Thursday, September 10, 2009

Exercise Shmexercise

That is a technical term, thanks.

You see I write down what I eat, some of what that food is and that I'm a lover of exercise. You have now stopped reading. I know, its totally annoying. Everyone hates exercise.

Except, no, you don't.

Do you like walking in your neighborhood? Do you enjoy playing with your kid? Or even pointing and flexing your feet while on the phone at work? If you can say yes to any of these things you don't hate exercise.

There is nothing that makes me more crazy than crazy exercise people who claim you must burn thousands of calories per week to be fit. First of all everyone is different and everyone has different priorities. Yea, the American Heart Association wants you to exercise for 30 minutes per day 5 days per week but its your exercise, you define it. No one is telling you to spend half an hour on a treadmill Monday through Friday. You don't need to go to the gym for three hours a day, in fact you don't even need the gym. It can be as easy as getting off the couch and taking a walk. No, really. You might ultimately define exercise by your heart rate, but it is a waste of time to intimidate yourself by starting out with these concerns. Just stand up, strap on the sneaks and MOVE.

"But, but, but", you're thinking, "YOU go to the gym all the time, YOU work there part time". Well, yea but I'm me and you're you. AND I work out at home* all the time! One of the best pieces of equipment I own - wait for it - is a jump rope. Get yourself a quality jump rope. The one I have was ten dollars online. Its the Buddy Lee brand and it rocks. Anyone can stand in their den/living room/basement and jump rope for one minute, do 5 push ups, 10 squats and 15 sit ups for as many rounds as your able. Mix it up. Take the jump rope outside. Walk for 10 minutes then jump rope for a 100 turns. There are even systems out there that are designed to be scalable to everyone and some even allow you to workout without equipment.

Hate jump ropes? Remind you of the horrible pain of elementary school? Screw 'em - walk for 10 minutes then do the push up, squat, sit up routine. Google the word burpee (this is a workout, not a bodily function). There are tons of exercises you can do.

Now that you've googled burpee are you totally freaked out? Well lets take it down a notch. Do you like handstands? Those require effort. Try doing a handstand push-up if you want to. Or even do you have stairs in your office building? Or even at home?

The point is, not only is exercise easy to find, it can be free and you probably actually like it. You just might not define some things as exercise.

*As soon as I can successfully retrieve the digital camera from my fiance's clutches I'm going to take a picture of our wonderful home gym. Trust me, you'll want to see this. It includes an erg. Go ahead, google, I'll wait.

1 comment:

diane w said...

okay, who is on the crew team? an erg and burpees? sounds like my rowing practices in college...