Turning Your Everyday Activities Into Useful Workouts

I'm all about having success...even celebrating the tiny wins, and I learned this from one of my mentors. I believe in having coaches and mentors in my life to help me accelerate my progress and help me ultimately attain my goals... I have a health coach, life coach, and business coach, as well as several mentors. These are people that I pay to gain their expertise and hold me accountable.

A few nights ago, I spoke with my health coach to check in on my wellness plan. I shared my philosophy about A House With Four Rooms and kaizen, and we decided a good place to begin is to track my water intake...again, not changing anything except being more aware of just how much I'm drinking...or not drinking...it's important to stay hydrated.

A popular approach to getting into shape these days is to make tiny challenges and commitments you can stick to that will allow you to work towards a goal without having to make any single, huge change to your routine.

A good example of this would be to make yourself do ten press ups a day instead of doing a full workout. This way you can develop the habit of working out regularly and in all likelihood you will find you often do more than 10. Over time you can then add a few reps on, maybe a different exercise and eventually you'll have tricked yourself into doing full workouts.

That's kaizen or 'micro workouts' and it's a great concept. But you know what's even easier to stick to and what's even better?

Making no change to your routine whatsoever.

If you want to improve your mobility, your weight loss, your muscle tone and more you don't have to do anything extra at all. Instead, you just have to change the way you're doing things that you already do…

Making Things Into a Workout

Here's an easy way to practice mobility. If you struggle to touch your toes then simply make the decision that every time you pick something up off the ground, you will do it with your legs straight by bending over and touching the floor. If you struggle to squat, then do that instead.

Another example is your cardio fitness. Want to be thinner? Or to get less out of breath doing regular things? Then instead of walking places, just lightly jog. Or even just power walk. For me, I am practicing by climbing the stairs.

Want to build bigger calves and yet again help to make yourself thinner? Next time you're waiting at a bus stop or anywhere else, do calf raises. You can even use the curb in order to do actual proper raises! I also do calf raises while holding onto my kitchen counter; this is also how I do a modified plank exercise.

There are countless ways like this you can work small and simple 'exercises' into your routine. And actually, by taking this approach you will find you create benefits that are above and beyond even training normally.

That's because we are actually designed to train throughout the day – not to be static for 23 hours and to go intense for just one. By exercising throughout the day, you keep your heart rate up and your metabolism going and you provide yourself with superior benefits. It's like turning your whole day into one giant workout!

So now, take a moment to stand up and stretch!

Until next time...

Cheers!

Lisa