Keeping your home clean does more than keep the germs away. In fact, cleaning your home can keep you in shape! Many people do not realize that you can get a workout in just by vacuuming your floors, or washing your car, but the truth of the matter is that any activity that gets your heart rate up can be considered a workout!
If you find yourself to be a busy person that can’t make time for a dedicated workout routine, the solution for you may be just to complete some household chores on the daily. If you want to work out, or want to change your current routine, your answer may lie in the dust on your bookshelves, or the crumbs between your sofa cushions.

Toning up while tidying up
To get an intense ‘exer-cleaning’ session in, you may need to exaggerate some of the movements of the typical household chore to get the most out of the workout. Taking more time to complete a task may also be needed if you are wanting to really work yourself out.
These sessions of exaggerated cleaning can achieve an intense workout, because many chores share the physical movements to gym workouts. Because which is why the exaggerated form can achieve the same level of intensity as a gym workout.
If you are interested in adding the next level of exercise to your cleaning routine, check out this HGTV video on how to exercise while cleaning.
However, one does not need to exaggerate their form when cleaning to still get some meaningful exercise in. The biggest factor of an exercise is to engage the part of the body that you want to work, and exhausting oneself while cleaning is not necessary to give yourself the activity you need in your day.
The best workouts follow the routine of beginning with cardiovascular work and ending with strength training, which cleaning can accomplish.

Cardiovascular Targeted Chores
Anything that gets your heart rate up for a prolonged period of time is a cardio workout, and also builds endurance. Examples of chores that fall into this category include, but are not limited to:
- Vacuuming
- Sweeping
- Mopping
- Dusting
- Washing your car
- Going up and down stairs

Strength Training Chores
There are a wide variety of chores that you can do to strengthen your muscles, and in fact, most chores will do so. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Unloading and loading the dishwasher. For high intensity, squat while doing so to engage your lower body in the action.
- Bringing in groceries. You can use the groceries to weight lift on your way inside as well.
- While mopping, vacuuming, or sweeping, tighten your thighs to engage them.
- While dusting or polishing furniture or polishing the floors, you engage your upper body heavily.
- Cleaning windows, mirrors, or anything overhead engages your upper back as well as your arms.
- Scrubbing the sink, the tub, or really anything can provide an upper body workout as well.
Cleaning is Exercise
Whether you use this information to craft high intensity cleaning exercises, or if you’ve just learned that cleaning is in fact exercise in and of itself, we hope that you will be mindful of the fact that keeping up with your home also helps you keep up with your fitness.
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