Easy ways to tone your entire body

Have you ever spent the day gardening or cleaning the entire house and then wondered why you can't move the next day? Have you noticed that muscles you didn't know existed hurt when you move?

The reason why this happens is simple of course, we are using our entire body and as a result we are effectively doing compound exercise without knowing it. And given that we spend far longer gardening or cleaning than we do in the gym means we get to tone our entire body.

But like all things gardening and cleaning, we rarely spend every day doing that kind of vigorous "incidental exercise" so we shouldn't stop going to the gym just because we think we are doing enough exercise. Truth is, we may be toning our entire body by doing this kind of incidental exercise, what we are probably not doing is strengthening the bones, the joints and the muscles because we are not using weight bearing exercise (strength training at the gym).

But what are other easy ways to tone your entire body?

Well a client of mine is in the process of re-decorating the house. That means she has dismantled furniture and moved it out of the room she is concentrating on, removed boxes and bits and pieces, washed walls and windows and that was before she started the hole filling, ceiling painting, sanding back and painting the walls. Lots of climbing of ladders, lots of upper body workouts, not to mention the length of time each activity takes her to complete.

She says the strength she has gained, and having much better cardiovascular ability allows her to keep going for much longer than if she hadn't been relatively fit to start with.

Now, I'm not saying you should think about re-decorating as a way to tone up, but consider some of the suggestions and how you can incorporate more all over body exercises into your housework and maintenance - and let me know if you can see the difference.