Saturday's a Cleanin' Day!

I'll I have to say is that CLEANING is DEFINITELY a WORKOUT!

My apartment is officially as clean as it was when I moved in over a year ago! Living room, kitchen, bathroom, spare room, bedroom CHECK! It's all done and it feels great.  This is exactly what rainy Saturdays were meant for. Ask yourself... "how long has it been since you did a full... and I mean full cleaning of your house or apartment?" I have to tell you that it feels great to have a fully clean space to live in. Now, don't get me wrong I'm not usually really dirty. I do spend at least a day out of my weekend every weekend to do the normal household chores. However, today I was feeling super inspired to just deep clean my whole apartment.

I worked up a good sweat! It all started with cleaning the pots and pans in hot water in the kitchen.  Standing over the sink with bubbles up to my elbows, scrubbing the dishes really got me warmed up. I moved right along to the bathroom where I got down on my hands a knees and scrubbed the floor (picture Cinderella).  Getting up, getting down, scrubbing, organizing, etc. after a while that is a lot of squatting and/or lunging, which is the beginning of a good workout. Those of you who workout know that when you use your larger muscle groups your body has to work a whole lot harder, since their is a lot of blood that needs to flow through those muscles. Next, it was time for the laundry.  I gather it all up, separate it into loads, and head down stairs, load the washers and head back up stairs. I think overall I went up and down 4 flights of stairs at least a dozen times...add it all up and you have CARDIO! When the wash is done it's time for a little shoulder workout; FOLDING! I know, I know every one hates the folding and putting away part, but if you try to do it with a little speed behind it you end up holding your arms up and shoulder height for just the right amount of time to feel a little burn. I also moved a lot of furniture today so that I could vacuum everywhere. I'm sure everyone has moved at least once and knows how good of a sweat you get from picking up and moving furniture! That's precisely what I did.  So, as you can see I did basically a full body workout today with out even trying and all I did was clean my apartment and do some laundry.  Remember just because you may not be able to make it to the gym everyday, their are things you can do in the comfort of your own home to get yourself a pretty decent workout.

Here are some more pointers for at home workouts. Do you have a sturdy coffee table? You can use this as a step, to get a little lower body burn/cardio workout.  Do you have a wood or a tile floor and a pair of socks? You can do things like mountain climbers, or pike ups if you have the socks on your feet. Switch it up and put the socks on your hands you can do single arm layouts, or sliding push-ups. Only have carpet? Do you have paper plates or plastic glad-ware lids? The same exercises that I listed above you can do on carpet with these two items. Do you have a chair or a couch? You can do tricep dips or incline/decline push-ups. Everyone has a floor of some sort doesn't matter the surface texture, you can do planks, push ups, sit ups, etc. on the floor alone. Try doing some of these exercises during the commercial breaks of the show that you are watching.  Most 30 minute television shows have at least 10-12 minutes of commercials.  That's 10-12 minutes of exercise that you just created for yourself.  Challenge yourself with this over the weekend! Leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you!