Exercise is so important for your health, and I highly recommend that anyone who is able to exercise to some kind of movement because there are a lot of health benefits to movement, and you can cause a lot of avoidable health issues by being too sedentary. As a disabled person, I try to exercise regularly because my life is easier when I do a workout, but sometimes it’s hard, and you don’t have time to do a full-length workout. A twenty to thirty workout is always ideal, but life happens, and it’s not always easy to get a full workout in because sometimes pain may prevent you from exercising or you have a time-sensitive matter that will not get done if you don’t skip your workout. I work out a couple of days a week, but because my main focus is weightlifting, I don’t need to do my workout every single day of the week, and there are days I don’t exercise. On rest days, people sometimes think it means you are sitting on your couch doing nothing, but that is not necessarily true because you can still move your body without doing a full-length workout. How can you move your body more without doing a full-length workout? In this post, I am going to talk about what I do to move my body more when it’s a rest day or I am too busy to do a full-length workout and have to skip it.
Make it a little inaccessible– If I were really lazy and wanted to do as little walking as possible, I could get a mini fridge that I kept in my room that had a lot of the snacks I was planning on eating that day. Accessibility is important for disabled people because inaccessibility is dangerous, and I try to make things as easy as possible, but I try not to make things too accessible because when I have to get up to do something, it forces me to move. My life would be a lot easier if I had a mini fridge in my room that I only had to walk two steps to access but I have no desire to do that because I am not one of those people who will get up and go for a short walk every hour and if I didn’t have to get up to do anything I probably wouldn’t. Walking is harder when you have less mobility, and I think I would become very lazy if every task was too convenient because I don’t have as much motivation to exercise as someone without my disability would. I am not suggesting that you make tasks so inaccessible that it’s dangerous, but it can help increase your activity level when you make it a little inaccessible because if forces you to get up when you are hungry. Movement is so important when your bowels don’t work properly because you are more prone to constipation and one of the best things you can do to prevent constipation is to find ways to move your body more even if you aren’t doing a workout.
Do exercises at the sink– If you are short on time and are not able to do a full-length workout it might be helpful to start doing exercises while brushing your teeth or on commercial breaks when you are watching TV. Some fitness influencers will say that you should be doing squats while brushing your teeth, but I am not comfortable suggesting specific exercises because not everyone can do squats and can do a different exercise that is more accessible to you. If you are disabled and can’t squat while brushing your teeth, maybe you want to try doing some arm circles one at a time instead. If you are watching TV you can always do exercises on commercial breaks because some programs have a lot of commercial breaks that are a few minutes long and you can get quite a few reps in on those commercial breaks that you probably aren’t watching anyway.
Take the long way– People sometimes think that because it is harder for me to do things, I always want to take the shortcut and make my life as easy as possible. It sometimes can be hard to move your body more when you are disabled because people think they are helping by making you walk as little as possible, but the reality is sometimes, I don’t want to walk the shorter distance, and a lot of the time I go the long way on purpose. When you have a physical disability, it can be hard to walk more because most people don’t understand that sometimes I want to get more steps in and walk a longer distance. Exercise plays a major role in preventing constipation, but it can be really hard when you can’t go on long walks, and people are trying to be helpful by not making you walk as far. It can be difficult to explain to people that you would have preferred to walk the longer distance without sounding rude, because people are just trying to be helpful, and it is always assumed that everyone with a physical disability can only walk the bare minimum.
Take a stretch break every couple of hours– If your job requires you to sit most of the day sometimes you can’t get up and walk every hour. Some jobs have a reasonably long lunch break, and you are able to go on a nice walk during your break but not everyone has the ability to do that and sometimes you may only get twenty to thirty minutes. If you can get up and walk, please do but if you can’t do a couple of stretches every now and then to prevent pain. Sitting for long periods of time can cause a lot of tightness and even a short two-minute stretch can benefit your health. Stretching is not a substitute for a workout, but it can help prevent tightness and if you do workout, it will improve your performance.
When you are disabled, it can be hard to find an accessible routine because fitness is not accessible, but you don’t have to do a full-length workout to move your body. There will be times when you are in pain and the thought of moving sounds painful, and it is okay to rest on those days, but a vast majority of people aren’t in pain and don’t exercise because they think they don’t have time. Movement is so important for both disabled and non-disabled people and there are a lot of ways you can sneak movement without doing work out. I walk around with light ankle weights on my legs to strengthen my hips because the added resistance makes it a little harder to walk which helps build my hip strength and challenges my core. People sometimes think that if you are sore from a work out you should not move at all, but I don’t think that is always true because light movement sometimes can help improve muscle soreness. Movement is so important for your health, and you don’t have to be doing super hard workouts all the time because it’s all about being realistic with your activity level and doing little things that force yourself to move more. How do you move your body when you don’t have time for a work out?
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