I have found that just moving a little each hour, with purpose, can go a long way to being more fit and getting in better shape. You don’t need to go do a full workout, you can just get up and move.
I don’t recall who said it but it was something along the lines of “movement is life” and I would assume that the opposite would be “no movement is death.” I would also guess that back in the days of the cavemen, if they sat around too long in one place, they would become lunch for a hungry dinosaur.
How many of you notice, when you are moving and exercising, you feel alive and loose but if you sit in a chair too long, you feel stiff and drained. I would guess that a lot of us more worldly adults feel the same way. If I sit in a chair or on the couch for just 30 minutes my entire body feels stiff, especially my legs and when I go to get up, I make the old man groan.
Over the last few months, I started getting up at least every 30 to 60 minutes just to move around. As soon as I feel my neck start to tighten up or my upper back get stiff, I stand up and walk around the room. Sometimes, I will do something as simple as very slow body weight squats or standing knee raises to get the blood flowing. I have also found that this really helps my focus and gets me back to what I was working on with more energy.
The key to this idea is just getting up. You can use different movements with your three to five minute break. You can do the knee raises or squats but you can also do arm circles, lateral raises or even just stretch. Just get out of that chair and move, that’s all it takes.
Give it try and leave me a comment if you find this useful or want to share your experience.