028: The 12 Essential Exercises for Daily Life

In this episode, Stephen Yeh and Mike Chang embark on a journey through the 12 essential exercises crucial for daily living. These exercises form the foundation of our physical practice, mirroring the fundamental movements necessary for a fulfilling life.

Mike handpicked these 12 exercises because they encapsulate the basic functions every human being needs: the ability to push, pull, squat, lunge, jump, and more. By understanding the simplicity and effectiveness of these movements, listeners will gain insights into why these exercises are pivotal for overall health.

We explore the reasons behind incorporating these exercises into your daily routine, touching on the concept of consistency in self-care. Just as people maintain consistent patterns in activities like showering, brushing teeth, or even caring for a child, establishing a habitual practice with these 12 exercises is key. But why stick with these exercises when there are countless fitness options out there? Mike explains the importance of habits in self-care, shedding light on how repetitive movements build a solid foundation for long-term well-being.

Join us as we unravel the significance of these 12 exercises, breaking down the benefits they offer for everyday functions. Discover how consistency and simplicity pave the way for a healthier, more mindful you. By the end of this episode, you'll have a profound understanding of why these exercises are more than just a routine—they are a gateway to a better, more functional life.

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

Stephen: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of body over mind. This is your host, Stephen Yeh with your co host, Mike Chang. And today we're going to dive into the 12 must do exercises that you do on a daily basis. And the reason why Mike decided to choose these 12 is basically it mimics the basics of life that we need in order to live a good life, in order to do just the basic functions of life.

And then we start to dive into what's required to actually start to incorporate these exercises into your life, because especially if you have a routine already, we generally wouldn't recommend you completely just changing it. And we're going to dive into why. And from there, we're going to go deeper and deeper into the conversation so that ideally this episode is going to be [00:01:00] full of nuggets for you to be able to integrate into your life.

What I like to do now is just start off by asking Mike, why these 12 exercises? And even within that question of why, but what are they? 

Mike: So these 12 exercises are, exercises that we do every single day. And they're part of the strength phase or the strength part of the practice. All right. We have four parts.

In the practice and strength is the second. And. These exercises, we do them for various reasons and these exercises, they are very simple. They're the basic, function of the body. So I can talk about them in a form of like different benefits. So this way we can have a whole picture of why are we doing them?

So let's look at the first layer here, which is the [00:02:00] benefit of functionality. And that means. My ability to move around in life, my ability to sit down, to lay down, to get up off the ground, my ability to go climb stairs, to walk on a hike, right, my basic cardio functions, things like that. So when it comes to basic functions, there are certain movements that every human being needs.

And this is, it's a gray area between what is considered basic functions and what would be considered being an athlete. and beyond So what I consider as basic functions is things like sitting, standing, getting up off the ground, walking upstairs, Uh, or down being able to climb up onto, let's say a table, a couch, being able to, have enough cardiovascular health to, to do [00:03:00] something necessary in your house.

Not like a special trip or a special occasion, but just something necessary in the house. If you're going to be carrying groceries three times a week, do you have the cardiovascular strength to carry groceries without running out of breath? If you have stairs in your house, are you able to go up and down these stairs and not have to take a break after you finish?

So that's what I would consider to be daily functions. Outside of that, then there are the special stuff, right? You go on a trip or you're doing some special sport and that's great. But these 12 exercises was. Built for the foundation of regular daily functions to be able to do it and beyond.

And so when we look at these daily functions, it boils down to a handful of things, your ability to push, your ability to pull something, your ability to stand up and down, your ability to be able to reach or to strike either with your feet or with your hands, [00:04:00] your arms, the ability to be able to jump on something, your ability to hold your, body weight.

And just by, let's say, being on your hands and your feet, being able to hold your body weight up, or being able to lift your legs up if you're sitting on something, have the strength to do that. So, When we look at these exercises, we can come up with so many different exercises to satisfy all of these needs.

However, what allows someone to actually be able to do them, it's not to do a whole bunch of exercises, it's to be able to do the most effective exercises consistently. And because that is actually more important than getting too fancy with everything, we had to go and look at all the exercises and go, which ones are the most important ones?

And out of all the exercises that exist, which is just infinite, there are 12 exercises that cover every one of these things. The first one is [00:05:00] pushups. Your ability to push with your upper body, pushing something. Second one is pulling. If we could have went with pull ups. Which in some variations of our practice we do, however, pull ups is difficult sometimes to be able to pull up your body weight or even in assist.

There's another movement called prone Cobra, or basically where you lay on your stomach and you open up your arms out on your side, and then you engage your back. So this way you're training your pulling muscles, which is located in the back behind the shoulders. And also at the same time that engages your spine.

Your entire spine. So that really strengthens your core and your ability to keep your body upright. And then after that, we have burpees, which is getting up and down off the ground. We have pike pushup, which is your ability to push, but instead of forward, you push upwards. So now we have the pushing, we have the pulling, and then now we go into lower body and we do squats and [00:06:00] lunges.

So this way we can have. Lower body strength with your legs parallel from each other, and then your legs went in front of the other. This allows you to be able to squat down in place or to lunge forward or lunge back. And then from there you have leg raises, your ability to move your lower body.

Right. And also to engage your abs. So you have the strength for that. And then we have run in place, which is your ability to run your ability to jog. And then we have kicks and strikes, which is your ability to go ahead and extend your legs out and about, right. And forward and back, same thing with your arms.

This is not just your ability to punch and kick. This is also your ability to reach your ability to reach forward and back, reach up and back, right. Reaching and punching is very similar. One is focusing on. Moving forward, the other one's focusing on moving backwards, but they all have a basic function of extending your arm out or extending your feet out and then pulling it back.

And then we have the last two, [00:07:00] which is jumping and also plank, right? Being able to keep your body weight up, right? By engaging your hands or elbows and feet. So when we look at these 12, now, if a person wants to do this every single day, They would have the ability to move their body and all of the basic functions that allowed a person to live a high quality of life.

Stephen: And that makes a lot of sense, right? You're covering all the different aspects of human movement. Like you said, whether it's pushing, pulling or needing to squat down. Picking something off the floor. If you were to do these exercises, that would be able to cover them. One of the things that I hear when you're saying like, do these 12 exercises every day, when you say that every day aspect, doing the same exercise every day.

It feels like it can get very monotonous where, like you said, there's [00:08:00] such a variety of movements out there. If you go to a yoga class or you go to a spin class, or you can go to a cardio kickboxing class and maybe you're getting some of those movements in there. But why stick with these 12 exercises on a daily basis?

Mike: It's because human beings lack habits for self care. Once somebody establishes habits for self care, they can change it up and it will be easier to still maintain , a daily habit for self. care If we look at what a person does for self care on a daily basis. Every single day, people take a shower, that's part of self care.

Now, do they shower differently every day? Do they use a different soap? Do they stroke their bodies differently? Do they use a sponge one day and use a towel the other day, and the next day they use [00:09:00] your hands, and they do a scratching movement. One day they use a rock. We can probably assume that most people aren't changing it up every day.

If we look at, brushing your teeth, same thing, right? Are they doing different strokes and different toothbrushes, different tooth pastes using their right hand versus their left hand sitting one day, going into a different area, probably not for people that have long hair, they're brushing their hair, do they use a different brush, et cetera.

So when people are consistent with self care, they're doing the same thing every day. When they're not consistent, they aren't doing it every day. Okay. If you were to ask me about brushing my hair, I got long hair, but if you ask me, Mike, how often do you brush your hair? Most, maybe once every two weeks. So it's like, so you don't brush your hair.

Yeah, not, not really. But when you do, what do you brush it random? I use random [00:10:00] brushes, different places and brush them differently. I don't have a style or anything. This is because when we want to do something consistently, , we have to develop patterns. Movement patterns, we have to develop a, pattern of how to do it.

There's a technique for things, right? There's a technique for brushing your teeth. There's a technique to make sure you clean everything in your body. If you wash dishes every day, are you washing dishes , in a different way every day, are you using a different scrub or different sponge or different?

We think about these daily things that people do as a habit for self care, for their body and mind, for themselves, or self care for the house. Same thing, right? Now, if you're taking care of a child, do you take care of this child differently every day? You go, I'm bored of putting your shirt on this way today.

I'm going to put your shirt on differently, son. Come here. Let me try this out. [00:11:00] Twist them around, do some weird thing. No, boy's never going to have a shirt on. Let me pack your lunch different. So we get the point. So then why the heck would somebody go now when it comes to taking care of myself, I'm going to do it differently because I'm bored.

Bullshit. Bored quote it's a really lame excuse because you couldn't think of another excuse. So let's just give a better excuse. Let's talk about it as I don't have time. You don't have time, but you have time to do every other thing. Except to take care of the thing that matters the most.

Your mind, your body. Why? Because you live your life with it. Because your ability to make decisions and to think, your ability to function in life depends on things. Like your body and your mind without that, what do you got? Whoever thinks that's not important. They're just lazy. They lack discipline. They are afraid.

It's not boredom. [00:12:00] It's not, I don't have time. And nor is it, I don't know what to do. Again, those are just excuses because if somebody really looks at it, no, you know what to do, you know, about running, you know, about squatting, you know, about jogging, you know, about these pushups. It's not like you never heard of it.

Why don't you just do that? 

Stephen: Okay. 

Mike: The real reasons as we start to dive into these things, we start to look at the real issues behind it. The real issues, not the things that people are talking about, right? The real issues like, man, it's just uncomfortable. I'm weak. And when I do this, it just hurts. Right. Or I just do it and I don't like the way I'm doing it.

I want to be stronger and I'm so weak. I want to be more flexible and I can't reach and I can't do this. So now we get into the real issues. When someone have this idea of I'm repeating this. And so it's really tough. That isn't the real thing. The fact is all self care, all habits are created through [00:13:00] repetition and we need to do the same thing.

Every day until we have established a habit. And once you establish a habit, then you can change it up a little bit, where instead of doing the exact same thing every day, you may be doing the same. Seven things every week, this thing on Monday, this thing on Tuesday, this thing on Wednesday, but in the beginning, it's much easier to establish a habit, a routine by doing the same thing every day.

If you look at a professional fitness person, you look at a person who's training for any type of thing. Yeah, they may not be doing the same thing every single day, but they are doing the same group of things every single week. And repetition is foundation for building a habit and we need to build habits.

And for a person that isn't able to do repetition, it's just a lame excuse. And people can come up with all kinds of [00:14:00] excuses. But the fact is our life is the result of the reasons that we come up with. So you're going to come up with a reason on why you can't do it on why it's so tough on why you're bored or why you don't like it.

Right. Are we going to come up with a reason on why I need to do it? Why I need to get past my stuff and just get it done. We need to do it. Right. So that's the first thing, right? We've got to establish that that's the repetition part. And then now the next element here is when you're repeating something every day, right?

If you repeat one thing every single day, it's much easier than repeating three things or four things or ten things or a hundred things, because there's more complications with more, this becomes the next thing. If a person is struggling to do 50 different exercises every single day, then how many exercises could a person do [00:15:00] to keep it as simple as possible while at the same time, satisfy their physical needs.

And when I asked myself this question many years ago, I realized that these exercises, these 12 is the most effective dose, the minimum effective dose. Yes, you can do absolutely more, but if you want to have the best chance of being consistent, then you look for the least amount that you can do and repeat it every single day.

And they, that's what it came out to these 12. 

Stephen: And that makes a lot of sense, right? Because once you establish that routine, just like you're saying with brushing your teeth or taking a shower, you don't have to think about it so much. You just go and take care of it. And I think another [00:16:00] perspective shifts that you actually made in there was generally, especially in the West and in the, something has shifted where even that schools nowadays.

The physical body just doesn't matter so much. There might be physical education P E, but for a time being, they were even trying to take that out and people are constantly sitting down. They're not really taking care of that. And eventually when they do. Usually the way that they're approaching it is either, Oh, I need to lose weight.

It's something about the physical appearance or the other side is, Oh, I'm too skinny. I need to build more muscle. And again, it's just physical appearance. And a shift can happen for someone if it's just general, Hey, just fucking do these things to just take care of yourself, like how you brush your teeth and like [00:17:00] how you just go and take a shower.

And then if you can do that, then , you don't need to go and try to find, Ooh, what's the next hottest trend of fitness right now. Where they're playing EDM and you got a mixer up there so that you can get entertainment at the same time, but you can just take care of it. 

Mike: I think you're talking about like motivation, like what's the reason for doing it?

The thing with motivation is something I've learned over the years now. Instead of changing somebody's motivation, just support it. So if somebody goes, I want to lose weight. Great. I'm going to help you lose weight. Go do these exercises. someone goes. I can't make up these stairs. I need to build my cardio to make up these stairs.

Great. Do those same exercises. Someone goes, , I lack energy in my body. I need to move my body more because I'm lacking energy. I fall asleep all the time. [00:18:00] Chasing coffee all the time. Great. Do these exercises. And then now someone goes, I feel mentally blocked, right? My energy, my body's blocked.

What do I need to do? I need to start moving my body, right? Okay. Do these exercises. I found that the key is to support people's motivation because people are in different stages of their life. They're interested in different things. And whatever it is that they want, help them achieve it. That's what I found has really helped, give people value.

Value is a very interesting thing. It's not concrete. Value is defined by. What it is that people are really desiring, what do they value? Somebody who wants to lose weight, values weight loss. If they have a clarity of mind, they may not value it, they don't care. I want to see that scale change.

, whatever their motivation is, everybody needs to have a daily movement practice, [00:19:00] a daily self care practice that involves Moving their body and also to be able to have these basic functions, that's the bare minimum. Whatever the reason is secondary. Now, a lot of the audience that I talk to, we dive into releasing emotions.

We dive into reprogramming the mind. And we take these handful of exercises combined with all the other ones in the practice. And then we use it for the purpose of changing the energy in the body, changing the mind, expanding the awareness. But the exercises are still the same, they're still done in the same way and the results are still very similar.

There's going to be some differences because a person who focuses on weight loss may end up doing the exercises in a way that helps more with weight loss, just a little bit more. They may do a [00:20:00] couple more rounds versus somebody who's wanting to do the same exercises to open up their energy. Results are very similar, just different by a little bit because their intentions are a little different.

The great thing about it now is one person goes, I want to lose weight. So I'm going to do these exercises. Does this mean that because they're wanting to lose weight, they don't? Gain the benefit of mental clarity, right? They don't gain the benefit of increasing their endurance and strength, right? Of course they do because they're doing the same exercises, but they're just paying attention to the scale.

And then now the second group of people go, I want to have mental clarity and expand my energy. So then they do the exercises and they're focusing on that clarity and expansion of energy. But they're also losing weight, increasing strength. And so forth, that's why it doesn't really [00:21:00] matter what someone's motivation is, give them what they want, but no matter what it is that they want, the path to accomplishing it, what they need to do is a lot of time, very similar, and everybody needs to have.

A handful of exercises that can create this foundational need for the physical body. And if somebody can accomplish that, the thing that they really want to do, whether it's weight loss or whether it's expansion of energy or increased functionality or increase your endurance or increase your energy, whatever it is that can automatically be accomplished.

But when we do it this way, we can create the most Optimal effect for the entire state of being, we can create the most amount of benefits because there's a lot of other ways to be able to increase mobility. For example, there's all these other mobility [00:22:00] exercises, but not all mobility exercises, increased cardiovascular health, not all of them increased strength, not all of them increase energy, open up the energy.

Some don't do it as much. Imagine it's like finding a exercise, finding a practice that can accomplish as many things as possible, , but not everybody cares about the 50 benefits. They just care about that one or two or three, but it doesn't mean that the other 47 isn't happening.

What I found is that a lot of exercises, they're so specific towards a certain goal. That the benefits might be like six or seven or 10 while doing it this way can get you six or seven or 10 benefits there, but why not find a way of training, that creates the most amount of benefits.

All right. So this way, whether or not somebody wants to accomplish those benefits, they're already happening anyways. So that to me, it's just the [00:23:00] best way to spend our time. If we only got a certain amount of time every day, might as well get the most amount out of it. And that's what I found out over all these years of training.

So now when I train in this way, I can still accomplish everything I'm wanting. I can build muscle. I can burn fat. I can be functional. I can be flexible. I can be mindful. I feel connected to my body. I can stay calm. All right. All of this is accomplished. I can lose weight or stay, healthy and lean. 

Stephen: So essentially combining all the different benefits and elements into one, instead of doing them at separate times, you can get it done within, let's say an hour or so.

I want to ask, like this randomly came up because I know, you know how some people, they really like certain exercises and they can do them all day long. And then there's other exercises where they're like, [00:24:00] Oh, I hate these, or I really just don't want to do these. And it's consistent. They consistently feel like that.

What do you think is going on there? And do you feel like they should continue to do those exercises or just, no, that's not for them and they can just focus on other ones. 

Mike: No, I believe that people should do the exercise that feel good for them and balance that out. If somebody does these handful of exercises, cause it feels good for them, then they should continue because everybody's body types are a little different.

You know, what feels good for one person may be different for another. So if somebody has a routine that they do every single day, that involves different exercises, don't change it up and just do these. If you find that there's something missing, you can want to add in a couple of exercises to make your routine more complete, [00:25:00] go ahead.

But don't change up your routine just because someone says, I've got a Better routine. no Do your routine. 

Stephen: Aspect of it, I was thinking I think you came to a good point where it's, you got to balance it out, right? Because I'm just imagining someone who's really flexible in touching their toes. Right. And they like doing that because they feel like they're very accomplished with that.

But then if they were to like do a backbend or something and they feel super stiff and it feels really uncomfortable, it's something they don't really want to do because it feels icky. 

Mike: Let's say somebody is doing a consistent routine involves different 12 exercises, for example, maybe if we look at these exercises, maybe it's not as complete, right?

It doesn't cover [00:26:00] everything, but it covers 70 percent but it's lacking some things. However, if this person has a routine with this and they do it every single day, then they're able to gain 70 percent effectiveness every day, right? 

Stephen: Yeah. It's better than 

Mike: doing nothing for sure. Yeah. Now you tell this person, and this happens so often.

This happens with exercise. This happens with eating, with diet, same thing. So then now you go, Hey person, those 12 exercises. Yeah, they're okay, but they're not the best here. Try these 12 exercises. They're going to work better. So first, okay, sure. I would, that makes sense. I want to do what's the best. So then they try it.

These exercises feel weird. Their bodies don't have the pattern, the movement pattern. They don't have a routine. They don't remember it. They have to write it down. They have to follow a video. So then even though these 12 exercises, let's say, hypothetically is going to give them a hundred percent results, [00:27:00] but they struggle to do them every day because they don't have a routine.

They're used to other exercises. So they may end up doing it for just a week and they go out and then they skip it on some other days because they don't have the sheet. They forgot it. It feels weird. They're sore. And then they end up. Not fully doing them where they just end up not doing it after a little while.

And now they fallen out of routine from the old one because they're trying these new ones and they've fallen out of routine of the new ones because the new ones feel uncomfortable. There's a new learning curve to doing it and they don't have the time, energy or commitment for these new ones. And doesn't even feel the best for them.

So then we look at the two scenarios. It's do you want to go ahead and get seven out of 10 or do you want to risk getting nothing? Some people go, I want to risk it. Right. But I look at it as , I'm going to [00:28:00] be happy with that seven out of 10 because consistency is not an easy thing to establish and once you have it, don't lose it by all means, don't mess it up.

Because your ability to be consistent , is going to be more important than your ability to do a better job and be consistent., If you're going to change it, so then now somebody may ask, then how do I ever improve, right? I'm consistently doing something that is okay. How do I go from that into consistently doing something that is great?

The answer is make small changes. If you're doing something that is okay, consistently add in something small. So this way, you don't mess up your flow. You don't mess up your routine. You don't mess up your patterns. You're already established it. Don't mess it up. Add in something small. If a person is doing [00:29:00] 12 exercises that are very different, then do they want to add in a 13th one, or they can take something out of the 12 and replace it with something if needed.

Now, honestly, I would just look at it and I would look and if it's, if you can get 70%, 80 percent and you're skipping those other ones, just let it be. Just keep going with this. Enhance those other 12 exercises that you're doing. Right. You're doing it already. Now add in that small little element to level it up just a little.

If you're standing there and you're raising your knees up, right, so you're not running or you're just raising your knees up and then you can raise them up a little bit higher or something, right? If you just raise your arm up in the air, so you can just add in these small little movements to the existing thing.

That's what I would recommend. Don't change it up completely. Just small little things. Same thing for diet. I had a friend who was in phenomenal shape. [00:30:00] She was just so lean. She was strong. She stayed lean 24 seven. She barely ever has any fat on her. And then she decides to go into, bodybuilding.

And so then she gets a bodybuilding coach and the coach looks at her diet. And you know what she was eating every day? Tomato and bread, fruit, tiny pieces of meat, barely any protein. Right. So then now her fitness coach goes, Oh my God, you're not getting enough protein. Oh, wow. We, uh, all that training, uh, your muscle is going to waste.

Let's pack you up a protein. Let's get you some salmon. This is lean. Let's get you chicken and let's change up. Oh, you don't want to eat bread. There's so much gluten and so much carbs and high and it's simple carbs. You need more complex. You need, before I know it, her whole diet changed. And then now fast forward, I see her.

She's. Not as lean, not as strong, actually ended up putting on weight for [00:31:00] competition, which is no, you don't want to do that. You want to stay very lean and sculpt. She looked better eating her tomato and bread than she did after getting this coach. Because the coach wasn't thinking with their head. They don't understand what we're talking about.

They're thinking I'm going to follow this box. No, you end up messing up this person's flow. This person's body didn't respond the same. You end up increasing their calories dramatically. And then after that, what are you going to do? Tell them to now burn it all off. It doesn't make any sense. The worst part is, once you change up somebody's flow, they have to gain it back.

That means they have to go and reestablish all this stuff again. The person's body changed after that. I haven't seen her in a while now. So I don't know if she ever got back to being like super solid and lean. But she stayed that way for years and years. I'm talking just lean and solid. And then I saw her for a little time period of being more softer looking, more puffier, and just not as lean, didn't look as good, but she changed up her diet to follow quote, [00:32:00] the ideal fitness protein and carbohydrates and get your macros in and et cetera.

Stephen: Let's take an example then. Let's not just for fun, cause you're talking about, let's say if someone's not getting a hundred percent, let's say they're getting 70%. Let's say they're not even getting 70%. They're getting like 10 percent and 10%, meaning that they just go to the gym and they just pump their chest.

Cause they want to have a bad, super ripped and jacked chest. And that's their main focus. And then they start hearing about your stuff and they're like, Oh man, I agree with a lot of his things, but I also. I'm at the gym doing my chest exercise. I got to get the upper, I got to get the middle, I got to get the lower.

Two, three exercises each. Now, what would you do in that case? Would you tell him the same [00:33:00] advice, keep doing what he's doing and switch it slowly, or what would you say?

Mike: I think the first thing will depend on what's their goal. Alright, what's the motivation? Sounds like this person's motivation is to build more chest muscles.

So, I wouldn't tell them to do this. Keep doing what you're doing, right? You want to build chest muscles, keep doing what you're doing. Now if a person may go, I want to now build some leg muscles. I'm top heavy. Okay, then do these leg exercises, and then keep doing your chest exercises. Let's say a person, they may go, these exercises look great.

And all I'm doing right now is just walking. Cause I actually see a lot of messages come through like that. I'm walking every day. I'm walking for about 20 minutes. Feels good. And should I stop walking? And this is, it happens so often people send me these types of messages.

I'm doing this right now. And you're, you've been talking about these exercises, this practice. Should I stop [00:34:00] doing what I'm doing and do your thing? Or should I do both, or should I somehow combine one together, substitute some things? What should I do? So, what I would always suggest, if you are doing something right now, let's say walking for 20 minutes, and you want to level it up more, you want to try out something else, I would recommend don't stop your walking.

Do your walking. And then at the end of the walking, go and do some exercises, do these other things. And then do it right when you're outside, if you walk to a place and then you're in front of your yard or wherever it is, do these exercises at the very end, add it in. And someone may go, I only have 20 minutes.

So am I going to do it with walking or am I going to do it with your exercises? What am I going to do? Cause I only got 20 minutes total. So in this case. Then I would say, okay, , can you just walk a slightly shorter route, right? Just a 15 minute walk instead of 20 [00:35:00] and then take five minutes and do these exercises.

If somebody did that, these 12 exercises do 20 seconds each of these 12 exercises, right? It's going to come out to be maybe about five minutes, give or take. And now you still stay within a 20 minute window. So you see, this is an example of a small change. They're still getting, they're walking in, they got a certain flow, but now they add in this other little element.

And they don't have to go and I'll go to the gym. No, you just do the exercises right when you're walking, either at the end of your walk. All right. So it's a little easier or maybe in the beginning, whatever one flows and that's it. If somebody has more time that I want to dedicate a little bit more time.

Okay, great. And then additionally to what you're doing, let's say walking, do this. Where someone goes, I have this exercise routine. How can I incorporate this exercise routine to your exercise routine? A lot of times, a very common question is I go to the gym and I exercise, but I want to connect [00:36:00] deeper. I want to increase my mindfulness.

I want to add a meditation on adding this. I love how you're tapping. How can I combine it all together? So that's a common one as well. There's a couple of elements here to consider. The first thing is. If the person's going to the gym, then they have a routine of getting out of the house. That's important to recognize.

It's not about just doing the work out the house. If sometimes leaving the house is required because there's a different environment, when somebody is in the house, there's a certain habits. There are certain actions that are associated with being in this room versus that room. If it's a living room that person's exercising in, it's also a living room that somebody talks in, hang out and watch movie and all this stuff.

Same room. So it's hard sometimes for somebody to have the motivation to exercise in that same room, which is why let's say they go to the gym, so then Sunday, right? They see me doing exercise at home. They go, should I do these exercises at home? [00:37:00] No, because you developed this routine to go out of your house because that's what you needed.

So don't mess that up. So that means you now are going to exercise. And do this practice partially, maybe at the gym. So then now let's dive into what you do at the gym. Okay. I go there and I do these exercises. I use these machines and then I do this and I'm done. So then I would tell this person, I'll help them incorporate this practice into their gym exercise.

Do this first warmup, then do your gym exercise and then finish off by stretching, breathing and meditating in the aerobics room in an area of the gym that is quiet. And if they couldn't find the most quiet area, then look for the quietest and work with what you got. If you're blasting music in the background, can you go outside of the gym into an area?

Try to find a way to make it work before we come up with something entirely different. I would recommend that you see. so This way, a person can still [00:38:00] maintain the routine that has worked for them. They're able to, still gain certain elements that was needed, like a person who leaves the house and goes to the gym.

That is really important for a person to continue to leave that house. Don't mess up that, that habit. This is the important thing about habits, going all the way back to what we talked about. It's important to stay consistent in it, to do what has worked. If somebody has built a habit, it took time and a lot of vested energy to build that habit.

Don't just change up your habits just because you think you want to create a better one. Value the habits that you are doing. And when you do change it, create the smallest change possible. Once you establish that small change, and therefore you now have a slightly new habit, add upon it. Until eventually this habit evolves and changes, [00:39:00] don't just drop it and change it.

Don't make really big changes because you risk losing your established habit and then you're back to ground zero. Habits are really, are so valuable. Yeah, it's such a valuable thing sometimes people may not see it as valuable as it is because they look at someone else's habits, or they look at someone else's stuff that they're doing and they're like, they're doing so better than me.

I just have this habit of walking every day for 15 minutes. And this person is exercising hardcore in the gym for 60 minutes. I'm doing nothing. Yes, compared, but your 15 minutes habit every single day compared to somebody who is not walking 15 minutes every day is massive. It's huge. So how can we go ahead and build upon this 15 minute habit?

Maybe we can go ahead and do your 15 minute walk. And at the end of the 15 minutes, do 20 squats, do 10 pushups, right? Or maybe we can go ahead and [00:40:00] walk for seven and a half minutes and the other seven and a half jog back, slow jog, jog back, same route, same time, everything's same, except you jog back, slow jog.

Now somebody's back in 10 minutes. Wow. My 15 minute walk is I'm back in 10. I'm back in eight. What do I do now? I I'm done. I felt like I didn't even get enough time. Now do the same thing, jog back, but just go a little bit farther in your route. If you're walking in a park, just two laps. Increase it a three laps.

If you're walking in your neighborhood, a place around your house, and you just walk to that post or that stop sign or that corner or that area, and you turn back, right? See if you can go slightly more with your route, just a little bit more. Small changes. That's the magic word. Small changes. Stop comparing to everybody.

Stop trying to compete with what you're doing versus what they're doing. Look at what you're doing and add a small change to it. Now, if a person is doing nothing, then the [00:41:00] same thing applies. If you're doing nothing, then add something small to your nothing. So now you're doing something because building that habit, even if it's small, is more valuable than having none.

Yeah. So there's a quote. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Effort max 70 is a, it's one of the quotes that it's a principle. It's a principle that we apply in training and also in life. And this is a, it's a simple line. Doing something 70 percent every day is better than 100 percent once in a while. Value the consistency over perfection, over performance.

People are not okay with doing a so so or a crappy job every day. They'd rather go ahead and not do something than do a so so job or do a crappy job every day. But it's because of the so so or crappy jobs that a person develops the experience to do a good job. So most people are just stopping themselves from ever becoming [00:42:00] good at the things that they need to do, because they're not okay with doing a so so or a crappy job.

They keep judging it. They call themselves perfectionists. So let that go. Let that go and just do a crappy job or an okay job or just a tiny bit and value consistency over everything. 

Stephen: All right. I think there, there's plenty to, digest from that. Thanks again, guys, for listening to another episode of Body Over Minds.

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