Did you know that cleaning your house might help you burn more calories? It’s simple to transform your typical household routine into a house cleaning workout with a few simple tweaks. Most domestic activities involve the same physical motions you do in the gym to burn calories. With a few minor changes, you can get a full-body workout, build muscle, and burn more calories while cleaning your house. If you’re going to do some house cleaning, it would be a huge benefit to have a good workout too. Combined workouts and house cleaning could be an easy way to lose weight while maintaining the cleanliness of your home. It seems like workouts and house cleaning could be the next fitness trend.
For a 150-pound person, sitting on the couch and watching television burns around one calorie every minute. Most cleaning operations consume three to four times that amount of energy.
Adding personal details, such as your body weight, can also help a calories-burned-while-exercising calculator estimate your genuine burn. This calculator includes basic domestic jobs such as cleaning, gardening, and lawn mowing.
Workout for Cleaning the House
The most frequent house cleaning jobs are listed below, along with the number of calories a 150-pound person would burn while executing these domestic chores. Add the challenges indicated below each action to burn additional calories while cleaning. You must test your stability and engage your core to finish these. The result? You will have a more defined waistline, muscular legs, and a sturdy body. Does that sound right? Start cleaning with your rubber gloves!
Mopping or Vacuuming
Cleaning the floors consumes four calories per minute.
Increase your calorie expenditure: Take a complete lunge each time you reach for the vacuum or mop. Pull the vacuum or mop back, and bring the legs back together.
Muscles employed: A lunge engages most of the critical forces in your lower body. You will also use your abdominal muscles to maintain balance as you move in and out of your lunge.
Surface Scrubbing
Cleaning the counters or the bathroom burns four calories every minute.
Increase your calorie burn: If the surfaces you need to clean are above your head, you’re probably already standing on your toes to reach them. You can also keep your balance when moving to lower, counter-level surfaces. Then, to rest your calves, stand on one leg while wiping down surfaces in the kitchen or bathroom.
Muscles employed: Standing on your toes helps form the lower leg by engaging the calf muscles. You activate your core muscles to keep upright if you can balance on your toes. You employ the gluteal muscles that wrap around your hips when you stand on one leg and extend the other leg out to the side. These abductor muscles aid in the shaping of your hips and buttocks.
Baseboard Cleaning or Dusting
Cleaning low-hanging fruit or scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees burns four calories per minute.
Burn more calories by not sitting back on your feet or hips when on your hands and knees but by remaining on all fours. This is the identical position from which a cat-cow exercise would be performed in yoga class. Extend one arm to clean or wash surfaces, then switch sides. Extend the opposing leg behind your body like you would in a bird-dog exercise for an added challenge.
Muscles employed: To complete this cleansing exercise, you must engage the muscles in your buttocks, abs, and lower body. You use your back and abdominal muscles without the leg extension.
Cleaning and Transporting
Climbing stairs with an extra 1 to 15 pounds on your back burns six calories per minute.
Burn extra calories: If you need to carry a laundry basket or cleaning supplies from floor to floor, employ a walking lunge up the stairs.
Muscles used: Carrying a burden in front of you will strengthen your upper body and shoulders. The lunge action will help form your hamstrings and gluteal muscles, which shape your buttocks.
The more quickly you move, the more intense the exercise. So, work as soon as possible while maintaining appropriate form to minimize injury and increase your calorie burn.
Making the Beds
Making beds requires two calories per minute of stepping and stretching.
Perform a side lunge while tucking linens on each side of the bed to burn additional calories. In a balanced Warrior III position, fluff cushions and straighten blankets.
Muscles employed: The side lunge engages most of the lower body muscles but focuses on the adductor and abductor muscles on the inner and outside of your thighs. The Warrior III stance will help you increase leg, back, and abdominal strength.
Cleaning Windows
Washing windows requires six calories per minute of reaching, scraping, and climbing on and off a stepladder.
Increase your calorie expenditure: Lunge from one window to the next, and make extra trips up and down the stepladder to keep the lower body muscles active.
Muscles employed: Leg muscles are used for lunges and stair climbing, whereas core muscles are required for balancing and reaching. When spraying and washing windows, your arm muscles are activated.
Gardening
Weeding, pruning, and mowing the grass all consume 5 to 7 calories every minute.
Increase your calorie burn by squatting or holding a garland stance while weeding. Use a manual push mower for mowing the lawn. If you have a powered mower, try to walk as swiftly as you can behind it.
Squats and strolling from place to place both work your lower body muscles. When reaching to prune, your core is employed for balancing. You are weeding and raking, which helps strengthen your upper body.
Calories Consumed and Burned
While performing chores, a 150-pound person will burn approximately 200 calories per hour. These changes can help you burn more calories. You also learn how to activate your core and use balancing activities to maximize the value of any daily activity. While most fitness gurus would not recommend doing housework as a daily workout, you can undertake this house-cleaning routine when you cannot get to the gym.