Purposeful planned workouts are great, but finding time to hit the gym or to do a structured workout can sometimes be challenging when you’re leading a busy life. Including more incidental exercise into your daily routine – the kind that adds up as we go about our everyday life - can help clock up your active hours.

Incidental exercise refers to any physical activity that isn’t planned as exercise, but still contributes to your overall fitness. When these small movements accumulate throughout the day, they can significantly impact your health and energy levels.

A 2023 study tracking more than 25,000 people over eight years showed evidence that while structured exercise is good for our health, cumulative short bursts of moderate intensity incidental exercise can also help lower the risk of heart disease if we do it often through our day.

This means that there’s plenty of value in smaller bouts of activity that may not seem like a big deal at face value. Looking for these opportunities can go a long way towards improving your general health and fitness.

Here are some innovative ways to make incidental exercise a natural part of your life.

Take the long route

The development of technology such as cars, elevators, computers, escalators and remote controls may make our lives easier, but they’ve removed so many opportunities for activity from our regular everyday life.

We no longer:

• Get up to change the TV channel and switch it off when we have remotes
• Walk the aisles of the video store looking for a movie to watch when we have Netflix
• Walk to the post office to send letters when we can send an email
• Walk for travelling or take the stairs when we can drive, ride a lift, escalator, bus or Uber

These may seem like small, inconsequential events, but each alternative action shaves off a little bit of movement from our day. Consider what you could do throughout your day to add some movement back in as a replacement.

For example, if you’re only going a short distance you could walk. Take the stairs when you can. If there are too many floors, take the stairs halfway. Get off the bus a stop earlier. Park a little further away and walk the rest of your journey.

Deskercise for more action

If you spend a lot of your day time sitting down, this is your reminder to get up and get moving. Turn your workspace into a movement station so you don’t spend the whole day on a chair. You could:

• Go for a walk or stand up and pace when you take phone calls
• Set a timer on your smart watch, computer or phone so that every half hour you get up and take a short walk to stretch your legs. Go get a drink of water while you’re at it for bonus hydration and a reason to get up.
• Learn some stretches or chair yoga that you can do at your desk

Household chores

It’s becoming increasingly the norm to hire household cleaners and gardeners or be too busy to do these tasks as regularly as people used to. This may feel like a necessity to free up your time to do more useful things, but the removal and downplaying of these chores has taken away more opportunities to exercise. And decent ones at that!

When we do gardening we sweep, rake, lift bags of compost, pull out weeds, dig, chop up wood, squat down, push wheelbarrows and all sorts of physical activities we’ve turned to replicating in the gym.

When it comes to household chores, we sweep, mop the floors, shift around furniture, dust, scrub, remove cobwebs, push and pull the vacuum cleaner, wipe, hang out laundry, and many other functional movements. Anyone who has done a deep clean of the kitchen can attest to the sweat you can build up doing it!

If you do usually hire someone for the job or struggle to find the time to do these things, consider whether there’s a smaller project you could create from them to add more movement into your week.

Dual purpose your screen time

If you spend a lot of your week watching television, consider doing something else at the same time so you are moving your body instead of sitting down in stillness.

It used to be a common fitness trainer recommendation to exercise during ad breaks, but modern streaming services have taken that out of the equation! We can still adopt this idea though, so while you’re catching up on your favourite shows, do some exercises, sit on the floor and have a stretching session to improve your flexibility and mobility, or play video games that require movement (like dancing or sport) to stay active and have fun.

Get moving with others

Face-to-face connection time is important for our relationships with others, but consider whether you could dual purpose this time as well by incorporating movement into your social activities. Try these:

• Walking meetings: If you have a phone call or an informal meeting, suggest doing it while walking at the same time. It’s a great way to get steps in while working. Plus if you work a creative job it can help shift mental blocks to move while meditating on your task at hand.
• Active playdates: If you have children, join in their playtime. Running around at the park, hide and seek, playing tag, or biking together can be a great workout.
• Exercise dates: Instead of meeting friends for coffee, encourage them to get moving with you – try a walk, a yoga class, or a dance session.

To sum up

Including more incidental exercise into your daily life doesn’t require a drastic lifestyle change, but it does require some thought to actively seek out those small opportunities to get moving whenever you can.

With a few innovative tweaks to your routine, you can rack up enough physical activity to boost your fitness, improve your energy levels, and support your overall health. Remember, every bit counts - so start small, stay consistent, and enjoy the benefits of moving more throughout your day!

By making these small adjustments, you can seamlessly blend fitness into your busy lifestyle, creating a healthier, more active you without sacrificing time.

Image / Depositphotos.com

LINKS:

Ahmadi, M., Hamer, M., Gill, J.M.R., Murphy, M., Sanders, J.P., Doherty, A. & Stamatakis, E. Brief bouts of device-measured intermittent lifestyle physical activity and its association with major adverse cardiovascular events and mortality in people who do not exercise: a prospective cohort study. The Lancet (Volume 8, Issue 10, E800-E810, October 2023). Retrieved online 1 September 2024 from:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00183-4/fulltext