your whole body rigid and this is the perfect way to ensure you are strengthening the transverse abdominus.
So do the QUICK work out regularly and with intensity and you should start to find your abs show. Hopefully, that will offer some motivation to some readers!
How to Write Goals and Increase Adherence
Don’t approach your training with the goal of trying to lose ‘X amount of weight’ or gain ‘X amount of muscle’. Why?
Because that’s not completely within your control. If you give yourself such a defined set of goals then you’ll find things get in the way and you become frustrated as you realize you may fail.
Instead, give yourself a simple and clearly defined goal that is completely within your control.
For instance: do the QUICK workout four times a week. That’s it. Your only goal.
This is something you will succeed or fail at and you get to try anew every week.
If you do that long enough, you will find that the ‘bigger goals’ (like weight loss and muscle mass) take care of themselves.
Focusing on long term goals is also a bad idea because it leads to training that’s much less enjoyable.
Try to forget about why you’re going to the gym and just enjoy being there so that it’s its own reward.
When I’m really low on motivation I just go and hit the heavy bag which I love.
Priming A little tip – if you’re feeling very low on energy and can’t get the motivation to hit the gym, then try watching something that motivates you.
The Rocky 4 training montage tends to do the trick for me.
This is called ‘priming’ in psychology and you can use the technique in other areas of your life too. Need to sit down to do some coding?
Try watching a snippet of The Social Network or Iron Man and see if that puts you in your ‘genius mode’ mentality.
It sounds like a small matter but when we feel driven to do something, it actually makes a big difference to our energy levels.
This triggers a similar sort of neurochemical/hormonal response to eustress because you’re telling your body and mind that what you’re doing matters and is important.
Remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can put yourself in that waking mode more easily.