The other day a dear friend of mine commented that she’s no longer able to carve out a good chunk of time to workout. She’s a single mom to an almost 2 year old. She works three jobs. She owns a home. The women’s got a lot on her plate.
She knows that exercise makes the rest of her life better, emotionally and physically, but she doesn’t know how to possible make time to go to the gym.
I told her she was looking for an uninterrupted block of time to get her exercise in. Maybe she needed to start doing interrupted workouts.
A set of kitchen curls.
A few dining room dips.
Some living room lunges.
{just ignore the raggy shirt and slippers. or don’t. that’s the real me afterall, i like clothes that have been lived in, they’re more comfortable. :)}
Too often we (myself included) get caught up in the idea that exercise needs to be organized and uninterrupted. The truth is that any movement is good movement!
I love a sweaty, hard, full body Tabata workout to fulfill my strength training goals but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Sometimes I’m really tired or stuck at work or really need to clean the house. When this happens I do what I can; a set of push ups-sweep the stairs-a plank or two-put in the laundry-bicep curls-clean the toilet. By the end of the hour the house is clean and my muscles are worked!
The key to the interrupted workout is to make sure that your muscles are warm and ready, don’t go from 0-60 and back again. I always start with push ups on my knees because they warm up my entire upper body. Following push ups is a few shoulder and arm circles and swings, basically just moving my arms and shoulders through their full range of motion.
My friend seemed keen to the idea of getting it where she could (no! not like that!) and last night I got a text from her that read “Dropping and doing two rounds of 10 push ups–you?”. No doubt she was wiped out from her day and her son was climbing all over her during the push ups but she knew that a quick minute or two of exercise would only make things better.
Do you do interrupted workouts? What’s your favorite exercise to throw in with the rest of your day?
I’m off to do the dishes and some dips!
I sometimes do a few lunges and squats while waiting for my lunch to heat up at work! I also power walk the long around to get to other places in my office. Sometimes if I’m feeling really tired, I’ll close a conference room door and do a few jumping jacks and downward dogs to get the blood flowing.
I especially love the conference room jacks! I used to work at an farm stand and there was one spot in the kitchen where I could do jacks without being spotted.
I take a great yoga class twice a week and during the last class our instructor said we should do at least 5 minutes of yoga stretches every morning – 10 would be even better- to wake up and warm up our body for the day.
I’m going to add your suggestions to my cleaning routine to make it more fun and get in a workout at the same time.
Thanks!
I jump on my exercycle for a few minutes whenever I can or I lay down on my mat (which I keep unfurled on my bedroom floor) for a few stretches or I pick-up a dumbell and lift a few. It adds up through the day on those days when I don’t have a nice chunk of time to do it all at once.
I don’t have a lot of uninterrupted time either, so I try to weave it into my every day lifestyle. I’m in choir at my local university, which is two blocks from my house, so the three days a week I have rehearsal I walk to and from campus. 🙂
I do pliés while I brush my teeth. When I remember to. I love pliés, and as I get older I think doing them is helping keep my hip joints flexible.
Working in the theatre, I look for any reason to go up and down the long, steep stairs to access the control booth, projection room and tool closet; the historic StairMaster
After reading Kath’s blog and hearing you mentioned for so long, I finally opened the recent URL for your salt recipe and started reading… I realized that I had gone through /50 pages of your blog over the last few days without commenting. Just thought I would say hi, and that your commentary on life, health and food is appreciated!
(Also – after a failed attempt at Kombucha this summer I am going to try again)
Hi Steph,
Thanks for checking it out! My Kombucha’s been failing lately too! It is a finicky culture, it will work great forever and then just switch and crap out. I may just need to start from scratch. Good luck!
Faith
10 Ways Get 10 Minutes Of Exercise
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