Multitasking - Quick Exercises For the Busy Mom

Being a mom is so time-consuming, so I’ve put together a few ideas for incorporating quick exercises into your daily routine. These are great because they don’t take out any extra time from your day but are an easy way to stay fit and healthy. Even if you do have a scheduled workout time during your day, these are great to keep pushing the limits in fitness!

• Legs: For quick exercises to tone the legs during your busy day, do a squat with a heel raiser every time you have to pick something up. Make sure you have the proper form with your chest up and back straight on the squat and push your heels as high into the air as possible with the heel raiser. You can also do this while doing more static activities like blow drying your hair or in between each bite while feeding your child.

• Arms: There are a multitude of opportunities to work out your arms during daily activities. Every time you need to carry something heavy, do a bicep curl with it or lift it over your head to work on your shoulder muscles. This is especially good to do when putting away groceries or books. You can also put your arms out to the side and do medium sized arm circles with straight arms - these are perfect quick exercises to do while waiting for the microwave to be done or when supervising your children on activities they don’t need help with, such as brushing their teeth or combing their hair.

• Core: You can activate your core muscles with pretty much any activity, especially ones where you are standing up, like sweeping the floor and walking. Simply squeeze your abdominal and buttocks muscles. While you are sitting, you can do quick exercises by engaging your core and holding your feet up or doing leg lifts. You can also take any moment that you are standing up to balance on one leg to flare up the core muscles. Just remember to keep breathing!

• Cardio: With kids, cardio is easy. Challenge your children to a race in the yard or to pick up the toys. For additional quick exercises, you can try running up and down the stairs fast 2 or 3 times instead of just walking up once, it will take the same amount of time but you will get a nice cardio workout in. And my favorite cardio activity - dance! Dance all the time, whether you are cooking, cleaning, in the office or on a walk. Fitness and fun work better together!

• Flexibility: You can also use quick exercises to work on your flexibility. Bend forward and try to touch your toes whenever you have to pick something up off the floor and make yourself twist and reach for things to stretch your muscles.

I can attest to the busy lifestyle that comes with motherhood, but there are always opportunities to work on fitness! Get into gear with these tips on incorporating quick exercises into your daily activities. These are also great to supplement the workouts you may already be doing. Don’t forget to check out our awesome Beachbody fitness programs to learn more about specifically designed workouts.