Creative exercising

MrsSpratt

I'm looking for new ideas to work in exercise. I have young children so I normally get a lot of my workout sin by taking walks and running around with them in the yard. Those are out for now so I need other things I can do easily.

So, what do you all do when your favorite workouts are off-limits?

RonneyKay

I love hiking, but I can't at the moment with my knee. Well I can't do steep ones, I'm thinking I can do the flatter trails. thinking I will definitely do that this week. Its just hard when you hurt.

jvan1957

I'm disabled and always looking for some kind of exercise I can do. Wife jokingly mentioned Zumba and I found this site on youtube for Zumba Gold Chair http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eUmRwRyWD8&feature=related. There are a number of short, 3-6 minute, workouts to do from a chair and pretty much give an entire body workout. I do 2-3 different workouts at a sitting and right now thats about all I can handle.

AllisonMart

I went to a Tai Chi class last night. It's all about very slow and controlled movements, but it's a surprisingly good strength-building workout. You don't bounce around, you don't push farther than you can do. You stand and slowly move in very graceful and beautiful arcs. The slow movements help build your muscles and balance. I really enjoyed it, and had no problem at all with my sciatica. There are videos on YouTube to do some moves.

I also do simple litlte things, like park far away from the store while running errands. By the time I get to the door, the stiffness in my leg has eased and I'm walking normally again.

AllisonMart

Oh and here's a fun hobby that you can do with the kids while exercising - geocaching. Basically, people have hidden stashes all over the place and logged them on www.geocaching.com. You can search by zipcode and find some in your area, along with their difficulty level, and it gives you the latitude and longitude. You use your smartphone or GPS to find the coordinates, and go search for the cache. It's like a treasure hunt, kids love it. The caches usually are a container of some sort, with a log and a few items inside. It's good light exercise (or can be strenuous depending on where it's hidden), you go to places you wouldn't normally go, it's educational for the kids, it's free, and it's fun.

I took a day and found 3 or 4 caches. I was walking up and down hills, through fields, over fallen trees, through city parks, around lakes, all kinds of places, and I really felt it at the end of the day. And I had a blast!

rsdgirl

i have many medical issues so as of now i am most definately using chair boxing they have a whole chair aerobics line of dvds ......... working slowly but better than not doing anything at all

MrsSpratt

Yes! Chair exercises! That's what I need. My husband and I have been joking that I need to develop "Sit-ercise." Guess somebody already has.