Ep. #410: How to Build a Capsule Fitness Routine

Welcome to the Not Your Average Runner podcast. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running coach, and your running BFF here to help you start running. Feel confident and love the journey no matter your size. Now, if you’ve ever felt like you just weren’t meant to be a runner, think again. I believe that running is for all bodies, even yours.

This podcast is your warmup buddy, giving you tips, motivation, and the support you need to lace up and get moving. I’ve helped thousands of women become runners, and now I wanna help you. Let’s go.

Hey friends, and welcome back to the show. Today we are talking about something you have probably heard in the fashion world, and that is the capsule wardrobe, but we are applying it to your fitness routine because, let’s be honest, most of us are drowning in options when it comes to movement. There are apps and classes and gadgets and programs, and TikTok workouts and YouTube videos and advice from your neighbor.

It’s overwhelming and the more choices we have, the harder it is to just fucking do something. So today we are decluttering your movement and building what I like to call a capsule routine. So let’s talk about why less is more when it comes to fitness. Think about a capsule wardrobe. It’s a small collection of versatile pieces that you love, that fit you and that you feel good in, and you can mix and match them endlessly.

Okay? So they work with each other. It’s not like one thing that you can only wear on one day of the year, right? It is a useful collection of pieces that work together. You don’t have 47 pairs of jeans. You have like two that fit well and work for your lifestyle. Now, fitness is the same, right? You do not need a whole arsenal of workouts.

You don’t need an overstuffed gym or a complicated weekly plan. You just need a handful of moves and practices that, number one, you actually enjoy that number two. Cover all your bases, and that’s strength, cardio, mobility, and recovery. And number three, fit into your schedule. All right. Easy peasy. When you narrow things down, what you do is you save mental energy.

You avoid that decision fatigue, and you make it so much easier to stay consistent by simplifying it. All right, so the problem. With too many options, and this is one of the biggest traps that I see women fall into, uh, in the fitness world, is what I call fitness clutter. Okay. It shows up like this, subscribing to three different workout apps, but not opening any of them and just.

Seeing them on your phone going, oh, I should really use that. Um, buying random equipment, especially, you know, you go to Costco and you see like this really cool little piece of equipment and it’s on sale and you buy it and you never use it or you use it once and it ends up collecting dust. Or you have like 17 different resistance bands.

You only use one of ’em. Um, another type of fitness, clever clutter is trying to start new programs like every other week. ’cause you’re never sure which one is right. So you do one for a couple days, you’re like, oh, maybe this isn’t the right one. And then you try a different one. You try a different one, and you haven’t been consistent with anything because you’re just bouncing all over the place.

It’s, it’s kind of like, you know this feeling, I know you know this feeling when you’re standing in front of your closet and you’ve got it, there’s so many clothes in there. It is stuffed with stuff. There’s stuff on the floor, there’s stuff on the shelves, and you’re like, I got nothing to wear. I, except now instead of that.

You’re like, I got nothing to do. I don’t know what to do to work out, even though you have a million choices because the clutter paralyzes you. So what is a capsule fitness routine? I’m about to tell you. So a capsule fitness routine is a curated set of movement practices that covers your needs, feels doable and can be rotated depending on your mood or schedule.

Alright, is your go-to menu. So here is what goes in a capsule fitness routine. Number one strength, especially if you are Gen X or older, muscle protects your bones, your joints. Your independence, my friends. This may not be something that you wanna hear right now. If you’re like 50 years old and you’re thinking, I got another 40 years.

Yeah, it starts now. Okay? Be strong because it’s gonna help you. When you’re 80 and you fall down, you’re not gonna break a hip, okay? Or maybe you won’t even fall down because you’re gonna be so strong. So number one thing in the CA capsule routine is strength. Number two is cardio. Okay. And again, it doesn’t need to be hardcore cardio.

We are, we’re not doing necessarily super high intensity workouts. You just need some cardio to work out your heart and lungs ’cause they’re literally keeping you alive, okay? It’s important for your heart and lungs to be pretty efficient. Number three. Is mobility and flexibility, all right? Because moving well and comfortably and not feeling like so achy that every step hurts, that is just as important as moving often.

So we need your body to be mobile and flexible in addition to being strong and having, um, a good cardiovascular capacity. And then finally, this is my favorite part recovery because you’ve heard me say this a million times on this podcast. Rest is how you get stronger. Your body needs time off to rest so that it can absorb the training that you’re giving it.

All right. If you do all those other things and you never rest, you never do any kind of recovery activities, you are going to get burned out. You’re gonna be overtrained, and you’re gonna get hurt. Okay? So recovery is arguably after strength, the second most important, but that’s it, right? Four categories, and you’re gonna pick one or two simple options in each category, and that’s your capsule.

Okay? All right. So how do we build a capsule routine? Let’s make it practical. Here’s how you do it. From the strength category, you’re gonna choose two or three body weight or dumbbell moves that you enjoy, right? Make it simple, make it something you can do easily at home. And for example, you might pick squats, pushups, and rows.

You want something that’s gonna hit your lower body, your upper body, and maybe your core. Um, so squats, pushups, and rows or maybe planks. Uh. Tricep kickbacks and, uh, single leg deadlifts. I don’t know. I’m getting a little complicated here, which is the opposite point of what I’m trying to make, but choose two or three body weight or dumbbell moves that you enjoy.

Try to hit at least two body parts, lower and upper, and that’s your capsule strength routine. You can totally build on it later, but you don’t need 12 different machines at the gym. You don’t need one of those fancy workout mirror things, although I wouldn’t mind having one. They do look really cool, but you don’t need that, right?

You literally, your body, especially if you’re plus size, your body. Has enough weight to train you for lots of stuff. Okay, so that strength cardio, you’re gonna pick two cardio things you like, all right? Walking and dancing, great. Running and biking, perfect. Hiking and kickboxing. Awesome. Whatever makes you feel good and fits your life, and it doesn’t need to be hardcore cardio.

All right? Something that is fun and enjoyable and gets your heart rate up a little bit. Now, in the mobility and flexibility category, you’re gonna pick a very quick go-to practice. Maybe it is a five minute yoga flow that you found on YouTube. I love yoga with Adrianne. She’s got tons of free, um, workouts over there.

But it doesn’t need to be hours and hours, right? Five minutes or a simple stretch sequence every night before bed, right? Just something that is creating some flexibility and mobility in your body, and you’re doing it with regularity. And finally, recovery. This is the best part. This is where you get to chill, right?

So I want you to define what recovery looks like for you. Maybe it is rest days. Maybe it’s some foam rolling, or maybe it’s a massage day. Maybe it’s. Some meditation so you get a little bit of recovery for your brain. Choose one or two practices that will help your body reset. Okay, so we’ve picked two or three.

Are, are you seeing a uh, uh, pattern here? Two or three from strength, two from cardio, one or two for mobility and flexibility, one or two from recovery. We’re keeping it simple in our four categories. Okay, so the magic here is you don’t need to reinvent the wheel every week. All right? You know your capsule, you pick from it and you’re done.

You can always go outside the capsule if you want to, but when you have the capsule defined, you’ve always got easy go-to options that you know are gonna work for you, so you don’t have to get all lost in confusion and overwhelmed. Now, what are the benefits? Well, we’ve been talking about the benefits all along, but let me bullet point it here for you.

Simplicity, my friends, leads to consistency. Okay. You know what you’re doing, you just get it done. There’s no arguments, flexibility, and this is, I mean, flexibility of your routine means if you’ve got different options in each category, you can swap ’em out based on. Your mood or your energy and you can make progress without getting burnt out, right?

You’re covering all the bases without overloading yourself. And of course, freedom, right? Freedom of money, which you’re not buying like a million new programs. Um, and just freedom of your time and your decisions, right? You don’t need to chase shiny new programs to feel like you are doing enough. Now, how often should you be doing each of these things?

So it, this is not like every day I do my strength and my cardio and my mobility and my recovery. No. Couple days a week you do some strength. Two, three days a week you do some cardio. One or two days a week you do some mobility and maybe one day a week you do some recovery. You can mix and match it however you want.

Just get some of each in every single week. Easy peasy. Okay. There’s no magic formula. Just what works for you. Now Gen X folks, listen up. Come to me. My Gen X women, we grew up in the area of less is more in so many ways, right? One phone for the whole house. Who remembers the kitchen phone with the 30 foot cord?

And you’re like, I can almost stretch it into my bedroom. Right? Um, but also in other ways. We were in the area, era where. Consumption was really starting to ramp up and VHS tapes. It, you know, in my house, we must have had 20 different aerobics. VHS tapes. Good grief. I had almost every single Jane Fonda I did her, I don’t know if you remember the Jane Fonda step workout.

I was obsessed with it. My dad, who was really good, um, at building things, built me, uh, an aerobic step. ’cause I couldn’t afford one of those like big fancy plastic ones that were just coming out in the eighties. So my dad built me one out of wood, and I did that. Jane Fonda. Step tape until it broke. Uh, it was just, uh, it was beautiful.

But my point is, let me get back to my point here, which is that, you know, we, we came from an era where, you know, there where, where things were a lot simpler, right? But in the eighties and then in the nineties, consumption started to ramp up. Tech started to show up in a lot of ways in our daily lives, and things started to get complicated.

So this capsule routine is like going back to basics, except this time. You get to be in charge. You don’t need Jane Fonda. You don’t need Beachbody, you don’t need taibo, uh, or Jazzercize. Anybody remember Jazzercize? I did that once and only once. Um, you don’t need whatever the latest streaming service is telling you, right?

You just need that small, powerful toolkit that actually works for you. And that’s what this capsule, um, I wanna say capsule wardrobe. That’s what this capsule fitness routine is all about. So how do you start it today? Pick like literally right now. After you finish this podcast, pick one strength, move one cardio activity, and one recovery practice.

That is your starter capsule, and you can like build on it from there. Do ’em this week. Do a strength, move today. Do a cardio tomorrow. Do recovery the day after that. All right, no fancy tracking, no over planning. And then notice how it feels. If you like it, keep it. If you do not like it, swap it out for something else.

You’re in charge. Your capsule doesn’t have to be perfect, right? We let it be messy around here. Your capsule just has to be yours. It has to be your creation, all right? I mean, yes, you can steal it from your bestie if you want, if it works for you, but you can also make it yours. So you decluttering your movement is about making space for consistency.

Because when you stop Overcomplicating Fitness, you can actually do it. So I want you to start thinking what is in your capsule routine? And hey, if you see or are on Instagram, post your capsule routine on Instagram and tag me. I wanna know, and by the way, the Midlife Movement Makeover program. Which just launched a couple weeks ago, is all about helping you think through how to make exercise a regular part of your life.

Alright? It is 30 days long. You will be amazed at how easy it is to implement and succeed at it, and it’s only $29. Come on. So you can learn more about the Midlife Movement Makeover program at not your average runner.com/midlife. That’s not your average runner.com/midlife, or you can just go to the link in the show notes ’cause I’ve made it super easy for you to click on that.

So that is it for this time, my friend. I’m gonna see you next week.

Real quick before you go, I’ve got a fun challenge for you. Take my exerciser personality quiz to find out exactly what kind of exerciser you are and how to make running feel easier and more enjoyable.

Just head over to not your average runner.com/quiz to take it and get your results. That’s not your average runner.com/quiz.