At Home Work-Outs

We all know how hard it can be to fit exercise in to our already busy day so why not try some of these fun and easy ways to stay active and unwind.

1. Walk the dog for 20 minutes each day – he or she will love you for it.
2. Take the kids for a bike ride through your neighbourhood – it’s a good way to spend quality time with your family.
3. Take up a physical hobby such as tennis, badminton, squash, mountain biking, bushwalking or swimming.
4. After dinner, lunge walk for 25 steps, alternating your legs.
5. Using a skipping rope, skip for 5 minutes to your favourite music to burn extra calories efficiently.
6. Take some friends or children to a park or grassy area and play soccer for 20 minutes.
7. Close your eyes and sit cross-legged in a quiet, comfortable place. Just ‘be there’ for 5 minutes, and focus on gently inhaling and exhaling through your nose. Feel the stress disappear as you become more centred and grounded.
8. When you’re blow drying your hair or brushing your teeth, go down into a squat position and hold it for 5 seconds. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
9. While you’re watching TV, stretch from side to side. Move into a wide stance, your toes facing forward, and reach one arm up over your head to one side as far as you can. Hold for 20 seconds and repeat on the other side.
10. While you’re cooking in the kitchen, take two soup cans or two full-gallon jugs of water and do two sets of 25 bicep curls – just don’t burn the food!
11. Play some backyard or beach cricket with your children or some friends for half an hour. Play by the ‘hit and run’ rule, and take it in turns to bat.
12. Whenever you have to pick up something off the floor, do five squats before you pick it up.
13. After you’ve been grocery shopping, do bicep curls while you’re carrying the bags into your place.
14. Find a corner in your place where you can place one hand on each corner of the wall. Step your feet back a bit, press inwards, hold the stretch for 10 seconds, and push back (the standing push-up) 15 times. At the end, hold the stretch one more time for 10 seconds.
15. Find a tree in your front yard or backyard or at your local park. Wrap a towel around it for support, and do two sets of 25 knee bends holding on to both ends of the towel.
16. During the ads while you’re lying on the couch watching TV, bend your knees at a 45 degree angle, put your hands behind your head, and do sets of crunches.
17. Next time you’re at the video store, swap that sad ‘chick flick’ and rent an exercise video! Watch it, and exercise as many times as you can before you return it.
18. Next time you’re lying on the floor with the kids, playing a game or reading a book, do a set of side leg raises for each leg.
19. Every time you clean the bathroom, make sure you do some standing push-ups against the basin.
20. While you’re barbecuing, do one set of 25 side leg raises on each side or two sets of 25 knee bends.
21. Watch a fitness channel on TV and participate in a new exercise class.
22. While you’re sitting down reading, put some ankle weights on and do two sets of 25 leg extensions.
23. While you’re cooking in the kitchen, wear some ankle weights and lift your heel to your buttocks. Do two sets of 25 of these hamstring curls.
24. When you’re putting your grocery shopping away, alternate standing on one leg while lifting water bottles or soup cans out to your side. Do two sets of 20.
25. Spend some time meeting your neighbours by walking around parts of your neighbourhood you haven’t visited before.
26. Get a ‘green thumb’ and plant a vegetable garden; you’ll need to be very active by hoeing, digging, planting and watering the plot, and you’ll have fresh vegetables and herbs for your efforts.  
27. Next time you vacuum, try wearing a backpack.
28. Ironing is sooo boring, but not when you’re working out during it – try rising from your heels to your tiptoes. Go up 15 times, take a rest, and start over again.
29. Dance along with the kids to the Wiggles or High Five.
30. In every TV ad break, put your back to the wall and ‘sit’ on an imaginary chair. Bend your knees at a 90 degree angle, hold for one ad, and rest for the next segment of the program you’re watching.
31. Grab an old 1980s or ’90s live-concert DVD that you know all the words to, and dance around the living room as if you’re Madonna, Cindi Lauper or Kylie Minogue!