Exercise Every Day


In May, our local park district encouraged everyone to walk 30 minutes a day. It was fabulous. I looked up benefits of walking to share with everyone. I even said that boot camp was an acceptable reason to skimp on your walk. My thought being that it is hard to create an extra 30 minutes a day on top your workout. Not impossible though. How many of us walk our dog daily, and it wouldn’t be hard to walk a little farther. Even break it into two 15 minute walks. When I walk the dog, it is a great time for me to catch up on some podcasts or audiobooks, makes the time pass by quickly and productively.

Here we are now, though, the second full week of June. I am all about pushing comfort zones. My June challenge is to exercise every day for the whole month of June. I have found that 45 minutes is a great workout, when you include warm up and cool down. I know that I personally look for workouts that are under the 32 minute total marker when searching YouTube. I prefer to warm up on my own and stretch when I am finished, so I am about at the 45 minute mark in total. Sometimes I do shorter videos and add some cardio on my own to the end.

My plan for June has cardio on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Monday is core and alternates upper body and lower body. Wednesday is the other lower body or upper body. Friday is total body. Sunday is low intensity yoga, barre, or pilates. I enjoy running, so most of my cardio days will be running. Those coming on to boot camp Monday through Saturday will have the same pattern of workouts found in class. Those who are part of my virtual coaching group have been given a calendar with links to 15-30 minute workouts in line with the same focus as at class.

I am trying to document more of my personal experience this month too. I have been checking in on Swarm, taking some selfies on Snap Chat, and sharing in our private facebook group. Something about having an “audience” always helps in upping the performance factor. And not in a, this is so easy everyone should do it type of way. More of a, this is what is working for me, won’t you join me on this health journey type of way.

Why should you exercise every day?  As mind body green discusses, there are many benefits to daily exercise. From increasing endorphins to improving cognitive function to tapping into your creativity. I feel I need to add the disclosure on too much exercise is a real thing. You need to allow your body time to rest and recover. The older you are, the greater the possibility that you need to spread your 7 day week into a 9 or 10 day week cycle. More days off, to allow for restoration. In my current conversations with people, I am not around people who are doing too much. I am around people, like me, who can seek positive results from creating a daily exercise practice. The program I have designed is not high intensity, same muscles, day in and day out.

I’d love to hear how you have created a daily exercise practice. Or, if you need to create one, I’d love to hear what take aways you have to getting started. As a bonus, here is a workout I recorded that is total body and perfect when you are short on time!

If you're looking for a breakthrough, try breaking your routine

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't do anything if you don't start. Start without it being perfect, and then make changes to what you have decided until you get the results you desire.