Practical Tips to Incorporate Exercise into Your Daily Life
Written by Anri van Rooyen (Health & Fitness Consultant)
We all know that exercising is great for us for different aspects of our lives: emotionally, mentally (improved mood, happiness, self-confidence) and physically (to gain muscle and lose fat gives us a more streamlined body). Daily exercise is crucial to reap the benefits, but lets be honest: if you haven\’t exercised ever or a really long time ago, getting into the habit can be difficult.
In this case I generally suggest functional training. So basically functional training, for rehab or newbies, are exercises that assist you in performing daily activities/tasks better and to prevent injuries. Functional training for sports will incorporate exercises that will improve the individuals skills for a specific sport.
Functional exercises that you can incorporate without even noticing:
- Park a little further from the entrance when you go shopping. This will help you burn those extra calories by getting in more stepsper day. If you live close to a grocery store, walk all the way.
- Carry your grocery bags instead of using a trolley
- Rather take the stairs than an elevator or escalator
- Every time you go to the toilet while at work, perform 10x seated squats at your chair (sit on your chair and stand up straight, repeat 10 times)
- Instead of having your 10 min coffee break, go for a walk in your office park or climb the stairs up and down
- While you are waiting for the kettle to boil or your bath to run, do 10 squats followed by 10 wall push-ups
- While you are cooking a meal in the oven, perform 10 split lunges (on each side) or try 10 jump rope hops and 10 jumping jacks while you\’re waiting
Who needs a gym?
Nobody said that if you start exercising, you need a gym. This is the furthest form the truth! Your body is amazing and it is all that you need! When you want to start exercising more regularly or up your intensity, you can also have a look at my Online Home Workout Program. This is ideal for beginners and the program will assist you on what type of exercises to do, as well as to measure your progress, correct form and technique and much more. Your results will be better if you do it properly from the beginning. It is important to maintain proper form when doing ANY EXERCISE (even the ones I mentioned above).
You can exercise in the comfort of your own home – get an area in your house that you make your dedicated exercise spot. This will also help and is a great motivator in itself, because every time you walk past it, it is a reminder that you need to exercise. Push on through and just do it! Even a 10 minute interval workout is better than doing nothing! If you pay attention, you will be amazed at how many 10 minutes of idle time a day you can find to turn into exercise opportunities.
Clearly, the opportunities to shape up is there if you want to see them. There is no excuse!
All you need to is take the next step and start off by doing the exercises I suggest above, you will feel the difference within the first week.
Yours in healthy living,
Anri xoxo