Health and fitness without equipmen getting more exercise while you're doing something else

Before starting my article I will like to say a few words about health.

"Every human being is the author of his own health or disease."
"He, who has health, has hope. And he, who has hope, has everything."
"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."

We all know we need to keep active for the sake of health and fitness. It is hard to avoid all the messages that tout daily exercise or urge us to buy into some kind of fitness plan. Suppose we do not have time to join a gym, break out exercise videos, or even go for a walk every day. How can we exercise under those circumstances? Accumulate minutes. It doesn't matter if you have no exercise equipment. You don't need it to follow these suggestions.

The Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health recommends that everyone accumulate thirty minutes of moderate intense activity every day or almost every day. "Accumulate" means that we don't have to do it all at once. "Moderate intensity" means that we begin to feel warm and slightly out of breath as we're doing it. You can conscientiously work toward total body fitness even without a formal daily exercise program.

It's not practical to think of doing one minute of moderately intense activity thirty times a day. It takes more than a minute to get the heart-rate up far enough to count. But it is practical to add five or ten minutes of physical activity several times a day. Be very intentional about it, and you can you can enhance your health and fitness without completely changing your daily routine.
Most people spend most of the day either at home or at work. We can achieve the greatest improvements to health and fitness by making adjustments there. Most of us also spend time shopping or otherwise doing things somewhere else besides home or work. It should be a simple matter to apply the same principles that help enhance total body fitness to what we can do in these other places.
Exercise at home

Total body fitness, of course, requires attention to what you eat and balanced daily exercise. Balanced exercise means attention to aerobic training, resistance (weight) training, and stretching. How can we work the various kinds of exercise into what we do around the house as a matter of course?

Do you have stairs in your home? Go up and down them at every opportunity. Now, I have always done that without intending to. Wherever I am, something I want--my glasses, my shoes, my pencil--is bound to be somewhere else, likely as not upstairs or downs tairs.

Once it dawned on me that my inefficiency was giving me daily exercise opportunity, I stopped getting upset with myself. Now, I will deliberately carry groceries, trash, reading material, or whatever up or down in two or more trips even if I am capable of holding it all at once. Stair climbing is a kind of aerobic exercise. Carrying something moderately heavy up the stairs adds an element of weight training--especially if we don't just carry it, but lift it or curl it or otherwise move it around as we walk.

Whether you have stairs or not, you don't always have to walk normally from room to room. March instead; make sure to lift your knees to about waist level. If you've ever marched in a band, you know you have to pace yourself to go five yards in eight steps. You get better exercise by marching than by ordinary walking for just a little more time.

Or, for a variation, do walking lunges. Do one lunge, lift the back foot in front of you and immediately walk into another lunge on the other foot. Keep it up till you get where you're going. Don't worry if it feels or looks silly. You're working on health and fitness. Whether marching or lunging, carrying something moderately heavy enhances the effect.

Do you watch television? Don't just sit there or lie there on the couch. At least during commercial breaks, get up and march in place or do any other kind exercise: jumping jacks, lunges (including lateral lunges), pushups, sit-ups, crunches, squats, any pilates or yoga moves you know, etc. It's also a good time to stretch

This article is about daily exercise without equipment, but that doesn't mean you can't use it if you have some. If you have a stability ball, sit on that during the program. In fact, once you learn a number of basic exercises with it, you can do an uninterrupted exercise routine in front of the television. The same goes for resistance bands, dumbbells, and whatever other similar equipment you might have.

Whatever housework you do, from vacuuming to gardening count toward your daily exercise. Gardening is probably strenuous enough on its own. Other activities may require some creative enhancements to turn them into exercise of moderate intensity. Use your imagination and enjoy yourself, keeping in mind the ultimate goal of total body fitness.