exercise question

Hello all:  So I did really well exercising over the holidays.  came back and work exploded.  So I have been 'lacking' in the exercise department because of time. 

I try and get at least some exercise in each day but no longer have 'extra' time.  Soooo

What do people with time constraints do to maximize their workout?  Just looking for some new ideas that I might not have thought of.  Also any time saving/workout ideas would be great also.

I'm no expert in the work-out world but 'they' say that even if you get 2 or 3 short work-outs in a day its better than nothing - like 2 or 3 15-20 minute walks? Is that something you can squeeze in until you can get back to a regular routine? I know walking outside right now isn't the best thing to do considering icy walks and cold weather - do you work in an office? I know several people who just do laps around our floor during the day or go up and down the stairs a few time to get their blood moving and get some sort of exercise in. I've been promising myself to get over to the mall (I work in King of Prussia) and walk over there at lunch time - hasn't happened yet, sadly, but I do have time at night to work out.

Start small...work your way up - anything you do is better than doing nothing.

These days, pain is really limiting my exercise, but when I was training for a big fundraising walk, I was working full time and had to put a lot of time in there.  I knew I was only going to have time for major (2-4 hour) walks on the weekends, so supplemented by getting exercise whenever I could.  I got off the bus a few stops early or late, always took the stairs at the subway stations, etc.  I live in a 3rd floor apartment, so, whenever I'd have a few extra minutes, I'd run up and down the stairs a few times...see how many runs I could get in before Final Jeopardy :-)

Lunchtime is a good time for a walk.  Being in a very busy office, I was always tempted to work through lunch.  That's just such a bad habit.  It serves us in no way to do that - stressing ourselves and working ourselves sick doesn't make us better workers and it does awful things to our bodies and minds.  No matter how busy, make time for a lunchtime walk, at least a few times per week.

Lisa

It's by NO form of  a "real" work out...but what I've been doing is more like calestenic (sp?) type things.  Like...when I'm in the work room waiting for a test result (we do our own urine tests at work, which take 2 mins and 30 seconds) I do something like put my back on the wall, slide down, and stay in a squat position until the test is done.  Or lean up against the counter backwards and put my feet on a stool, and bend my elbows (a tricep work out I learned at the gym) and hold in that position and do some pulses and what not

I also take the stairs any time I can, or even on my break I will use 15 of my 30 minutes and just walk up a few flights of stairs

Like I said, not true "work outs" but I'm in the work room a minimum of 8 times a day - so that's a total of 16 minutes of mild strength training...plus the stair climbing....

pam...how come i cant be like you and stay tiny without hardcore exercise? im jealous.

Depends on the type of work you do and your workplace, but I find a couple of "small movement" things throughout the day help.  I'll have my ipod on with workout music and while i'm sitting at my desk do some "chair stretches" (like over the head stretches, rib cage "isolations", sitting crunches, etc. - you'd be surprised how much of yourself you can work out while sitting at a desk - haha).

I also have a program called "The Ergociser" running on my desktop PC - every hour it interrupts what I'm doing and prompts me with a different exercise.  Sometimes it's a standing stretch, other times it's a wrist or hand stretch, resistance stretch using the desk's weight, etc.  The key here is that I'm moving and thinking about it once an hour, just for about 2 - 3 minutes.

I've started walking to people's offices rather than phoning or emailing them (not all the time, but a lot of the time), taking the stairs, parking farther away from the building (except in truly crappy weather), etc. 

I also used the workout with my personal trainer at the gym to ask about how to maximize results. I told her "time is the one non-variable thing in my workouts" and asked her how to make the most of that.  She showed me some strategies for rotating through things to combine effects (cardio and strength, for example) without expanding time.  And also explained how things like the stair machine, even on a slow setting, would burn more calories per hour than the treadmill on a non-inclined setting.  So I'm working a little differently at the gym and I think i'm starting to feel the results of that. 

I guess the whole thing I'm saying is that it's not just about "formal workouts" - it's about changing your outlook on movement as a whole so that it's something you're always looking for ways to do - chair dancing, stretching, wall sitting while waiting for the microwave to ping, etc.  It adds up over time and doesn't take precious time out of the day to do it.

Hope this helps!
Karen

Some really great ideas guys.  i've found three i can add right away.  I can park farther away, finding some chair exercises, use those wall stretching exercises  and will be seeing if I can squeeze some lunch time in.  (I'm a desk eater only because I usually have conference calls). 

 

thanks guys for the tips.  Some of them I had not thought of and are great ideas!!