Small Workouts

Small workouts are 15-30 minute compressed workouts that, unlike larger and more intense workouts, can be done every 24 hours or so. Larger workouts should be done every 48-72 hours. 

Small workouts should focus on lagging muscle groups, joint-specific training, mobility, and general physical preparedness (GPP). 

For me personally, I train at least 2 small workouts per week in between my larger training sessions. I tend to focus on GPP and particular joints. For example, in the video in this article I used the knee-joint training in our Joint-Specific Training Library. And for GPP, I will often use the sled in various ways, sand bags, or farmers carries to name a few. 

Other benefits of small workouts:

- Rather than doing nothing, using small workouts can be geared toward active recovery. This can be as simple as doing things with lower intensity joint-specific work and joint articulations. 

- Small workouts are a great way to get extra volume and increase frequency of training. Because small workouts can be done every 24 hours, and stimulating intensity doesn't necessarily mean high intensity, we can do things like stretch for 2 minutes multiple times a day if we need to improve connective tissue architecture for instance. 

Here are a few simple examples of small workouts to try. 

Spine

1. Flexion and extension (cat/cow) 1x 3 each direction

2. Spine Controlled Articular Rotations 1x 2 each direction

3. Tabata on reverse hyper 1x 4 minutes (8 rounds or 20sec on 10sec off)

Knee

1. External rotation: stretch and isometrics 

2. Reverse sled walks 1x 10-15 minutes

Elbow

1. Pronation and supination stretch

2. Pronation and supination in rice bucket for 2 minutes each 

3. Tricep extensions (for conditioning or hypertrophy)

4. Bicep curls (for conditioning or hypertrophy)

Credit: Louie Simmons and the Westside Book of Methods

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