How to train whilst the world’s on fire
We all have times in which training and fitness are essentially the last thing on our minds, but if you’ve been active for a bit you’ll know just doing nothing whilst very busy can make the place a somewhat unpleasant place to reside in - aside from how you feel physically.
I’m just coming out the other side of some rather crap health problems, and can’t tell you how much of a difference it’s made on to just keep whatever little activity in that I can - even when it was a fraction of what I’d been doing. Training can be an outlet, a way to get some distraction or simply get a sweat on and enjoy the ensuing endorphins.
If you find yourself in this situation, keep it simple - work out how long you can realistically do something a few times a week, even if it’s not long. If you’re stressed and sleeping poorly alongside this (which I imagine you are), factor this in and don’t necessarily make this super hard. If you have a little more time to be able to get a generalised warm-up done (5 mins on an assault bike, jogging to the gym) you could get a bit more out of these, but they have warm-up sets built in. Here’s an example of a session you could do in 25 minutes:
Zercher Squat/Bench Press/Pull-Up OR Banded Pull-Up
You’ll need a rack, a bench (which can be moved) and potentially some bands for your pull-ups. Set the rack to a height that you can bench press out of, leaving the bench out of the way for now. Keeping the weight nice and light to start, hit 6-8 reps of Zercher squats and then re-rack the bar. Remove some weight (depending on how strong your squat and bench are respectively), bring the bench back over and hit 6-8 reps there. Finally, hit 6-8 reps of pull-ups with more assistance than you would usually use - these are all warm-up sets, so they shouldn’t be hard yet. Use how these sets felt to add some weight to the bar for each exercise - it still shouldn’t be super hard, but closer to being difficult sets - then repeat the same process. Use the first 5 minutes to get these warm-up sets done and to figure out what will be a sensible weight to use.
Finally, add weight to the point where 6-8 reps will be fairly challenging (you should feel like you could do 2-3 more when each set finishes - if you miss the mark, just adjust and remember for next time!). Set a timer for 20 minutes, and complete as many rounds of the above as you can whilst maintaining high quality reps - you should be looking at 45 seconds or so between exercises and potentially a longer rest of 1 minute-1 minute 30 after you finish a round. You’re not looking to work constantly here - you want high quality reps, so take enough rest and feel free to err on the side of this being a bit too easy initially. Make a note of how many reps and rounds you got done, alongside the weight, and you can either go heavier, aim for more reps or more rounds next time!
Enjoy!