Mini Moments That Add Up

Sorry, weekend warriors, but to lead a truly healthy life, you have to integrate fitness into your routine EVERY SINGLE DAY.

No amount of working out on Saturday and Sunday can make up for a sedentary lifestyle, with poor posture and ergonomics, lived Monday through Friday.  That’s the bad news.

The good news is: Integrating fitness into your daily life doesn’t have to be hard or take a long time.  It can actually be pretty seamless. 

As a trainer and healthy living counselor, one of my favorite tasks is helping clients identify naturally occurring opportunities in their lives for exercise.

For example: In our house, we have a lot of stairs.  And since I work in gyms, I go through a lot of laundry!  This adds up to MANY trips up and down the stairs, carrying a heavy laundry basket, each week.

Now I COULD just get that chore done carelessly, without thinking.  And probably end up with some back pain for all my trouble!

But instead, I choose to take a few extra seconds to engage my core, set my shoulders and neck into lifting posture, and do a couple squats to get warmed up.  Then I lift the basket with perfect squat form.  I make sure to maintain core support as I climb the staircase, and I squeeze my glutes with every step.  Once I’ve finished the stairs, I might even do a few more squats with the laundry basket as added weight!  Not a ton– just enough to get some activation in those underused muscles.

So in total, I’ll spend an extra one minute.  That’s all!  But the payoff is huge.  Those muscles I woke up are going to support me for the next few hours.  I’ll have better posture; I’ll feel better with less pain and stiffness; and over time, my body will start to remember the muscle pattern I used, and it will tap into that automatically.  So the next time I have to lift something heavy off the ground, I won’t throw my back out.

These exercise “mini moments” don’t feel like much, but when done throughout the day, they can add up to something big.

If you’re interested in learning more, and making EVERY day of the week an active day, contact me and let’s get started!