Posts tagged ADLs

One of the most popular excuses people come up with on why they don’t exercise is because they don’t have time, but what if I told you you could exercise during normal daily activities? Well, you can!

Here are 10 ways to incorporate exercise in your normal daily routine. 

1. Bend: Stretch your hamstrings when you shave your legs (women) and put on your socks and shoes. Instead of bending your legs, bend at the hips, stretching your hamstring each time you need to reach your legs or feet. Do 3 sets of 30 second stretches when you are finished.

2. Move: Stand and walk around when you talk on the phone, instead of sitting in a chair.

3. Squat: Hover over the toilet, instead of sitting down, to strengthen your leg muscles (a great one to prepare you for dirty toilets!).

4. Squeeze: Hold your abs tight and do mini-crunches at every stop light. To make sure you are doing it right, place your hand over your stomach, fingers laying across your lower abdomen, thumb over your belly button. As you tighten your abs, you should feel your stomach tighten and flatten. Try to hold that position as for the entire light. Add pulses (mini-crunches) to boost intensity.

5. Flex: Hold groceries, or bags, like a dumbbell. Hold them in a static (isometric) bicep curl contraction, flexing your biceps, instead of holding them straight down by your side. This forces the weight onto your muscles instead of the weight of your bags just hanging off the bones. Muscles get stimulated (and pumped) and you get a boost of energy.

6. Fix: Correct your posture every time you get a text. Feet flat on the ground, pelvis tilted forward (so your bottom sticks out a bit), shoulders are rolled back, and head is aligned with your shoulders (no forward head). As often as we get texts, this should drastically help reduce neck, shoulder and back pain due to poor posture.

7. Stretch: Stretch your neck and chest every time you end a phone call. We all need a trigger to remind us to stretch through out the day. By choosing a regular occurance, like a phone call or email, you can get in the habit of stretching more often – and prevent neck injury or posture related neck pain.

8. Pump: Pump out a bunch of air squats while you are waiting for your food to heat up in the microwave. Most people stare at the microwave, or do nothing, while they wait. Boost your energy by boosting activity when you wait for mundane tasks like waiting to nuke your food.

9. Walk: Power walk from your parking space to your destination. Most people mosey across the lot. Don’t be THAT person. Walk with purpose and drive. You’ll not only get out of other drivers’ way, but you’ll get a boost of energy in the process.

10. Exercise: Do at least one exercise during each commercial break while you zip through commercials (yes, even you Ti-Vo people). Sit-sup, push-ups, plank, crunches, squats or lunges are all great exercises to tone your body during a time we are bored anyway. Why not get fit during the Jenny Craig commercial!

In today’s busy world, we have to get creative to get active! This is YOUR year!