Break Times = Excuse to Exercise

Ever found yourself waiting for a bus, train or taxi?

Ever discovered that you need to wait for someone to finish or deliver something before you can do something you're supposed to do?

Ever got really bored while standing in a lineup?

Well here is a hot tip!

Take that 6 minutes or 10 minutes or however much time you have available to do some basic cardio exercises.

#1. Run in Spot

#2. Jog up and down the Stairs

#3. Do Stretches or Yoga

#4. Do balancing exercises on your legs

#5. Do squats

#6. Do Counter Pressure Exercises (aka Isometric Exercises) with your arms (pulling or pushing one arm vs the other).

Now I admit some exercises may look silly if you do them in public. eg. Doing yoga while waiting in a bank lineup, but some exercises like the Counter Pressure Exercises or Stretches you can do anywhere and nobody will notice or care*.

* Although truth be told, stretching also has an effect of making people look more attractive to the opposite sex.

One famous user of Counter Pressure Exercises / Isometric Exercises was Bruce Lee, the martial artist / movie star. It made up the majority of his training exercises. His martial arts style, Wing Chun Gung Fu, placed huge emphasis on using such exercises to build up strength and speed.

Bruce Lee injured himself while exercising with free weights and swore off using weights, insisting from that point on that he would focus on using Isometric Exercises and bodyweight exercises.

The end result is if you have 6 minutes and nothing to do, why not do some quick cardio, stretching or any other kind of exercise? Think of it as an exercise break and you've got no excuse not to use that time productively.

And lets pretend for a moment you end up waiting around like that on a daily basis. Say half an hour every day while you wait to pick your kids up after school. That is 5 days per week, 30 minutes per day, 150 minutes worth of exercise. Burning 300 calories per hour you are looking at 23,400 calories per year or approx. 7 lbs. Maybe more if you're burning more than 300 calories/hour.