8 Ways You're Secretly Getting A Workout Without Knowing It
(Photo: Courtesy of Lauren Ahn)
You don’t have to go too far out of your way to work out—in fact, you just have to live your life. So long as you get out of bed (or work out while you’re in there), you probably do your body plenty of good already, according to Larry Twohig, head certified fitness trainer and co-founder of Culture, a New York City-based personal training facility. Now you can feel better about missing a few days at the gym.
Related: 13 Easy Ways to Accidentally Eat More Fruit and Veggies
1. Texting: Moving your thumbs > not moving your thumbs. They need to work out too:
To really feel the burn: Hold the phone away from your body at eye-height. The more you resist gravity to distance the phone from your body, the more you’ll feel the burn in your shoulders and traps. Courtesy of Nintype
2. Brushing your teeth: Any time you battle gravity by lifting your arms in the air, your body stands to benefit. And feel free to use your own creative strategies to pass the time:
To really feel the burn: Set your iPhone timer for two minutes, and actually brush the entire time. (Most people tap out early.) Switch arms one minute in to challenge your weaker side. Courtesy of GifSoup
Related: 5 Stretches You Need to Do After Indoor Cycling
3. Grocery shopping: The legwork you do to stock your pantry totally qualifies as exercise. The same goes for carrying your bounty home:
To really feel the burn: Use a basket instead of a cart, and try to prevent it from touching the side of your legs and hips. “The farther you hold it away from your body, the greater the challenge, and the more work you’ll do for your shoulders, obliques, arms,” Twohig says. Increasing your load can intensify the exercise. If you’re only picking up a few items, challenge yourself by holding the basket in front of you by the handle, palm up, with your elbow bent at a 90-degree angle:
(Courtesy of Getty/ Lauren Ahn & Reddit)
4. Having sex: Sex burns approximately 3.6 calories per minute, according to research published in PLOS ONE. While that’s fewer calories than you’d burn jogging, it’s not nothing.
To really feel the burn: Try doggy style, which requires you to engage your core, arms, and chest to stabilize your body, or girl-on-top, which activates your hips, and abs, Twohig says. And if your go-to position is missionary, that does the trick too: Press into your heels, squeeze your butt, and engage your core to lift your pelvis into every thrust.
5. Unloading the dishwasher: Picking things up and putting things down? Same stuff people do at the gym.
To really feel the burn: Using proper deadlifting form (i.e., squatting or bending from the hips instead of curving your spine), remove one plate at a time with both hands. Then stack them on a high and utterly inconvenient shelf. (Despite the paper-light weights, the extra reps and reaching will eventually tire you out.)
Related: How to Eat Whatever You Want Without Worrying About It
6. Making a drink: “Controlling acceleration and deceleration action of a drink shaker actually asks a lot from your body,” Twohig says. It activates the tiny muscles in your arms, your shoulders, chest, and back, just like the pulses that burn like hell in Pilates (or in your throwback Shake Weight fantasies):
To really feel the burn: Load up on ice or mix a double to increase the weight of the shaker, hold it extra far away from your body, and shake vigorously – the faster the better. Keep your elbows bent to avoid straining your shoulders, and remember to alternate sides to even things out. Courtesy of Giphy
7. Carrying a purse: If it contains even 1 percent of everything you own (a modest estimate for most women), you might as well call this weight lifting. Especially if your bag is big or contains bulky hardware.
To really feel the burn: Pack it to the brim—spare shoes? Full-size hair products? NBD. Then hold it in your hand at waist-height instead of on your shoulder, slung across your body, or in the crook of your arm:
It’ll activate your shoulders, biceps, and obliques, according to Twohig. Just switch hands every so often to even things out.
8. Sitting on your butt: Yes, standing almost always trumps sitting, if your goal is to engage the body as much as possible. But when you balance on your seat (as opposed to reclining backward), you activate your waist to keep yourself upright.
To really feel the burn: Choose a stool over an arm chair (even arm rests are a crunch). And avoid sitting wrong, at all costs.
More from Cosmopolitan.com:
7 Ways to Fake Your Way Through Any Fitness Class
5 Tricks for Your Best Butt Ever
7 Ways to Work Out With a Jump Rope
By Elizabeth Narins
