We’re all leading busier and busier lives nowadays, and most people don’t think they’ve enough time in their day to exercise. However, just 20 minutes exercise every day can help you achieve your goal.
Here’s my top 8 tips to fit exercise into your busy day.
1. Maximize your commute
Cycle or run to the station or office. Really challenge your heart rate (which will improve your fitness) by taking in a few hills on the way. Make it a game and constantly challenge yourself – time your commute and see if you can improve your time each day.
2. Use the park as your gym
Whether you’re entertaining the kids or walking the dogs, you can use your time at the park to squeeze some extra exercise into your day. While your kids (either the human or furry kind) are having fun, you can do body weight exercises such as lunges or squats, perform chin ups on climbing frames and do tricep dips or press ups using a park bench.
3. Wake up 30 minutes earlier
Create more time to work out by getting up 30 minutes earlier. It may be tough at first, but after 2 weeks your body will adapt to this new routine. Getting your exercise out of the way, early in the morning, means you can relax for the rest of the day, knowing that your daily workout is done.
4. Workout at your desk
If you work from home (or a very laid back office) you can do some exercises whilst you work. Do 20 press ups, go back to typing, recover for a minute or two and then repeat. You can also do some crunches or planks and then go back to typing again. You could hold a bridge while you read a report or you can do a heel bridge, you just need an interval trainer and you are set to go. If you can’t exercise in the office, you could find a quiet place such as a meeting room or park to do these exercises in your lunch hour.
5. Workout on a plane
Instead of filling up on peanuts, you can use this time to cram in some exercise. Using a grip trainer, you can do forearm training and stretches from your seat. This is a really beneficial exercise – most people are weak on their forearm flexors so training your grip means you’ll be able to hold heavier weights.
6. Workout at home
Create your own home mini gym so that you can exercise whenever you get some spare time. Invest in some dumbbells, a medicine ball and resistance bands – they are cheap to buy and easy to use.
We all say that we don’t watch much TV, but we probably watch more that we think. Even if you only watch 20 minutes TV a day – it’s a perfect amount of time to do a workout at home.
You can also work out whilst doing jobs around the house. Do calf raises, lunges, frontal plain lunges and squats in the kitchen whilst waiting for the dinner to cook. You can also hold yourself up at the corner of the kitchen unit to do shoulder presses with a 2 litre water bottle.
7. Always take the stairs
We are all leading busier and busier lives nowadays, and most people don’t think they’ve enough time in their day to exercise. However, just 20 minutes exercise every day can help you achieve your goal.
8. And stretch….
Stretch whenever you have a chance and especially after a workout. Stretching helps improve your performance as it increase flexibility and reduces the risk of injury. Stretching is simple to do and can be done anywhere – a perfect exercise to do whilst watching the TV.
So here’s 8 simple ways to include exercise into your day. How many will you try?
If you have any questions about this article or you need a plan, please…