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Meet Tamara Jones. Jones is a yoga teacher and a homemaker. Those professions may not seem linked, but Jones has found a way to synthesize her two interests, explains the Daily Mail.
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Jones’s videos and pictures on social media show the flexible yoga instructor upside down, balancing on her palms, as she holds a rag between her toes deftly wiping the windows clean. Other pictures show Jones ironing and washing dishes while doing the splits.
While not all of us have the ability to clean while handstanding, Jones’s inspiration can help us add a little more “work-out” to our “house-work,” and make our lifestyle a little less sedentary. Here are seven ways to add that “spring” to your spring cleaning.
Whisk away the dirt and the pounds
Vacuuming is a great workout, reports Whatsonni.com. A thirty-minute vacuum session, with core muscles engaged throughout, can burn up to 190 calories!
WhatsOnNi.com recommends integrating lunges into your vacuum sessions to maximize muscle building. The best part? This workout also leads to a spotless floor.
Laundry squats
Got a basket of clean laundry? Here’s how to turn the linens, socks, and t-shirts into muscles.
The Healthy suggests putting the laundry basket on the floor. This will force you to get your hands down to floor level to pick up and fold each article of clothing.
Instead of bending to reach the basket, dip into a healthy squat. Keeping your core engaged and your feet hip-width apart, bend your knees (never so they go past your toes!), and reach down into the laundry basket. Squats work out several muscle groups in the legs, buttocks, and core. Here are some other ideas from “busyfitmomof3”:
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Bicep-building while taking out the trash
No need to spend money on an expensive gym membership. There are plenty of weightlifting opportunities at home.
When taking out the trash, you are essentially carrying a heavy (if somewhat smelly) weight outside the house to the bins.
Why not add some biceps curls to the chore? Put your hand straight down by your hips.Then, bag in hand, curl your arm so that your hand goes up to your shoulder. Repeat the stretch as you walk. Just make sure the bags are tightly sealed before starting this exercise.
Aerobic tidying
Do you have a multi-story house? If so, you know that things don’t always stay on the floor level they are supposed to.
Tidying up inevitably means making trips up and down the stairs to put things away. This doesn’t have to be tiresome; tidying can become an energizing workout.
Instead of minimizing the trips up and down the stairs by carrying multiple items, try to make as many trips as possible. Taking the stairs at a brisk (but safe) pace, can burn up to 500 calories in an hour!
Washing the car
All you need for this workout, which can burn up to 230 calories an hour, is a bucket of soapy water, a sponge, a vacuum cleaner, and a lot of elbow grease.
Washing the car by hand provides many opportunities to stretch different muscle groups, from squatting to clean the lower portion of the car, to stretching your body to vacuum the interior. And the scrubbing action is a good workout for your arms.
Hand cleaning your own car is a good way to save money and burn calories at the same time.
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Weight-dusting
Have to dust, scrub, or do another similar chore that requires you to reach up above your head? Baron Lambert, personal trainer, suggests adding weights to your wrist for some resistance as reported in The Healthy.
Just a few additional pounds can turn your cleaning session into a gym session. Lambert explains, “having a little extra resistance during chores can help those arms tighten up and get stronger.”
Get fit while fitting sheets to your bed
Tricep dips are a good way to integrate an arm-toning stretch when you make your bed.
Sit on the bed, near the edge. Put your hands next to your hips with your fingers facing forward and your palms down.
Now, scoot forward until you aren’t sitting on the bed anymore, and only your hands and feet are supporting you. With your elbows tucked in, lower yourself down and back up again.
You can do three sets of this exercise, with 10 dips per set. One set after taking the old sheet off the bed. One set after putting the new sheet on. And one set to celebrate the newly made bed. Just don’t forget to smooth the covers out one more time after you finish.
