Daily routines

Morning routine 1

Every morning, or at lunchtime or in the evening if it suits you better, do these simple exercises. It doesn’t need to take more than 3-4 minutes, and the purpose is first and foremost to get the habit in, not that you should get incredibly strong in just a few weeks.

  • Do 5-10 pushups. If it feels hard to do pushups standing on your feet, stand on your knees instead. If 10 pushups are very easy for you (congratulations!), do as many as you like so that it feels fairly tough.

  • Do 10 lunges per leg. In this exercise, the focus lies primarily on training the balance – getting stronger is a bonus.

  • Jump on one leg. Small, quick jumps. Let your heel touch the ground with every landing. Do this for about 30 sec per leg.

Every evening

  • Make sure that you have registered today’s training.

  • If you’d like, write down an additional reflection or thought in your diary about how it went or how you felt today.

  • Visualize yourself doing these morning routines. In doing this, you will not only train the art of visualization, but it will also make it easier to get the morning exercises done the coming day.

Morning routine 2

During this period, we will do the morning routines 5 x 5, meaning that we will aim to do 5 minutes of morning exercises 5 days a week. Choose your own exercises that will take about 5 minutes to do in total. Focus on the time and feel free to practice impulse control in the static exercises!

Foksera på tiden och passa gärna på att öva impulskontroll i statiska övningar!

If you’re not able to do the exercises in the morning, you can try to do parts of or the entire routine after a training session later during the day instead.

  • Exercise examples:

    • Do 5-10 pushups. If it feels hard to do pushups standing on your feet, stand on your knees instead. If 10 pushups are very easy for you, do as many as you like so that it feels fairly tough.

    • Do 10 lunges per leg. In this exercise, the focus lies primarily on training the balance – getting stronger is a bonus.

    • Deep squats holding a heavy weight with straight arms above your head. Not too heavy, but 2*7 repetitions should feel tough to do.

    • Trumma med framfoten, stå på hälarna och trumma med trampdynorna mot marken så snabbt som möjligt. Aim for 1 minute, but this exercise can be quite tough. If it feels easy, do 2*1 minute.

    • Stand on one leg on a balance plate. Start with 1 minute per leg, but aim for 2 minutes.

    • Jump on one leg. Small, quick jumps. Let your heel touch the ground with every landing. Do this for about 30 sec per leg.

    • Plank – preferably a dynamic variant such as “mountain climber” where you take turns to pull each leg toward the same arm. Right leg to right arm, left leg to left arm. Do this for 1 minute.

    • Stand on your head, alternatively downfard facing dog (adho mukha svanasana).

    Videos till varje övning?!

     

    Every evening

    • Make sure that you have registered today’s training.

    • If you’d like, write down an additional reflection or thought in your diary about how it went or how you felt today.

    • Visualize yourself doing these morning routines. In doing this, you will not only train the art of visualization, but it will also make it easier to get the morning exercises done the coming day.

Morning routine 3

From now on, we will spice up the daily routines a bit. There will be one group of exercises to do on Mondays and Wednesdays, and another group of exercises for Tuesdays and Thursdays. The exercises will be performed in pairs, so there will be no static resting in between the different sets.

On Fridays we recommend you to focus on leg strength by doing the session we call “Functional strength”, which you can find in the training instructions. This session doesn’t need to be done in the morning. Links to videos with visual descriptions can be found below.

Monday and Wednesday:

  • Plank, mountain climber

  • Sitting hip movements side-to-side (windshield wipers – swivel hips)

  • One-armed row in a forward-leaning position. Pull up a weight toward your chest. Alternatively a pulling movement with a rubber band.

  • Jefferson Curls with a light weight. Alternatively – in a standing position and with a neutral/straight hip position – lean slowly forwards from your neck with straight arms above your head, the biceps by your ears

  • Chins (alternatively a pulling movement with a rubber band parallel to the length of your body)

  • One-armed rotation with a weight, one arm at a time with a light weight 1-2 kg. This can also be done with both arms at the same time, with a broom stick or similar.

All exercises are done in pairs, which means there is no static resting during this routine. Do each exercise for a time period of between 30 – 60 sec, or about 5 slow and mindful repetitions. Depending on how much time you have, do either just one repetition for each exercise, or up to 5 repetitions for a tougher session.

If you only do 30 sec per exercise, the entire routine takes about 4 minutes in total (since two of the exercises can be done with one arm at a time). Jefferson curls, however, might need a little bit more time.

Links:

  • Swivel hips https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/best-ways-instantly-open-hips-deepen-squat/

  • One-armed row http://www.styrkelabbet.se/hantelrodd/

  • Jefferson curls https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/jefferson-curls-weighted-mobility/

  • Chins http://www.styrkelabbet.se/chins/ https://www.manvsweight.com/pull-up-alternatives/

  • Shoulder rotation (explanation of one-armed rotation, in the video a similar exercise is done, but with two arms) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JDhuNhjLa8

Tuesday and Thursday:

  • Pushups

  • Child pose (yoga position)

  • Mini boat, similar to the yoga position boat pose, but with the legs bent and your entire lower back touching the ground. Only the upper back is raised from the ground in a sort of isometric, mini sit-up

  • Goal pose, lying on your back on something that raises your shoulders from the ground, e.g. a foam roller or a towel along your spine and between the shoulder blades. Pull your arms backward by doing a ”goal pose” in American football (similar to a dubbel police stop-sign). Allow your chest to open up and stretch – tensen for about 10 sec – relax – repeat. Alternatively a yoga pose such as the camel pose.

  • Military press with a dumbbell

  • 7-way hips, lying on your side: 1. Leg raises, 2. Forward kick, 3. Backward kick, 4. Forward-backward-kick, 5. Circles in a forward rotation, 6. Circles in a backward rotation, 7. Cycling movement

All exercises are done in pairs, which means there is no static resting during this routine. Do each exercise for a time period of between 30 – 60 sec, or about 5 slow and mindful repetitions. Depending on how much time you have, do either just one repetition for each exercise, or up to 5 repetitions for a tougher session.

If you only do 30 sec per exercise, the entire routine takes about 4 minutes in total (since two of the exercises can be done with one arm or one leg at a time). Jefferson curls, however, might need a little bit more time.

Links:

  • Military press http://www.styrkelabbet.se/militarpress/

  • 7-way hips https://youtu.be/iLTBIaHU5iw

Every evening

  • Feel free to do some foot massage under your foot and around the ankle. Combine with foot movements in different directions.

  • Visualize yourself doing these morning routines. In doing this, you will not only train the art of visualization, but it will also make it easier to get the morning exercises done the coming day.

  • Make sure that you have registered today’s training.

  • Write down ideas and analyses in your diary. It’s these notes that, looking back, will be worth a lot in your evaluation of what has worked well and what hasn’t worked so well.

Morning routine 4

In an effort to step things up a notch and challenge your body and mind even more now that examination day is coming closer, we will move on to “Own responsibility, 7*7”. This means that you should do the routine 7 minutes per day, 7 days a week. Your focus should be on identifying what you need the most. If you have a sensitive hip, it might be worth giving your hip some extra love and time. If you’ve got a foot that needs to be strengthened, perhaps half of the routines should be about foot-strengthening exercises.

A couple of guidelines that can be helpful along the way:

Weakness in your lower legs and feet can often be “fixed” by doing different balance exercises (such as one-leg exercises, using a balance plate, pilates ball, etc.). Many of your problems can be decreased merely by strengthening your feet, so in general it would be wise to put some time and effort in doing foot strength and foot mobility exercises.

The most important muscles for the forward movement in running are your glutes and hamstrings, so exercises that strengthen these are always good to do. Moreover, two often underestimated aspects among runners is flexibility in the upper back as well as the hips.

Exercise suggestions:

  • Forward lunges. Here, the focus should be on training your balance – getting stronger is a bonus.

  • Deep squats with your arms above your head, holding a heavy weight.

  • Trumma med framfoten.

  • Stand on one leg on a balance plate. Start with 1 minute per leg, but aim for 2 minutes.

  • Jump on one leg. Small, quick jumps. Allow your heal to touch the ground with every landing.

  • Plank – preferably a dynamic variant such as “mountain climber” where you take turns to pull each leg toward the same arm. Right leg to right arm, left leg to left arm. Do this for 1 minute.

  • Stand on your head, alternatively downfard facing dog (adho mukha svanasana).

  • Massage of tense chest muscles as well as the area between your shoulder blades. Preferably with a tool such as a massage ball or similar. Before or after the massage, feel free to do a rowing-like pulling movement, e.g. with a rubber band for the area between your shoulders.

  • Massage of tense areas around your hips. Preferably with a tool such as a massage ball or similar. Before or after the massage, feel free to do a rowing-like pulling movement, e.g. with a rubber band for your iliopsoas (front hips). Alternatively 7-way hips.

    Every evening

    • Make sure that you have registered today’s training.

    • If you’d like, write down an additional reflection or thought in your diary about how it went or how you felt today.

    • Visualize yourself doing these morning routines. In doing this, you will not only train the art of visualization, but it will also make it easier to get the morning exercises done the coming day.