Handy fitness hacks for busy lives

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to leave your home to get a good workout in – here are 23 fitness hacks for those with busy lives

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on The Guardian

Long gone, says Marie Murphy, professor of exercise and health at Ulster University, is the notion that you’ve got to sweat for at least 20 minutes for it to be worthwhile: 10-minute sessions are equally good, and even just a few minutes will still serve us well.

In the spirit of short and sweet, here are 23 exercises you can fit into your day while life carries on.

Sit on the floor while watching TV

Get off the sofa and sit on the floor in a variety of positions. This gives you a stretch, ensures better posture and increases muscle activity, says mobility coach Roger Frampton. Try legs straight out in front, the lotus position (or school-assembly style cross-legged), kneeling down or even squatting – how we used to sit before chairs were invented.

A low squat unkinks your lower bowel and will benefit hips, knees, ankles, quads, glutes and core muscles. If you can’t get your feet flat on the ground when squatting, prop them up on books and gradually lower as your body learns the shape.

Use the stairs for calf raises

This is an effective way to strengthen calf muscles and hamstrings. Stand with the balls of your feet near the edge of the bottom step, lower your heels as far as you can before lifting them as high as you can. Too easy? Hold weights while doing it or do one leg at a time.

Fit in several side leg raises

It’s hard to reach those outer thigh muscles and hip abductors that keep the hip stable, but this is the exercise to do it. The best-known version involves lying on your side and raising the top leg between 10 and 30 times – as a bonus, you get to feel like you’re recreating a 1980s Jane Fonda workout. You can also do them standing, hands on hips, or – to really feel the burn – in a side-plank position, with your lower hip raised off the floor.

Grab a tea towel for a shoulder opener after doing the dishes

For a perfect antidote to sunken, rounded shoulders, stretch a tea towel out in front of you and slowly raise your arms over your head. Then, bending your arms, lower the towel behind your head and tap the back of your neck with it before trying to move the towel backwards, away from the neck.

Walk up the escalator

A simple policy of not letting lifts and escalators do the work for you can help you shed weight – . According to Duke University, two flights a day over a year can lead to almost 3kg of weight loss and boost aerobic capacity. Stair-climbing women tend to have better bone density, too. Tip: take each step with flat feet to use your glutes more.

Stand on one leg when you brush your teeth

This feat of coordination provides a proper brain workout, improving neuroplasticity, according to researchers at Hamburg University. There’s the option to close your eyes to make it much more challenging, or for a leg-strengthening vibe, bend your standing leg in a mini one-legged squat.

Learn to do a handstand

Mastering handstands is a confidence booster while providing the mind-clearing focus of balancing and full body work. Start with a wall handstand or a wall pike handstand. To check how far from the wall your hands need to be, sit with your bottom against a wall, legs out in front – your hands need to be level with where your feet are.

Facing away from the wall, plant your hands on the floor and walk your feet up the wall until they’re level with your shoulders and slowly straighten your legs so your torso is stacked neatly above your shoulders. Practise bending your legs and straightening them again.

Wall press-ups with spine stretch

This, says physio Matt Todman, gives you the benefits of a press up, while tackling tightness in the thoracic spine, between the shoulders. Stand facing the wall with your feet at least a foot and a half away (the further you go, the harder it gets).

Place your palms on the wall at shoulder height and do a press up – but here’s the twist. As you push away, take one hand back 180 degrees behind you, before heading back for another press up and switching sides. You’ll strengthen your shoulders, arms and chest, improving stability around your shoulder blades.

Take the stairs two at a time

You probably used to do this when your were a child, but you still should if you can. It saves time, makes you feel springy, burns more calories and works your muscles even more than walking up stairs. Taking bigger steps should, however, be approached with caution if you have knee problems or trouble balancing, as it requires (but also builds) greater stability in the hips.

Imagine your head is suspended from a golden thread

We all need to resist the slouch, and the posture plumb line is here to help. This visualisation has a ripple effect, lifting the crown of your head, settling your shoulders back – chest lifted a little – and using your core and glutes to sit or stand straight. Treat it as a postural reset, though, rather than a position to hold rigid – movement and variety are our musculoskeletal best friends.

Master the sit-to-stand test

Worth it for the bragging rights alone, this is often touted as a longevity indicator (although there are many caveats to the 2012 study that posited it as one, such as most people who couldn’t do it and then died were the oldest in the 51-80 age-range).

If a knee or hip injury counts you out, don’t panic, but if you have no physical reasons to avoid it, you might as well start practising: sit on the floor cross legged, place your feet on the floor, and hoick yourself up without touching the floor with your hands or elbows – a feat of balance, core and lower body strength to be proud of.

Do squats while the kettle boils

This is a high-reward habit, powering up muscles in the lower body and core, strengthening tendons, ligaments and bones while burning calories. For the basic squat, stand with feet hip-width apart, toes slightly turned out. Keep your chest up as you lower yourself, stopping when your heels want to lift or your torso wants to flounder.

“Try to keep your knees over your ankles,” says Todman, and push through your heels to lift back up. To ease into squats, try with a chair behind you, touching your bottom to the seat before standing up again. If you want to get the blood pumping, jump as you come up.

Keep circling your feet

It may disturb you to know that after you’ve sat down for 90 minutes, blood circulation behind the knees is halved. Circling those feet will increase blood flow and do wonders for foot and ankle strength and flexibility.

Do pull-ups in the doorway

Not for everyone, but this is a top posture-boosting workout for your chest, shoulders and abs, not to mention a handgrip strength builder – a biomarker for general health. Put a pull-up bar in a doorway and every time you pass under it, jump up and catch the bar, cross your feet for stability and pull up on an exhale until your chin reaches the bar, then gently lower yourself back down. Beginners, keep a box handy and start with elbows already bent. Warm up with arm circles on the approach.

Stretch your hip flexors

Chair sitting is a recipe for tight, sore hips, so try this favourite move from Frampton: face the wall with one foot and knee touching it. Take a big step back with your other leg and lean your body away from the wall, your shoulders a little behind your hips to feel a satisfying stretch in the back hip. The further back your foot is, the more intense the stretch.

Drink lots of water

The well-hydrated lifestyle is accidentally more active. All those bottle refilling and loo trips add up. It’s free exercise on tap.

Make phone calls on the hoof

An easy habit to redirect deadening sitting time is to stand up for phone calls. Walk around the room, pace up and down the hall, take it outside if the conditions are right. There’s a reason walking and talking go so well together – moving about sharpens our senses and, according to neuroscientist Shane O’Mara of Trinity College, sets off theta brainwaves that assist with learning and memory.

The broom handle flat-back test

Physios will tell you it’s not about how far you get in a forward bend but doing it with a flat back. If you must round your back to touch your toes, it doesn’t count. Hold a broom handle vertically behind you so it touches your head and lower back.

Now bend forward, keeping the broom in position. Anything past 90 degrees is decent. Do it every day and your tight hamstrings will thank you for the gentle loosener.

Anytime neck strengthening

Isometric exercises don’t involve movement or contracting muscles and, says Todman, can ease a stiff neck better than stretching. Hold your right hand against the side of your head, above your ear, and then try to push your head as hard as you can into your hand.

Your head isn’t moving, but you’re making the muscles work hard. Hold for 20 or 30 seconds, and then stop and enjoy the relaxation in your shoulders. Do both sides and try front and back if you fancy.

Do star jumps while you wait for your toast to pop up

An oldie but a goodie, this high-impact cardio exercise does great things for your aerobic capacity, metabolism and mood.

Don’t forget your pelvic floor

Grab the back of a chair and slowly go up on tiptoes. As you rise, suck in your core and pelvic floor (for people with testicles, this means trying to lift them). Hold for up to 10 seconds, then relax as you lower your heels. Repeat 15 to 20 times.

Put prompts around the house

Get some coloured sticky dots. A yellow one on the kettle ensures you remember those squats, a blue one on the banister reminds you about the stair calf raises…

Keep things in awkward places

Rig your life to encourage movement. Park in the space furthest away from the shop, keep the remote control on top of the television and your phone and keys at the top of the stairs.