Finding time to exercise can be challenging.
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But the good news is that you’re probably already doing more than enough exercise without realising it.
A new study from Homeaglow found cleaning your home burns a lot more calories than you think.
So why not kill two birds with one stone and work out while cleaning?
Is cleaning exercise?
Homeaglow provided 10 pro-cleaners with Fitbits and asked them to clean 5 houses each to reveal the most effective rooms to clean to burn the most calories and raise your heart rate.
“Our experiment revealed that when professionally cleaning a house consisting of 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room, cleaners burn a whopping average of 830 calories,” says a statement on the Homeglow website.
“To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to doing a HIIT workout for over 1 hour and 30 mins for the average person.”
How many calories do you burn while cleaning?
As for which room burns the most calories while cleaning, the kitchen and the living room came out on top.
“Our results show that the cleaners in our experiment averaged burning 276 calories per kitchen – which is equivalent to jogging for just under 40 mins straight.”
Cleaning your living room burns the most calories per minute.
“The professional cleaners who participated in our experiment burned 6.3 calories per minute in the living room for over 30+ mins – which is an equivalent average heart rate to doing intense weight training.”
Other benefits of cleaning your home include reducing anxiety, releasing endorphins, feelings more in control and improving focus.
How to turn cleaning into a workout
Elisha Casagrande is a personal trainer at Feel Be Look. She says we don’t burn as many calories as we think during a workout, making it ieimportant to focus on increasing non-exercise activities during the day, like cleaning.
Here are her top tips for turning cleaning into a workout.
Ditch the gadgets
Sure, a robot could do it for you, but where’s the fun in that?
Elisha says, “There are so many gadgets available to help us clean the house, but the single best thing you can do to increase your energy output is to implement some elbow grease – wash dishes by hand, use a handheld vacuum that you need to push around the house yourself and use your upper body muscles to get that floor squeaky clean.”
Increase your heart rate
We know cleaning the house is a great way to exercise, so try and include movements that increase your heart rate.
“This could include more aerobic tasks such as sweeping, mopping or vacuuming, says Elisha. “Alternatively, your heart rate will increase when you go from a seated to a standing position, including tasks like making the bed, cleaning tall glass doors, hanging out the washing, scrubbing the toilet etc.”
Compound movements
Go for movements that work for multiple muscle groups at once.
“A Squat is a great example of this that you subconsciously perform often when cleaning the house,” says Elisha.
She adds: “A Lunge is another great compound exercise you could incorporate into vacuuming/ sweeping. Being out in the garden and lifting heavy pots/plants is a great way to work on your deadlifts. Scrubbing walls/ windows will activate and engage similar muscles used in a pushup.”
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