Tag Archives: chores

6 Ways to Turn Spring Cleaning into a Full-Body Workout

We’ve made it through the long winter and spring is finally here and in full swing! ‘Tis the season for baseball, sunny days, green things growing and everyone’s favorite activity: spring cleaning! Since free time is something that most of us don’t have an abundance of, it’s good to know that you can easily multitask while engaging in your spring cleaning chores. According to My Fitness Pal heavy cleaning can burn up to 250 calories per hour, making it a worthwhile fitness activity. And, by adding in just a few simple moves to your cleaning routine, you can burn even more!

Here’s six ways to fire up your heart rate, engage your muscles and get a calorie-blasting workout while you get your spring cleaning on:

1. Blast your favorite heart-pumping tunes
Before you start cleaning, make a playlist of music that gets you pumped. Think about songs that you listen to when going for a run or doing a cardio workout at the gym. Music with an upbeat rhythm is more likely to make you not only clean faster, but help you have fun while doing it. Go ahead and blast that music and dance around with that mop or duster (and burn a ton of calories while doing it!). You’ll discover a whole new appreciation for cleaning.

(more…)

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Lauren Martin

Lunch Break Sweat-Free Workouts for Busy Bees

You’ve got a crazy hectic schedule and there’s no time to hit the gym after work because of your long to-do list. You want to get a quick/decent workout in over lunch, but there’s no time for that either because you’ll need a shower. So what do you do? Try some of these sweat-free workout tricks.

With this list of workout activities, you’ll be able to develop a lunch workout regimen that you’ll be able to complete in a quick and timely manner without causing you to perspire, and in turn, needing to make time to shower. You’ll be back to work just in time for those afternoon meetings! No, you won’t be burning the calories like you would during a hard cardio session, but it’s far better than no activity at all.

Walking

Not only does walking benefit you through burning calories, but it also helps control blood pressure and relaxes the body and mind. By choosing walking as your lunch time activity, you’ve got many choices both in and outside of the office. Meet a friend at a nearby park, or if it’s hot, go to the gym and grab a treadmill or walk the track for 30 minutes. A great option for those who can’t leave the office is to walk up and down the stairs or find long hallways. Like mentioned above, anything is better than nothing. (more…)

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Danielle

If Housework is a Woman’s Job, It Should be Her Workout, too!

New research regarding the division of housework was reported recently by TODAY Health, and in a nutshell, women are still doing more than half of the domestic work in the home versus men. Plus, big shocker, it’s stressing them out.

Obviously who does what in your house is between you and your spouse. However, if the stats are true, the brunt of that work will land on the woman’s shoulders. If perspective is shifted, perhaps that response of stress can be turned into reward. Yes, there just might be reward in housework and it’s possible to make it enjoyable. As enjoyable as scrubbing a toilet can be, that is.

I live in reality and no forest friends come sauntering in once I begin my cleaning routine. And apparently most Prince Charmings aren’t coming to help dust the shelves either. So, how can there be any reward in picking up after everyone else? I’ll tell you how. You can burn as many calories cleaning the house as you can running the hamster wheel at the gym. (more…)

Posted on June 18, 2024 by Lacy

5 Mother’s Day Gifts that Benefit the Giver and Recipient

If you are fortunate to have a mama, a kind and generous stepmother, or a friend or neighbor you love and adore like a mom, you will most likely want to spoil her with a special treat or favor this Mother’s Day. Thankfully, Valentine’s Day chocolates are no longer gracing the shelves this month, so you can steer clear of tempting your mom with diet sabotaging junk food. To add to the splendor of giving, you can even find something to give that gives back to you in a healthy and satisfying kind of way.

The following are five things you can give, or do, that will not only be well received by your “mom,” they will also healthfully benefit you in return.

Mow the lawn

However dull and boring this Mother’s Day gift idea may sound, a fresh cut yard is food for the soul. Your mom may be spending all of her waking hours planting flowers and preparing the garden, so having help with the lawn will be much appreciated. And to complete the good deed, you will get a refreshing workout in return, and it will leave you both feeling satisfied and happy.

Wash the windows

I know what you are thinking. You think this blogger is telling you to do all of the housework for your mother. Yes and no. Window washing isn’t something that goes unnoticed, and the joys of looking out through clean windows will prevail long after Mother’s Day has past. And yes, your benefit is a workout for your upper body and balance. What could be better than that? (more…)

Posted on May 8, 2024 by Jill

Housework Can Be a Workout

You know those days where it seems like you’re being pulled in a million directions and you can barely feed yourself properly and shower, let alone squeeze in a workout? Or after a particularly stressful week, all you want to do is lie on the couch and veg, although your house is a disaster zone? Been there, done that, too. But instead of choosing between chores or a workout, why not combine them?

Turning housework into a workout is a way to kill (or clean) two birds with one stone. All it takes is a good attitude (especially if you dislike cleaning!) and a nice variety of different types of activities to keep your heart rate up and your muscles challenged. Below are three cleaning activities, what muscles you’ll work when doing them and how many calories an average 150-pound person can expect to burn in 30 minutes. (more…)

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Jennipher

Dancing Through Your Chores is a Great Workout

woman dancing on desk I cannot promise that all mental health professionals take their own advice, but I try not to speak outside of my own experience. I suppose I could say the same thing for dance instruction. Recently, when working with a fairly new salsa student, I encouraged him to try to get the pattern of the basic step cemented by just walking around his house left-right-left-pause, right-left-right-pause, stepping toe to heel rather than heel to toe. While I worked with him for almost an hour just reviewing all the details of the basic step, I was reminded yet again what a great workout just this basic dance step can be. If you really concentrate on proper technique and body isolations, you are using a lot of different muscles, and I find just one song can have me out of breath. (more…)

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Brooke Randolph

Housework May Not Give You a Clean Bill of Health

Are you looking for an excuse to not do your housework? Well, a new study says that it may be hazardous to your health.

According to the study, cleaning as little as once a week with common cleaning sprays and air fresheners could raise the risk of asthma in adults. Other studies have linked these products with increased asthma rates among cleaning professionals, but now it’s implied that it can put others at risk.

Weekly exposure to such cleaning materials could account for as many as one in seven adult asthma cases, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“Frequent use of household cleaning sprays may be an important risk factor for adult asthma,” says Jan-Paul Zock, an epidemiologist at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona, who led the study.

The most unfortunate part of the study was a lack of an alternative. Here’s the depressing catch-22: You keep a clean house, you may become asthmatic. You don’t clean enough, then the dust will get you.

View Best Calorie Burning Chores Slideshow

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Jason