Consider the possibility that you've engaged in mental gymnastics subconsciously pursuing physical laziness, I catch myself doing this all the time with my computing.
The reality is, you require negligible amounts of time to maintain a reasonable level of phsyical fitness.
How many pushups can you do in a set? Probably so few that it requires less than one minute of time. So why aren't you doing as many pushups as you possibly can every morning before you shower? Well, simply because you don't want to, and are being lazy.
Incorporating a simple stretching and pushup routine to your daily life, once before showering, will have a significant positive impact on your wellness without costing much time.
You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it. I'm assuming you can't do more than one right now, so it takes almost zero time.
In the fitness world this has a name - Greasing the Groove. Basically getting your central nervous system super used to doing this movement so progression, doing more, comes naturally and easily. Super effective method.
What's the end point of that pullup system? I can do about 12 in a row I think.
If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous?
I'm asking because I'm somewhat interested in this policy, but....since I already do strength training and can do pullups, I'm not sure where it would lead.
(I guess I could modify it to only do pullups on workout days, 3x per week, but do them everytime I passed on those days)
> If I did this policy, by a frequently used door, would I end up overtrained, or would I become so strong in my arms that I could do 30-40 or so when rested? And if so, would my arms become enormous?
First, overtraining is so hard for someone just doing normal workouts. Second, progression just doesn't work that way. I've been working for a few months towards doing 500 pull-ups in a single workout. I'm at 160 now, and I still can't do 30-40 dead hang pull-ups in one set. Finally, to become enormous you need to eat.
As someone who competes in Judo, and as such needs as strong a grip and upper back/shoulders as possible, I have experienced this.
It's easy to overtrain pullups/chipups/rows and end up with tennis or golfers elbow, which is not fun, and takes a long time to heal, being a tendon overuse injury.
If it progresses to tendonitis, you're in for a lifetime of problems that are very debilitating. Think not being able to grab a dinner plate off a high shelf.
Don't treat pullups as something you can just grind. If you grease the groove, only do a quarter to a half to what you can comfortably do, and give yourself a maximum number of sets that you will do during the day.
Progress slowly over many months, with proper form and slow reps and no kipping. Don't do anything silly like add "a rep a day", or try to "drain the tank" every time you hit the exercise.
Just trying to save someone else the pain. It's surprisingly to override discomfort with willpower and actively destroy your own body
And in my experience, doing hundreds of pushups daily eliminated my chronic wrist pains caused by injuries in my youth (they've both been broken), and has never caused any lasting harm.
Considering we're talking about people who aren't doing any exercise at all for "lack of time", it's somewhat absurd to be muddying the waters talking about the opposite end of the spectrum; overtraining.
The point is to just get off your ass and do some trivial calisthenics every day before you bathe. In the early stages you're only going to be able to do a handful, maybe not even one pull-up without a chair to assist you, you're not going to "overtrain" doing as many as you possibly can in this condition: we're talking about doing very little. It's emphasized because the amount you can do is proportional to how much time it requires, it's practically zero.
In fact, the probable major result is a change in diet because of the brutal feedback attempting to lift your own weight repeatedly every morning can have.
I don't think for most people it's easy to overtrain, but it's certainly possible. Greasing the groove as you describe is much more typically recommended than "as many as possible". Myself, I actually started with a hanging regimen before beginning to work on pullup variations. I agree with most of what you say.
The reality is, you require negligible amounts of time to maintain a reasonable level of phsyical fitness.
How many pushups can you do in a set? Probably so few that it requires less than one minute of time. So why aren't you doing as many pushups as you possibly can every morning before you shower? Well, simply because you don't want to, and are being lazy.
Incorporating a simple stretching and pushup routine to your daily life, once before showering, will have a significant positive impact on your wellness without costing much time.
You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway and adopt a policy of always having to do as many pull-ups as you can whenever you walk past it. I'm assuming you can't do more than one right now, so it takes almost zero time.