The Scraps Workout Method
It might sound a little humble at first, the "Scraps" Method. However, hidden behind the unglamorous name is a method that might very well get people to work out consistently who have so far failed to establish a strict "3x/week, 1 hour" workout regimen. Whether that's due to lack of motivation or simply not having the predictability in their lives required for doing it at specific times regularly, this method meets people where they are.
The idea here is an "everything’s better than nothing" strategy where you don’t define any expectations how long or when to work out and instead whenever you have some time on your hands during your day, be it 30 or only 5 minutes, flexibly do a workout then. That way you can accumulate a significant amount of minutes of working out throughout the week.
While this might not be the fastest way of reaching serious bodybuilding goals, this is not just a homeopathic measure either. After all it is widely agreed that any amount of working out is better than none. But maybe even more importantly allowing yourself to do even shortest workouts removes the barrier for starting them (I find it rather hard to find an excuse for a 5-minute workout) and therefore allows people to build consistency that for various reasons never did. After doing it for a while, it will feel much more normal to you and even the thought of picking up a more targeted and strict routine suddenly feels doable. Me personally, I can see that by realizing that my workouts are getting longer and longer. In the beginning I indeed often just did 5 or 10 minutes. By now, not really feeling challenged by 5 minute-workouts any longer, neither physically nor mentally, I hardly do less than 15 minutes and often much more—on several days per week.
How To Get Started
First off you'll need to make sure you have some space nearby which should be ready to go. You'll definitely find fitting workouts even if you don't have any equipment at all, so space is really the only thing you need. However, to be prepared for a bigger more varied selection of exercises, you might want to have a mat ready, potentially also dumbbells or resistance bands.
Then you'll need to know what to do. There's a sheer endless amount of pre-designed workouts on the internet for every use-case imaginable and matching any setup requirements you might have, on YouTube or other dedicated websites and apps. From there, you could curate a small set of workouts of various lengths so that when you do have time to workout you can quickly pick up the one closest to the length you can commit to. However, having these workouts preselected is vital to avoid not starting because having to find a workout would be a task you wouldn't know how much time it will cost which again might become a reason to skip on days your time is limited.
That's really all you need!
How ichini! Can Help You Apply This Method
With the ichini! app having been designed for this workout method from the ground up, it has many features supporting it. Most importantly it will flexibly provide you with a workout of the exact length you can commit to, be it 5 minutes, 10 or 27, while always making sure to select exercises that will complement your other workouts that week to work towards your goal—how many workouts you ever might have done so far. Those workouts will also match your fitness level, learning from the workouts you did in the past. It also shows you a simple bar chart with the sum of minutes worked out per week over the past few weeks which can be motivating to do just a little more than last week. It also allows you selecting exercises you really want to do today and make sure they are included in the workout to make this method as comfortable as possible.
But on top of that it has an additional feature that without the dread encourages you to exercise more: encores. You might be hesitant to choose short workouts thinking you should be doing more. With ichini! though you don't need to overthink this. Because once you started, you might realize that you have more energy than that and that it's not so bad after all, the app will ask you towards the end of the planned workout whether you can do one more exercise. So this is where you can do second rounds or tap into body regions the main workout didn't touch. And of course that process repeats until you're really out of time and/or energy. This way you can easily increase the time you work out per week without requiring you to bring any more motivation than you usually have.
If you want to try it out, you can do so right in your browser. No account or payment required for the first 5 workouts, so there's no risk at all. To continue afterwards you'd need a monthly subscription for $4.99 / month, though.
But whatever tools you end up choosing, the Scraps method remains a powerful way of building consistency, and I can only wholeheartedly recommend giving it a try—especially if you've also struggled with consistency in the past. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to be the last step in your fitness journey—it might just be the start.
