Get Fit Without the Gym With These Easy Micro Exercises You Can Do All Day

If the idea of spending hours at the gym makes you dread exercise, you may be looking for a more enjoyable alternative. Instead of lengthy workouts, these quick micro exercises will help you to tone up and trim down without setting foot in a gym — in fact, you can do them even while you're doing other tasks!

  • Crunchless crunches. Strengthen your abs while sitting at your desk or walking around the grocery store. Simply tighten your abdominal muscles by sucking in your stomach slightly. Hold this move for 3 to 5 seconds, and then release and repeat for as many reps as you like.
  • Break for squats. While cleaning your house or even working in your cubicle, take periodic breaks for squats. Do 5 or 10 squats at a time until you complete a set of 100.
  • Relax into a wall sit. While reading documents at work or watching your favorite TV show at home, do a wall sit instead of sitting in a chair. Use your core muscles to keep you steady, and even work in some tiny pulses in your legs to tone your glutes.
  • Stop, drop and push up. When you're doing a somewhat active chore, such as walking the dog or doing the dishes, stop every few minutes to do a round of push-ups.

Mile Posts: 5 Easy Exercises You Can Do All Day [Women's Running]
Deskercise! 33 Smart Ways to Exercise at Work [Greatist]
5 Crazy Simple Ways to Fit in More Exercise [Women's Health]

4 Health Benefits of Cardio Workouts

People need cardio workouts in order to improve your heart’s function and keep it strong and healthy, and lucky for you, it’s actually much easier to squeeze in a cardio workout than you might expect. Here are just four great health benefits of cardio exercise.

1) It improves your heart’s health.
The most important benefit of cardiovascular exercise is the positive effect that it has on your heart. Things like running or biking make your heart pump blood at a faster rate than normal, and because your heart is one big muscle, this strengthens it even after you stop exercising.

2) It improves your mood.
Because cardiovascular exercise releases hormones that fight off stress and promote a sense of well being, you might feel happier and more energetic after working out.

3) It increases your metabolic function.
The more intense the cardio exercise, the faster it makes your metabolism function. This helps to maintain your weight or even promote weight loss.

4) It decreases recovery time.
If you hate cardio and love strength training, you might want to reconsider. Jogging or walking after performing another workout is known to quicken your recovery time, making the day after a long workout much more comfortable on your body.

5 Great Benefits Of Cardiovascular Exercise! [BodyBuilding.com]
The Brain-Boosting Effects of Cardiovascular Exercise [Women’s Health]
Aerobic Exercise: Top 10 Reasons to Get Physical [Mayo Clinic]

What Are Aerobic Exercises?

Does walking count as an aerobic exercise? Is playing golf an aerobic workout? These are common questions, and many people don’t understand what qualifies an activity as an aerobic exercise. If you want to learn more about aerobics, these informative facts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can help:

  • Aerobic activity, or “cardio”, is any activity that increases your heart rate and makes you breathe faster. Aerobic activity isn’t just reserved for working out – biking, dancing and even walking up the stairs are all aerobic activities.
  • The intensity is how hard your aerobic activity is. Aerobic activity is grouped into light, moderate or vigorous intensities, and light intensity activities usually don’t count toward fitness guidelines.
  • Moderate-intensity activities include things like walking quickly or playing tennis..
  • Vigorous-intensity activities include running, swimming laps or playing basketball.
  • If you haven’t worked out regularly or have taken time off from working out, don’t start out with vigorous-intensity activity. Begin with moderate-intensity activities and work your way up to avoid injury and build stamina.

Visit the CDC's website to learn more about aerobic exercises.

Three Useful Apps for Tennis Fans

You love tennis, but unfortunately you can’t spend every day on the court. If you want to get a daily dose of tennis even when you’re on the go, there are a number of smartphone apps for tennis fanatics just like yourself. Here are a few of the best.

Tennis Channel
Browse an entire channel dedicated to your favorite sport no matter where you are with the Tennis Channel app. The sleek, easy to navigate layout makes it simple to browse through news from competitions like the Masters, as well as scores, blogs, and player profiles to keep you even more connected to the latest tennis happenings. Tennis Channel even offers HD videos of full matches from your favorite players around the world.

Tennis Channel Everywhere
Tennis Channel Everywhere enables fans to watch both live and past videos from the Tennis Channel right from any iPhone or iPad device. Keep up with current tennis matches airing on the popular television channel with the live feature, or browse through the high quality video archives to catch up on the highlights from matches you may have missed.

World Tennis News
If you prefer to read your tennis news rather than watch all of the highlights, World Tennis News is the app for you. This attractive app rounds up news and results from all across the competitive tennis circuit and compiles them into a neatly organized database that’s constantly updated.

Pin It on Pinterest