Let’s face it: Any activity is better than none, especially in our sedentary society.
Granted, our ancestors didn’t need to hang out at a gym. They just ran for long stretches in search of their dinner (animals), then chopped wood on which to cook their meals and stay warm or climbed trees for berries, etc.
Since millions of us are city bound by choice, it can be a challenge for us to regularly swing an axe or sledgehammer or pick up rocks, logs and cinder blocks, as the Guam-based, Zen Habits blogger Leo Babauta suggests. (Would that I had some of these things in my city apartment!)
Likewise, many of us may not have the space in our place to get into shovelgloving, as LifeHacker recommends.
But don’t fret. Those of us who live in a city have lots of things we can do to spice up our daily activities with exercise bursts (other than going to the gym — of course, you should still do that, too).
Here are some of my favorite exercise routines to do at home or near it:
- Boogie while seated to dance hits you’ve downloaded into iTunes. (I’m doing that right now. I’m determined to get back into my pre-Lyme disease shape.)
- Quickly move from sitting-down to standing position, as Jack LaLanne recently suggested on my Gab With the Gurus Radio Show.
- Don on your fanny pack and take brisk walks to do your errands to the dry cleaners, grocery store and drug store.
- Leave the car at home, if you can, when doing errands. Or, at the least, only take it half the way so you have to walk the rest of the way.
- Deliberately "forget" about an errand so that you have to double back and take two trips — that means you’ll walk more. (It’s kind of fun to do this — in fact, I always amuse myself by overlooking another errand.)
Now for another seven of my absolute favorite non-exercise tricks:
- Sprint up stairs wherever you are, whenever steps are available. (It never ceases to amaze me how few people do that at the movies. Actually, if I’m in the mood, I’ll bound two steps at a time because people are seldom in my way. What’s the matter with stairs, folks? Why do you need escalators?)
- When you’re on your way home from a store, etc., gleefully hoist your packages up in the air and even from side to side as if they were weights. Make sure to bring your iPod or similar contraption — you’ll have lots more fun that way being able to listen to music at the same time. (You should have seen me yesterday when I lifted Gear Box three multi-use, large eyelet totes in the air while walking home from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It was a blast!)
- Clean your house — and vigorously, always with upbeat music to help propel you with enthusiasm.
- Get that kitchen floor clean without a mop. Instead, do lots of squats and clean that kitchen floor using your hands and a towel or scrub brush.
- Push and shove to get those stains out of the bathtub, making sure to get nice stretches at the same time.
- Keep a hula hoop or some kind of digital fitness gizmo around the house. Of course, you’ll want to make sure to use it, too.
- Ditto with a jump rope.
Those are a few of my favorite things. Of course, you’ll still want to to get outdoors, too, and head on over the the gym.
Well all this exercise talk is making me antsy! You see, despite doing lots of these things, I’m finally getting back my (yeah, the energy-robbing Lyme disease is moving on out), so I’m off to take a bike ride.
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