Como se exercitar sem sentir que está fazendo exercício

If the idea of carving time out of your day for exercício or seeing the inside of a gym fills you with dread, you're not alone. In Britain, 1 in 3 people feel unmotivated to exercise regularly.¹

We all know how important é a aptidão física is to our health, but lack of motivation means many of us are only exercising for one hour a week, or sometimes even less.

The trouble is, a lot of us associate exercise with work - and hard work at that. To combat this mindset, we need to make physical activity fun, and choose workouts and fun exercises that we don't think of as exercise.

Laura Williams, a personal trainer, says that exercises that don't feel like exercise tend to fall into two categories.

Estes são:

1. Those that include hobbies, that you choose to do anyway - with improved fitness being an incidental benefit.

2. Those that you can include in your daily routine, without having to schedule in a structured workout.

Hobbies que mantêm você fisicamente em forma

Hobbies que incorporam atividade física são uma ótima maneira de manter-se em forma e saudável enquanto se desfruta do tempo livre. Williams recomenda as seguintes atividades.

Caminhada e trilha

Caminhada is often underrated as a form of exercise, yet just like running it is a good cardiovascular workout - increasing heart rate as your heart works harder to provide oxygen around your body. This improves saúde do coração and helps to reduce the chance of heart conditions, such as doença coronariana.

Walking is also good for your articulações and posture. Although a workout of relatively low intensity, the calories you burn can help to prevent ganho de peso and associated health complications.

In fact, research comparing moderate-intensity walking and high-intensity corrida suggests that the energy used in both results in surprisingly similar risk reductions for several health issues.

As hiking is more intense, tending to be longer in duration, and involving steeper inclines, it will give you all of these benefits and more. Hiking uphill (on an incline) will strengthen your upper and lower leg muscles (your hamstrings, quadriceps, and calves) and burn more calories which lead to músculos maiores e menos massa de gordura.

Dança

Se você gosta de dançar, estará ciente de que isso consome muita energia, o que queima calorias e ajuda a prevenir o ganho excessivo de peso, além de ser uma maneira divertida de se exercitar. Pode ser um treino corporal completo eficaz, com movimentos de dança de todos os tipos usando e fortalecendo diferentes músculos.

Regular dancing at moderate to high intensity is also a cardiovascular workout, improves your circulation and lowers blood pressure. It can also be good for your mental health if you're lidando com estresse because following a dance routine can keep your mind preoccupied.

Jardinagem

It may not feel like exercise, but gardening qualifies as moderate cardiovascular exercise according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you - literally - put your back into gardening work, you can reap the same health benefits.

Jardinagem can involve a range of manoeuvres that use lots of energy and strengthen different muscles.

Just 30-45 minutes of any combination of these moves - depending on your garden's needs, of course - can burn between 150-300 calories.

Skateboarding

Skateboarding is another hobby that provides a cardiovascular workout and constrói músculos. The balance required while skateboarding means the muscles in your stomach and back (core) are constantly tensed which uses energy. Certain back muscles, those along the side of your core (obliques), hip flexors, and quadriceps all get a workout during skateboarding manoeuvres and tricks. The more tricks the better, as many involve a transfer of pressure to your core muscles.

Escalada

You can enjoy this hobby indoors as well as outdoors, as many UK cities now have indoor climbing walls. Rock climbing works out your entire body - the muscles in your forearms as you grip, your abdominal and core muscles as you lift your legs to new positions, and your whole body as you propel yourself upwards using your legs and arms. Alongside fortalecimento muscular, este hobby também é um exercício cardiovascular.

Exercícios diários fáceis de incluir

Almost one third of us claim we are too busy to set aside allocated exercise time.¹ Aside from physically active hobbies, there are small exercises that we can incorporate into our daily rituals, from working at our desk to watching television.

"Vale a pena saber que os efeitos cumulativos desses exercícios fáceis de incluir realmente se somam e podem beneficiar tanto os níveis de condicionamento físico quanto a força muscular ao longo do tempo, se feitos regularmente e corretamente", diz Williams.