Exercises tailored for your lifestyle
SPENDING all day in meetings or classes back-to-back, or hunkered down at your desk, can make you feel like all you have the energy to do afterwards is unwind and get yourself ready for another day of pretty much the same thing. And those us who manage to fight the exhaustion end up pulling up YouTube videos or Googling random exercises. But fitness trainer and personal instructor Gisel Harrow said that a fitness regimen should be personal and tailored to match your lifestyle for best results.
“Exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. This, along with a balanced diet and enough rest, helps to keep our bodies in utmost physical health, but unfortunately the events of some people’s lives can be so much that they strike it from their days altogether,” Harrow said.
If you are quite the busy bee, not to worry, Harrow has shared some simple and effective exercises that will give you quite a workout.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
These specific techniques are effective because they are compact, targeting some of the major muscle groups as well as raising your heart rate and can be done in 10 to 20 minutes.
“A basic HIIT workout would be 20 jumping jacks, 10 push ups, 20 free squats and 20 bicycle crunches. You should aim to do rounds for 10-20 minutes and you can combine any of your favourite exercises and do them as a HIIT,” Harrow advised.
She said the added benefit of these exercises is that unless you decide to, there is no need for gym equipment and they can all be done while you are at the office throughout the day.
Walk every opportunity you get
More companies are installing elevators to make buildings more accessible and while it might be tempting to use it especially when you are late, if you want to increase your physical activities in a day then it would be good to take the stairs as often as you can.
“Other things that you want to do are to walk to close destinations since your job might involve a lot of sitting. Park farther from a building entrance rather than right out front, and get off your bus one stop early and walk the rest of the journey home (consider your safety first always though),” Harrow advised. She said that any amount of cardio activity adds up with consistency.
Do more chores
After all that time spent at work most people would much prefer to hire help to get the housework done. However, if you are serious about getting fitter, then taking on household chores can be quite beneficial.
“House and yard work can be quite a workout, especially when done at a brisk pace. So you want to start scrubbing, vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, mowing, and weeding — it all counts. So just put some fast beat music on and you are guaranteed to work up quite a sweat and contribute to overall physical health and wellness,” Harrow advised.
