Thursday, September 29, 2011

A new approach to exercising {fitness}

Hey, Everyone! It’s Josh here wishing you a happy Thursday and hoping your week is going well with some great fitness goals! 

Speaking of goals, I was reading an article on the amazing Diana Nyad, the 62 year old swimmer from LA, who failed in her third attempt to swim the 103 mile stretch from Florida to Cuba. She did not fail from a shark attack, or from exhaustion (after 40 hours of swimming she was actually getting stronger) but due to jellyfish stings that could have proven lethal if she received another. 

She said something that struck me about her focus while she swims that can be applied to goals in general. She remarked that her thoughts were not consumed with the beaches of Key West, Florida that she was planning on hitting, but instead her thoughts were focused on what she had control over at that moment and that by focusing on the “here and now” she would end up at her destination. Obviously she knew what her goal was, but knowing that she had to put “one foot in front of another”, or in her case, “one stroke in front of another”, and focus on the little victories, she would have success in her bigger goal. 

Each of us who have health or exercise related goals can learn from this perspective. Often as I train athletes, I hear frustration about some of these longer term goals that they have, whether it be hitting a time in a 10k, completing a marathon or even obtaining a desired goal weight. Little goals along the way help to obtain the bigger ones and are important to have in place as markers. I thought about what direction to take this post in and thought that I could talk about the virtue of patience or consistency or discipline, all of which are important, but instead I chose to concentrate on “Spicing up your Exercise Journey”. 

As you travel towards your exercise or health related goals know that it does not have to be the result of strictly traditional approaches to exercise. These are probably the most convenient and therefore the means in which you plan on utilizing the majority of the time, but as you accomplish little goals along the way (2 days in a row without soda, running 5 miles without stopping, losing 3 pounds, etc.) reward yourself with a new form of exercise that will help break up the monotony of your main form of exercise and yet still let you walk away from it knowing that you chose to spend part of your day exercising. 

As I searched for some of these different ideas I liked some of the more practical approaches that were suggested such as: actively playing with your children, breaking up your exercise routine into 10 minute segments, getting up and moving every hour at work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, using the hand baskets at the grocery store and doing arm curls while you shop or parking in the farthest parking spot so you have to walk farther. These are great, but I knew there were some more creative forms of exercise that were available and I hit the jackpot when I found several lists of creative workouts on Google. I omitted some that I didn’t quite get like Equestrian Yoga and Hot Tub Treadmilling, others that seemed a bit crazy like Mountain Unicycling (isn’t regular unicycling hard enough?) and finally any activities that involved not having any clothes on, which there were several of! Below you will find 104 different potential ideas that will get your heart rate going, burn some calories, put a smile on your face and get you one day closer to accomplishing that big goal.
1. Juggling
2. Stunt pogo sticking

3. Tree climbing
4. Mountainboarding
5. Unicycling
6. Practicing Jedi Skills (the Jedi Workout)
7. Walking on water
8. Picking up litter around the neighborhood, town, park or beach
9. Playing video games (Wii, Dance Dance Revolution, etc.)
10. Fruit picking (not too slowly!)
11. Volunteering (Try fitness oriented charities)
12. Fire juggling
13. Drumming
14. Bouncing with Spring-Soled Shoes
15. Paint Ball
16. Ropeless jump roping
17. Sit and Be Fit
18. Kite Surfing
19. Virtual horseback riding (or iGalloping)
20. Stationary Bike Racing
21. Pogo sticking
22. Parkour
23. Tricking
24. Punching and kicking your way through your favorite action flick
25. Dancing your way through your favorite musical
26. Hula Hooping


27. Playing tag
28. Joggling (juggling while jogging)

29. Roller Hockey
30. Roller Derby
31. Leaf pile diving (includes raking!)
32. Gladiator Workout
33. Finding online workout videos
34. Wearing weight loss shoes (or sandels)
35. Playing capture the flag
36. Water balloon fights
37. Snowshoeing
38. Bicycling on Water
39. Squirt Gun Fights
40. Pillow Fights

41. Underwater Rugby
42. Underwater Soccer
43. Synchronized swimming
44. Hop scotching
45. Riverboarding
46. Marco polo
47. Slip and slide
48. Playing touch football
49. Snow kiting
50. Giving the dog a bath

51. Miniature Golfing
52. Baton Twirling
53. Sledding
54. Hacky Sacking
55. Making snowmen (BIG ones!)
56. Building snow forts
57. Walking in place while watching tv
58. Boot Camp Workout
59. Swimming with Porpoise Flipper
60. Learn Self Defense
61. Geocaching
62. Orienteering
63. Window Washing
64. Cleaning the garage
65. Clean the attic
66. Landscape the yard
67. Doing laundry
68. Trampolining
69. Inflatable jumping castles
70. Swinging
71. Playing Twister

72. Cheerleading
73. Canyoning
74. Bouldering
75. Snowkiting
76. Skysurfing
77. Belly dancing
78. Circus Skills (Look for circus schools)
79. Gardening
80. Riding a Scooter
81. Clubbing
82. Walkling (juggling while walking)
83. Wave Jumping
84. Street luge
85. Arm wrestling
86. Stability balls
87. Rock Climbing
88. Sandboarding
89. Sea Kayaking
90. Ice climbing
91. Exotic Dancing (link 2)
92. Laughing (laughter yoga)
93. Karaoke (with a lot of dramatic dance moves!)
94. Dodgeball


95. Frisbee Golf
96. Ultimate Frisbee
97. Long boarding
98. Car washing for charity
99. Beach combing
100. Sand dune climbing
101. Samurai Sword Classes
102. Extreme clowning
103. Sumo
104. Laser Tag

Do you guys have any fun or interesting approaches to exercise? Let me know!!
Happy Exercising,
Josh and Kristin

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think virtual horseback riding ie igalloping sound amazing:)

Paddleboarding is amazing too:)

Angie Larkin said...

My dream is to move to Newport Beach and paddle board every morning.

I think I'm the only person in the world who has not yet tried Zumba...

Annie said...

I'm glad some household chores made it on there because I am exhausted after doing them! It's great to see that there are lots of ways to be active! I've got to try underwater soccer.

Stacey Lyn Tippetts said...

Those are a lot of fun ideas.

Big D and Me said...

I love these ideas - I couldn't even imagine my husband's face if I told him we were doing Samurai sword classes :)

My kids have a million sports practices so I always bring a ball along with us and kick it around with my youngest. Also make sure I swim 3 times a week on an adult swim team.

ladiebuggg888 said...

Angie, i have not done zumba either.
I was brought to this site by one of your Guest Blogs over on Sparkle Power. I am having so much fun going through here and learning about you and your family.I look forward to continuing to read many postings to come. God Bless.

Anny said...

I am shocked chasing after toddlers is not on the list:)

Unknown said...

Picking up sippy cup after sippy cup is a great workout.

Unknown said...

What great ideas! Through the day to day you almost forget what else there is to do out there. Thanks