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Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Laundry Workout


A few weeks ago a few friends and I did the Color Run.  It was so fun that I decided that I would run 4 miles a day...Yes you read that right, 4 miles.  That was a very ambitious goal but I have been doing it at least 4 days a week for the past 3 weeks.  One of the problems I have run into is that running 4 miles 4 days a week takes time, time that a mother of 3 doesn't really have.  I feel guilty for taking the kids to the gym for 2 hours a day so I had to find another way to get my cardio in.  Last week I came up with The Laundry Workout".  The day after I tried it I was so sore (more sore than from running 4 miles).  In my own mind, (weather it is true or not) I measure the success of a workout by how much I feel it the next day.  I've read in the past in workout mags and websites that its good to change up your workout (they call it muscle confusion) .  So I guess that this quick workout may possibly be confusing my muscles one day a week thus possibly burning more calories.

Here's how it works:
One day a week I do ALL the laundry in the entire house.  I hate laundry so I try to get it all done at once so I don't have to look at it for a whole week.  

Every time I put a load of laundry in the machine I do 100 jumping jacks, broken down into sets of 25, between each set I do crunches, squats, push-ups (whatever I'm focusing on)  I switch it up on each load and set so that by the end of the day I will have done a full body work out.  The great part is that it takes less than 5 minutes for each "load".

Break down:

-25 jumping jacks
-25 crunches
-25 jumping jacks
-25 squats
-25 jumping jacks
-10 push-ups
-25 jumping jacks
Do this 5-10 times throughout the day

I found this picture on Pinterest but couldn't find the website..I beefed it up to 100 Jacks (just to be sure)
Now on the next load I may do lunges, reverse crunches, and triceps dips in between the sets of jumping jacks.
http://backonpointe.tumblr.com/post/17948153079/heres-another-bodyweight-workout-for-your-whole
You could even do these workouts between jumping jacks

By the end of the day I will have done 500-1000 jumping jacks depending on how much laundry I have...
When I did the math, that's up to 1000 calories burned without setting foot in the gym.  The great thing is that I am hanging out with my kids, they do some of the workouts with me and it reminds me that I need to change a load of laundry.
I purposely made this blurry...working out isn't the most attractive thing I can do
You can really do this with any activity that you are doing at home.  My brother-in-law mentioned that he does something similar while playing video games, every time a load screen comes on he does squats, jumping jacks or push-ups, at the end of a 2 hour video game session he could burn up to 500 calories.  Not bad!


Happy Getting Fit

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