4 Minutes with Bill

Hi, welcome to another episode of 4 Minutes with Bill.  I’m Bill Russell, my wife Staci and I run CrossFit Cleveland in Rocky River, OH. Today I’m going to talk about how you can get yourself ‘unstuck’ and out of a rut of inactivity. We work primarily with people who have let themselves go over the years and now want to get back in better shape, lose some weight and live a healthier lifestyle.  We know a little about that because we’ve done it ourselves, and we’ve helped hundreds of people do the same.  When someone tells me that they don’t know how to get started exercising, and that they are afraid to walk into to a gym, I tell them this.  Do 3 minutes of burpees every day for a week.  As many as you can do, in just three minutes.  Get yourself down on the floor, chest to deck, and get back up and stand tall.  Repeat for three minutes and count how many you can do.  Don’t worry about your form, it’s not going to be pretty right off the bat.  You won’t hurt yourself, ignore the critics who tell you otherwise. It might only be 5, maybe you get 10, it doesn’t matter, you started.  Do it again the next day, and simply try to beat your previous day’s number. Some days you will, some days you won’t. But by the end of the week, you’ll be feeling better about doing them. Now, do it for another week. You’ll start watching burpee video on Youtube and improving your movement. Before you know it, you’ll be knocking out 20 to 30 burpees.  Yes, you’ll be smoked, but you’ll feel great. Keep that up for a month and you’ll be ready to start a new routine at any gym in your area.    Now let’s say you have a day, and you will, that you just don’t want to do it.  Take it easy and just to a handful, maybe one every 30 seconds. Treat it like a rest or recovery day, but just do however many reps you can in three minutes.  Dr. Leo Marvin had it right.  Baby Steps.  Maybe you can already hammer out 40+ burpees in 3 minutes yourself.  Use this idea for someone else in your life who needs to find some trigger, some way to break out of their state of inertia.  It works, if done every day.  If you try this, send me a message every now and then and let me know how it is working for you.  Who knows, you might be ready to join CrossFit Cleveland in a few weeks and start off confident.  Don’t worry, we’ll help you keep it going.  Thanks listening, and until next time, happy burpees to you!