You can get the body to serve you well by challenging your flexibility, strength, stability, and endurance by changing household chores into a workout.
Depending on your weight and how hard you work, you can burn up to 250 calories an hour doing housework, and even more when gardening or shovelling snow. Even everyday simple tasks like loading the dishwasher can burn 105 calories and making the beds burns around 130 calories.
Walking lunges, while using a vacuum cleaner or moping the floor
Turn vacuuming into a complete body workout. Suck in your abs and take a step forward while pushing the vacuum cleaner, allowing your front and back leg to bend while lowering yourself toward the ground. Create a 90-degree angle with both legs, keeping 70 percent of your weight on your front foot and keeping your chest up. Hold for five second then take your back leg and step forward to repeat the lunge on the other side. Squat while lifting the furniture.
Butt Lifts While Cooking
Stand tall and engage your core muscles as your stir your soup or bake your chicken. To perform butt lifts: Lift one leg up behind you and point through the toes; lift and lower the leg a few inches up and down for 20 pulses. Repeat on the opposite side. Doing two to three reps on each leg is great for the back of the thighs, hips, hamstrings, and core muscles.
Abdominal twists while Cleaning the Windows
Stand in the middle of the window such that you can twist from right to the left. Keep your hips forward and backside tucked under to protect your back and engage your abs on every twist (pretend someone is about to punch you in the stomach).
Do Calf Raises, while doing dishes
Do calf raises while you wash, and squats while you dry. Do at least 20 calf raise, where you stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and raise up onto the balls of your feet, then lower back down to the floor. After 20, take the towel and start drying while you squat—pretend you’re sitting in an imaginary chair, or put a real one behind you and touch your butt to it; then stand back up. After 20 reps, go back to washing with calf raises until the dishes are done.
Squat While Folding Laundry
Place your basket of clean clothes on the floor, and instead of bending over to pick up the items to fold, squat down instead. Stand with feet hip-width apart and bend the knees until your butt is level with them (but don’t let your knees go past your toes; stay slightly higher if you don’t have the range of motion to go low while maintaining your form). And be sure to engage your core as you come back up to stand. Squats will work the hips, buttocks, backs of the thighs, and the core.
Shoulder Workout vs. Car Washing
Car washing and waxing. both strengthen the stabilizing muscles in your shoulders and promote rotational movement. They help open your shoulders, which tend to hunch over and round from hours spent slumped over a computer and smartphone.
Smart tip: Don’t just wash and wax in one direction, go clockwise and anticlockwise to work the shoulders across all three planes of motion.
Gardening: A Fresh Air Workout
Raking dry leaves is a simple task but one that works your body across three planes of motion. Though, to be honest, squatting to bag the leaves and hauling them to the curb are the most taxing part of the chore. Once or twice a week spend an hour or more pulling stubborn deep-rooted weeds and you’ll experience soreness unlike anything from the gym. The pulling, rotational, and twisting movements will challenge your upper body. Protect your hands with quality gloves. Place a pad under your knees to maximize comfort, too.
While you’re dusting, strap on weights
A great way to get arms burning while dusting is to wear some ankle weights around your wrists. Dusting burns 174 calories in an hour. While all the time you are cleaning walk quickly on the stairs.
Tone arm muscles while washing Plates. Repeat the movement at least 20 times per arm: remember, “Wax on, wax off”?
Ironing Clothes with Ab crunches
For at least an hour burns around 150 calories. Be sure to stand properly: back straight, legs slightly apart, moving from right to left with abs tucked in for 20-30 count, 15-20 times.
Make Shopping an Exercise Opportunity.
When selecting groceries, stretch for that elusive package on the top shelf rather than grabbing what’s closest. Unpacking the car and putting away groceries is a lifting-and-stretching session. And if you can walk to the store and carry your purchases home, so much the better. If not, try parking farther from the store to get in some extra exercise.
Don’t forget to put on the Music and Dance at The Rhythm of Music around the house while you clean.
Don’t Forget to Watch your Posture. while sitting avoid crossing your legs, keep your feet firm on the floor, contract the abdominals, keep your back straight, lengthening the spine, relax your shoulders and lower your chin slightly to relax the neck.
Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
