Hello, my name is Edwin Bonfil and I am a wellness education
specialist at Sharp Rees-Stealy Center for Health Management.
Today, I would like to talk to you about some exercises that
you can do at home. Incorporating a small amount of
physical activity can really help, one, break the
monotony of the day; two, burn some calories; and three, just
improve your mood. So, today I'm going to talk to you about
four different exercises that you can do at home without
any equipment. The exercises I'm going to talk to you about
would be the push-up, a body squat, lunges, as well as planks.
All right, the push-up. So, I really like the push-up because
it focuses on a major muscle group: that's going to be
your chest. To begin the push-up, you want to make sure
that your hands are actually a little bit further than
shoulder-width apart and you can use a marker of your hands,
kind of paralleling your chest as well. And you can slowly
drop down to the ground and then push back up. To make it a
little bit easier, especially if you're not used to doing a
push-up, you can also just drop your knees and that would also
help take some of the load and make the push-up a little bit easier.
The second one I would like to talk to you about is just a
squat. I really like the body squat because it's versatile.
You could do it at home, you can do it as a workout, you can
do it during your breaks, you can do it before or after your
walks and it really is a total body workout. It engages every
single muscle in the body. And one of the tips to do a
squat is, it is very difficult for a lot of individuals, but
one of the tips when you are squatting, you want to make
sure that your feet are about shoulder-width apart, and your
toes can be pointed forward or your toes can be pointed
slightly outward. And then you just drop down. One of the
things you want to pay attention is that your knees,
you don't want your knees to go over your toes. If your knees
are going over your toes, it means that you're over
compensating. So, you want to make sure that you are lowering
yourself to the point where your knees are directly over
your toes and not past your toes. In order to make
this exercise a little bit easier, especially if this
is your first time doing the body squat, you can simply
modify it by putting a chair against a wall, something
that's not going to move, and just sitting on the chair,
standing up, sitting on the chair and standing up. And you
can do this exercise as many times as you can tolerate.
A good number to aim for is anywhere between 12 to 20 repetitions.
So, the third exercise I want to talk to you about today is
the lunge. I really like the lunge because it really
incorporates all the large muscle groups in the lower
body. And the only thing you have to do is, in a
standing position, you just bring your foot forward and
then drop your body down. Some of the things to keep in
mind is, as you are lowering, imagine that you're in an
elevator. That's how you're going to lower your body. If
you're moving forward, like if you're going on an escalator,
that means you're overcompensating and you should
retry the exercise for proper form. To make it a
little bit easier, you can also put your back foot on a stable
wall to help maintain and take some of the load of the lunge.
And the last exercise is going to be the plank.
So, this is one of the most versatile exercises. It does
not need any equipment and it really does help out, work out
the core. You could do this at any time when you first start
or finish your workout. You can do it in between your breaks,
but the way you do it is you just start in a plank position.
You can either put all your load on your hands or you can
put them on your forearms. And the same thing with
the push-up, you just want to make sure that if it's too hard
to maintain the plank, you can just drop the knees a little
bit and make it easier.
For this exercise, I would say you can do it as long as you
can. You want to aim for as much time in this position.
You can do these exercises throughout the day, as many
times as you can tolerate it. Aim for a minimum of two days
per week of strength-related activities. However, it is
important to listen to your body and if you feel any pain
or discomfort, discontinue the exercise and look for
an alternative.