I need to get out of my desk chair more, but lately I’ve been trying to walk my neighborhood since the weather’s nice. What kinds of things do you do to stay active? I’d love some suggestions for good stretches and simple/effective exercises. Thanks!
Assuming you work from home the real answer is that you just get up every few minutes and move. It doesn’t matter what. Some squats, pullups, pushups. Even a few hundred steps works wonders.
The key is to make the barrier to entry as low as possible. Then you actually do it more often.
Besides that, find a sport you think would be fun. Just try a bunch of trial lessons or join some people you know.
Gave up on gym membership already. Switched to home workouts (check darebee website and youtube) I feel way better with this compared to the gym. You cant have noodle arms also, so get reasonable dumbbells to grow your arm muscles (they are effective and easy to store also)
It s 40min at most daily from home workouts so you need less mental energy to get to it (compared to: prepare backpack, go to gym, interact with people, go back). I am on the Avatar Upgrade program.
I add early morning walks and occasional hikes to spice things up.
I alternate between spin bike and weights 6 days/week throughout the year, but with the weather getting nicer, I’m getting back out on my road bike on weekends and playing tennis with some friends after work. It helps to live in a city with a nice park!
I refuse to drive or take any form of public transport, unless I am going to be traveling far.
I walk or bike everywhere I go. I get to where I am going and I get exercise along the way. I barely think about it anymore, it has just become normal to me.
I got a puppy. I’ve spent about 30 minutes on my computer since December. But I did also get a Steam Deck.
Juggling. It’s not too intensive or anything but does keep me somewhat active.
I suggest everyone learn to juggle! It’s not TOO hard once you get over the hump and everything clicks. I also find it somewhat meditative.
I was fortunate enough to get invited to a ballroom dancing class in high school and fell in love with it. It’s exercise and a social experience all in one fairly affordable package. Where I live an hour long group class is $10 a head. I wouldn’t do private lessons for these purposes. And if you like it, there are so many subcultures! There are entire groups dedicated to certain dances like West Coast swing and Argentine tango. Regular social dances on the weekends in addition to classes. YMMV based on where you live, but dancing with the stars has brought ballroom into the mainstream and there are quality studios in most decent sized US cities as far as I know.
Love ballroom dancing, and especially east coast swing is my jam. Unfortunately no regular social dances in my area but I go when there’s one available. It’s really fun and playful, great way to meet new people and good exercise. Equipment cost is basically a pair of shoes. I joke about dressing up in a dress and heels for my workouts.
I jiggle my mouse every 5 minutes.
Open notepad, put an apple on the space bar.
Works with other things besides apples as well.
Teams is such a snitch…
Currently unemployed, so I can’t exactly remember, but I used to launch a call with just myself. By default, that will change your status to “in a call”, but I believe you can override it and set it to available. Alternatively, a mouse jiggler is around $20.
Yeah, setting up a call with just yourself does this. You can also share your screen and it will go to “do not disturb”.
Yes. My mouse.
I have an active job. I still need to add some sort of exercise to my routine.
I do not. It is very easy.
Going to the gym is so boring for me. I ended up finding an activity that I enjoy doing that also happens to be good exercise and started kickboxing about 9 months ago. The people there are very friendly and they text me if I don’t show up for a while, so there’s more accountability that I would typically have.
Similar. I started rock climbing about a decade ago. It’s fun, you make friends, learn new skills, and get exercise.
Rock climbing seems pretty sweet, I think I could get into after I lose maybe 60 lbs or more lol
Ngl, climbing becomes a lot easier if you are lighter. But also, there’s nothing stopping you from enjoying it at a heavier weight - you just climb routes with an easier numeric grade. And there are various climbing disciplines that are less disadvantageous to heavier climbers, like ice climbing or mountaineering. If you want to take a really traditional approach, you could enter climbing by way of hiking and backpacking, which are also a lot of fun and have a decent amount of skill overlap.
Also, I have no science to back this up, but I just intuit that when you consistently do activities like hiking, running, and climbing where lower body weight is advantageous, your brain notices and predisposes you to lose weight.
So give it a shot!
My advanced activities consists primarily of hiking and on a more frequent and casual form day-to-day, just carrying heavy and bulky stuff around.
I was born and raised in the vast wildernesses, forests, wetlands and the old mountains/fells of the Fennoscandic Lappland, so hiking and walking in nature in general has been a big part of my life since I was a wee lad. Even as a teen the closest thing counting as something close to a city was some 200km away, and I spent my pre-teens in a small remote village of 300 inhabitants not so close to anything bigger. Closest village with a church and a few shops a few tens of kilometers away. This is all to give the context in that I haven’t even had much chance to do stuff other than wandering in the wilderness, so whatever I now am has been built and predicated on that mostly.
I have found that the usual form of hiking and backpacking (in nature) in places not requiring special tools or equipment (such as for cliff climbing) seems to favor building up upper body bulk and strength as opposed to a general lightweight build. If we are to assume the logic you suggest is universal and true.
I haven’t been to gym or actively building up my mass or strength, but I’ve grown to be quite heavy on my upper body just by loving hiking and traversing wilderness and fells with a backpack and camping equipment. I’ve also grown pretty hefty thighs and legs overall.
I’ve attempted climbing (in a hall setting, you know as a total beginner) and I’ve got to say: My build is entirely wrong for that. I’m not very agile and the weight the muscles bring makes me very unstable and really bad at swinging/maneuvering. Of course it’s mostly that I’m a total stranger to that and probably would get a lot better with a lot of patience and training, but then my friends with lighter, more usual build (from hobbies in jogging, tennis, soccer or such) with exactly as little experience or knowhow in climbing, were all so much more natural in all that, in much less time and with much fewer attempts.
This is all to say, that your usual hiking and backpacking (especially on a multi-night, even a weeklong carry) is probably not so directly building towards climbing itself, or a lighter build. I think it tends to favor bulkiness to sustain the required carrying weight and the tough, varying terrain. But running of course does favor lightness, maybe the well-paved tourist trails do too, in terms of hiking, but even then you’re going to have to carry a lot and keep a modest pace to be able to sustain the energy for the long haul, while still being able to power through the hills, the ravines, the fells and the deep thick forests with a lot of trunks, large glacial erratics etc, with the weight on your shoulders and back, which I think is pretty much all of it disadvantageous on a lighter build(?)
But that’s neither here or there, just thought I’d offer a differing anecdote. Otherwise I think your (and others’!) points are great!
Free-use contract
Sounds more like being passive, not active
60ish min in the weights room 5 days a week, 6 days a week 30 min zone 2 cardio. That’s it.
Simple calisthenics and stretches every morning. Hip extensions, shoulder rotations, toe touches, etc. Quick and easy and feel much better after. I do these during breaks throughout the day.
After work it depends on time of year and weather. Kayak, mountain bike, snowboard. Hiking or rail trail is fine too.
I break up working day with small 5 min breaks where I rest in a squat. I do this a minimum of 6 times. It helps to stretch the whole posterior chain.
First 30 days I had a 4cm block bellow my heels since I severly lack the mobility. After a month of daily practice I’ve been able to reduce the height of the block to 2 cm. Will continue for another month and hopefully the full squat will be available to me.
The goal is to be able to have the squat as a natural resting position that I can use on a daily basis to break the chair sitting banner.
That’s a cool idea. I’d like to start doing this. I hope my knees can cope, I’m very heavy.
I suggest you take a different approach then.
Instead of doing in 5 min blocks, do it in smaller intervals, say start with 30 seconds. And also you can aim for a smaller total daily time like 5 min, and work your way up to 30 dailly minutes over the course of weeks if not months. It may seem small but the goal is to accumulate the work and slowly induce adaptations.
I love this idea! Tie it into your existing routine! I decided a year ago to stand on one leg while brushing my teeth. Started as a teeter-totter, now I just sway a bit. I change legs when I change quadrants & do each for 30 seconds.
Also, squares are great. I avoided them (and lunges) for 20+ years because of my knee. Then I worked with a trainer for about 8 months last year. She slowly got me working the knee and after a few months I realized I could do squats! My pampering the knee for decades did nothing for it while her slow but steady working on it has me pain free and able to hike for 5+ hours now.
I also found the book: Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body by Scott Hogan
Really helped me out.
Did you typo squares for squats? I think some folks are legitimately curious if you’re talking about an exercise we haven’t heard about
Oof! It’s squats, not squares. That’s what I get for not proof reading my posts.
What are Squares?
That idea of standing on one leg seems interesting, a simple way to introduce balancing on a daily basis, will try it out.
