Men’s Health Week: Focusing on Fitness

With the majority of the marketing sector undertaking desk-based roles. It really is important to try and factor in some physical exercise into our day. Today, Kris is sharing his words of wisdom around how to not only make time for physical exercise but the types of exercises we should be doing to take care of our bodies (and minds).

Physical activity and exercise can help prevent a wide range of problems and diseases such as stroke, osteoporosis, cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. With exercise also proven to reduce mental health issues and improve mood, getting active should be a core part of our daily activity.

Government guidelines suggest 150 mins (2.5 hrs) of moderate intensity exercise such as brisk walking, swimming or cycling in bouts of 10 mins or more a week.  A good approach to this would be to spend 30 mins a day, 5 days a week doing these activities.  I would also recommend at least 2 days of strength training or high intensity training (HIT) alongside this.

Accumulating 10,000 or more steps a day is a great target to hit and you could even create competition with colleagues to see who accumulates the most. Most phones and fitness trackers enable you to build teams so maybe create an incentive for the one who achieves the most steps, or the one who increases their activity from the previous week the most.

Other things that help are the usual boring things you’ll be used to hearing, such as get off the bus a stop early and using stairs instead of lifts etc…… guess what?  It works!  These things added up day by day, week by week, month by month really can have a positive effect.

As time is precious, how do we make the most of it in terms of exercise?  Well as we are in June and the weather is good I’d say GET OUTSIDE!  If you have 30 mins, use that time to get outside and go for a brisk walk.  Build up those steps, get away from the desk and you’ll be getting get fresh air, improving fitness, burning calories and clearing your mind all while soaking up some vitamin D in the process.

A HIIT workout if you’re looking for something more intense needn’t take a long time.  You can do it with no equipment, takes up barely any space and doesn’t need to last more than 20-25 mins in total, meaning you can do it during your lunch hour and still have time to eat afterward!

The following is a sample quick workout you could try which is less than 25 mins long, it can be done at the desk or at home while using pretty much every major muscle in your body.  It is a simple circuit with 60 seconds spent on each exercise with a 30 second rest between exercises.  When you have completed one set of each exercise, rest for 2 minutes and repeat once more.

• Bodyweight squats
• Plank
• Press ups
• Lunges
• Sit ups
• Burpees

To make it harder you could decrease the rest time or even do jumping variations of squats and lunges!

Movement is life! So, where you can, move as much as possible, play with your kids, get outside and go for walks or even join a gym!

Check back tomorrow, where I will be talking about the importance of sleep.