Everyday is Earth Day
{Alternative Post Title: I Slacked Off and Skipped Writing an Earth Day Post, So Here It Is}
In all seriousness, I was a bad earth-lover yesterday. I drove my car a lot. I shopped at big box stores and brought plastic crap into my home. I barely even made it into the yard for my daily survey.
The one part of my day that was earth friendly was my workout.
As tempted as I was to go to the gym and slog away on the elliptical while watching television I stayed home to get my sweat on.
Unplugged workouts=big [calorie] energy burn for little [electrical] energy burn!
I ran up and down the stairs, lifted weights, rolled around on my stability ball, did some jumping jacks and had a hell of a workout, all while minimizing my carbon footprint.
Yes, there are bigger changes that we could all make in terms of minimizing our impact on the earth but greening out workouts has great dividends!
Benefits of the unplugged workout can include;
- Increased intensity. No matter how fancy the treadmill, it’s still more work to run outside!
- Increased mind-body connection. Ellipticals, treadmills, and exercise bikes allow you to space out because you are stationary and repeating the same movements over and over again. Going unplugged requires you to tune into your body as you navigate obstacles and coordination.
- Diversity of movement. When I work out unplugged I do a variety of exercises, like burpees, jumping jacks, and high knees to get my heart rate up while working my body through several ranges of motion.
Here are some suggestions for how workout unplugged;
- Pilates!
- Yoga!
- Aerobics classes!
- Hike!
- Bike!
- Garden!
- Interval train with jumping jacks, burpees, stairs, jumping squats, jump rope, anything that gets that heart rate up!
If the thought of going cold turkey on your plugged in gym machine is more than you can handle than think of it like Meat-free Mondays and go unplugged for one workout a week. After all, everyday really is Earth Day.
