Two weeks into the lockdown, many of us are still getting used to our “new home routine”. Even though staying at home is the best thing we could do to safeguard ourselves from the deadly virus, it is also impacting our physical activity.
Sitting for long hours in the same position or staying glued to the couch is one of the worst things you can do to your body during this time. Not only can it make you a lazy couch potato, but it can also add to weight troubles, weaken your leg muscles and make your body rigid and inflexible. Considering you can’t step out of the home to exercise, it can get difficult to clock in physical activity during the lockdown. Hence, it is absolutely important to move around and exercise at home, any way you can.
Kareena Kapoor’s nutritionist, Rujuta Diwekar recently came up with a few easy exercises you can do to strengthen your core and control your waistline, using just a simple piece of furniture- which is the chair.
You can do it alone, or involve your entire family in the exercise. It doesn’t come with any age restriction. Here are the three chair exercises you must try at home:
Chair squats
As a rule, for every 30 minutes of sitting, stand up and walk around for a minimum of 3 minutes. This is one of the simplest ways to stay active as you go about passing your time. If you want to take it one step further, an easy exercise to do is to start doing squats.
Not only do squats help strengthen the glute, core muscles in the legs, they can also help boost your metabolism and flatten belly fat, which is every body’s prime concern, considering we do not get the same time to be active and eat a lot more than usual. Done regularly, it can also burn more calories and tone your body.
If you are a beginner, this is one easy squat exercise you can do with the help of a chair. Just as you would try to sit on the chair, sit down but get up as soon as your butt touches the chair. Maintain good back posture as you do this. Do this 8-10 times, twice or thrice a day and you are good to go. This squat variation will greatly help you fight off excess fat and stay in shape.
Cross-legged squats
Another variation you can attempt doing is a cross-legged version of the same. Staying in the same position, put your right leg on your left and try to sit down. Do the same with the other leg. What this will do is level out the imbalance in our legs when we do not get much physical activity and “retrain” our legs to carry out body weight. Be careful to keep your back straight and not hunch back.
Leg lifting exercises
The third exercise you can try at home is a simple aerobic exercise which can be done with a chair. To do this, stand in front of the chair. Keeping feet wide apart and stand on your toes. Put your right leg on the chair. Get down and put the left one on the chair next. Repeat alternatively. This is a great way to maintain stronger legs at home. As you practice, you can also try an advanced version of it, as Rujuta explains in the video.