Shirley Archer - Fitness 9 to 5 Easy Exercises for the Working Week

This book is dedicated to all those who work hard in the office to earn a living and who want to be healthy and fit. You deserve to have it all.

Text copyright 2006 by Shirley Archer.

Illustrations copyright 2006 by Chuck Gonzales.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN 978-1-4521-2573-2

Designed by Ph.D.

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

Office Fitness For Every Body: An Introduction

Of course you dont have time to go to the gym for an hour every day. Like most of us, you have to earn a living. Yet, as you sit at your desk, you feel your tushie spreading, your neck and shoulders aching. You know that you need to do something. But what can you do?

You can work out at the office, thats what you can do! Fitness 9 to 5 shows you how to tone up, trim down, and improve your health by incorporating exercises into your daily work routine. Do these exercises at your desk, at the board meeting, or while taking calls. You dont even have to suit up. You can do all of these exercises while dressed in your business clothes.

If youre thinking that this sort of exercise program sounds too good or too silly to be true, that it could never work, consider this: How many times have you paid for a gym membership only to discover that youre never able to go? How many times have you set your alarm for an early workout, only to fall asleep in the middle of the morning at your desk? How many times have you tried to work out at the end of the day, only to find yourself too tired and too hungry to do anything other than shuffle home, eat, and sit on the couch? It happens to all of us. The beauty of Fitness 9 to 5 is that you dont have to go to the gym. You dont have to add another item to your already full calendar. Instead, youre integrating exercise into your everyday routine. Youre maximizing your time. Youre multitasking.

Sure, its great to go to the gym or work with a personal trainer. And if you can do that a few days of the week, thats fantastic. But on those days when deadlines are calling and you cant leave the office, youll benefit greatly from the exercises outlined in Fitness 9 to 5. Never underestimate the power of increasing your daily activities to help you feel better and lose weight. Some exercise is always better than none. Technology today makes it much too easy for us to sit for hours. Our minds are busy, but our bodies are still. We need to stand up, walk away from our seats, and take back the power of our legs.

The World Health Organization recommends that people throughout the world move more to improve health. The American College of Sports Medicine and the U.S. Surgeon General suggest that you do a minimum amount of physical activity to improve and maintain your endurance and to reduce disease risks, especially that of heart disease. Studies show that you can reap health benefits simply from being moderately active for at least thirty minutes, or for three ten-minute bouts, on five or more days of the week. Its that easy!

Of course, more exercise will improve your fitness level; this guideline refers to the minimum amount of time you need to invest for better health. Moderate activity includes climbing stairs, walking to the office, performing light calisthenics, and weight training. Doing the exercises daily in Fitness 9 to 5such as the Performance-Maximizing Parking Lot Stroll and the No-Limits Stairwell Bun Blastermeets these government guidelines for physical activity and improves your health. You will get results!

The exercises in Fitness 9 to 5 also help you tone up and stretch out so that you look and feel great. Strength-training exercises include moves such as Early-Bird Coffeepot Curls to tone your arms and Im Not Quite Ready to Work! Chair Squats to firm up your behind. Stretches like the commuting Crawling-Bus Neck Rolls and the Sit-Up-and-Succeed Chest and Shoulder Opener release tension and help prevent back pain.

Each exercise is described in simple steps and includes revealing information on how many calories are burned over the course of a year simply by doing the exercises daily at the office. These calorie counts are not to turn you into an obsessive-compulsive calorie counter; rather, the counts illustrate the power of adding a few moves daily that help you manage your weight, tone up, and feel great. For example, if you undertook just five of the more challenging exercises five days a week for a year, your total additional calories burned could be 17,500! If you did not change any of your eating habits, that additional calorie burn could result in as many as five pounds lost over a year. If you did sixty-five exercises five days a week for a year, you could work off as much as twenty-nine pounds.

Keep in mind that you burn approximately one calorie per minute just by sitting and breathing. The goal, then, is to find a way to squeeze in small activities during your day to use more energy. The calories burned are based on an average 150- to 160-pound person, so individual results will vary. We understand you need to accomplish work at the office as well, so consider how incorporating even a few exercises can make a powerful impact.

Everybody knows that feeling great is not just about exerciseits about creating a healthier lifestyle. To inspire you to keep up the good work, this book includes lots of motivating and practical tips. These ideas help you to increase your minute-by-minute caloric burn, to improve your workday wellness, and to beat on-the-job stress. Remember, a healthier and stronger you leads to more productivity, better relationships, and higher-quality work in the long term. Your well-being is worth the extra commitment required to make adding some healthy habits a priority.

For ease of reference, the book is organized chronologically, with suggestions for exercises to do throughout the dayfrom before you get out of bed in the morning to your commute back home. All exercises are clearly explained and illustratedyoure even given practical ideas of when to fit them into your daily routine. The only missing ingredient is you.

Before you start with this, or any exercise program, make sure that you are healthy enough to exercise. If youre a beginner, start slow, take it easy, and progress gradually. Most of us get excited when we begin something new. People commonly do too much, too soon. To avoid this, these exercises are broken down into small, achievable portions. Do what you can and you will see improvements. Give yourself time. Start with ten minutes a day and work up to thirty minutes or more. Never do anything that causes you pain. Before you know it, the flight of stairs that used to feel challenging and leave you breathless to climb will feel easy and comfortable.

This workout is convenient and does not require fancy equipment. For walking and stair-climbing, keep a pair of comfortable, flat walking shoes in the office. Your shoes will always be handy, and you wont have to worry about bringing them to work. For a few of the back- and shoulder-toning moves, you can use an inexpensive, four-foot, elastic resistance band. For a few of the lower-body exercises, you can use an ankle weight. For other toning exercises, like reverse biceps curls, you can use a water bottle filled to the amount of weight that you can lift. As you become stronger, increase the amount of water in the bottle to increase the challenge.