Breaking Barriers To Movement

All this month, we are are knocking down barriers to movement so you can be more active more of the time! 

Many of us would like to have more time to participate in physical activities that we enjoy. But as we all know, it’s not always practical in the course of a crazy busy life to fit in movement into the class 5 rapids of our lives.

One strategy to break through this barrier is to make movement work with our daily chores. These are not the wanna-dos but the boring gotta-dos, and they can fill up the space in our lives with drudgery. To make movement work in this case, weld the gotta-dos into the wanna-dos. Here’s how that goes.

Think about those commitments as a vehicle for more movement. cleaning the house and doing yard work are great examples of chores that you can turn into meaningful activity.

When we were raising kids, we would have them look about on Sunday and estimate the time it would take us to all run through the house can clean it from stem to stern. The goal was to get the closest number, but also to see how quickly we could do it. We queued up some rocking upbeat music that we started at the moment we said GO.

“Pick your time. Get ready. On your mark … get set … GO!!” Then, running up the stairs, skipping to the beat like a whirlwind we cleaned until the entire house was done and we were ALL out of breath!

This is just one example, and you can think of others for your specific situation, but the idea is to take boring chores and make them more upbeat. Below are tips that can help turn these chores into a win for more movement!

• Put on music while you clean inside and dance to the beat as you bustle around the house.
• If you are doing yard work, estimate how long you think it will take you to finish, and then try to beat that time!
• When you have to carry something up and down the stairs, take them two stairs at a time.

If you think about chores as a vehicle for movement, you’ll go up and over that barrier, get fit, and the boring chores won’t be so boring any more!