Chores Count As Working Out: Study

Doing household chores could actually help improve the fitness of your heart, a new study suggests.

Researchers from Queen's University in Canada have found that incidental physical activities -- defined as physical activity throughout the day associated with daily living, like climbing stairs, walking around the office or cleaning the house -- actually add up and can boost your cardiorespiratory fitness.

The study was recently published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

"It’s encouraging to know that if we just increase our incidental activity slightly -- a little bit more work around the house, or walking down the hall to speak with a co-worker as opposed to sending an email -- we can really benefit our health in the long-term," study researcher Ashlee McGuire, a graduate student in kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University, said in a statement.

McGuire and Robert Ross, a professor at the university, included 135 obese men and women in their week-long study. They used accelerometers to measure the number of minutes per day they spent doing these everyday physical activities, as well as the intensity at which they did the activities.

Researchers found that the intensity seemed to matter the most, when seeing how these everyday activities contributed to overall cardiorespiratory fitness. The amount of time they did them for didn't matter as much, though, the study said.

Here, a list of seven common chores with potential calorie burns -- exact results will depend on several factors, including your weight:

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Walking Up Stairs With Groceries

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Skip the elevator -- walking up and down the stairs for 10 minutes with your groceries can burn 85 calories for a 150-pound person, according to WebMD.

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Skip the elevator -- walking up and down the stairs for 10 minutes with your groceries can burn 85 calories for a 150-pound person, according to WebMD.

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What household chores get your heart pounding?

Comments

[Soliel]

11:18 AM on 07/01/2011

I've thought about this because my life is full of such "chores" even though I love formal exercise. Let's see...for me this involves rolling out the trash, walking to and from my car (no garage) with groceries and purified water (the later really strengthens my bones and is great for overal strenthening, watering my front and back yards, walking my dogs twice a day, running back and forth to the laundry room, gardening (often involves trotting to Lowe's, pushing a cart with lots of dirt, carrying in that dirt, etc). Yes, my life is full of chores and exercise because of it!

[SW84]

09:02 AM on 06/30/2011

all of these activities fall under Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, not sure anything new is being reported here. being less sedentary is better for your health and joined with a proper diet can result in weight loss or maintenance

[Benjo333]

05:36 PM on 06/29/2011

I like to refer to these as active rest...like golf.

[lovelybunchofcoconuts]

05:13 PM on 06/29/2011

How funny, that's just what I was saying to my husband yesterday!

[Chuck Bluestein]

04:12 PM on 06/29/2011

Walking up the stairs with groceries is just like exercise. They have exercises where you go up and down a step. Now Dr Oz has a exercise, that I modified, that you can do anywhere there are 2 steps. You put your right foot on the 2nd step and your left foot on the bottom step or the step that is 2 steps lower. Then bring your feft foot to the 2nd step and then bring it back to the bottom step. Keep repeating this for a minute. Then rest 2 minutes. Then do it with the left foot starting on the 2nd step.

Continue doing this for 15 minutes. This is HIIT-- high intensity interval training that is supposed to be the best exercise for cardiovascular health and losing weight. "High intensity interval training (HIIT) is a type of cardio training in which you alternate short, very high intensity intervals with longer, slower intervals to recover. This type of training has been used by athletes to improve performance, but it's also been shown to benefit the average exerciser. HIIT training not only helps performance, it also improves the ability of the muscles to burn fat."

Climbing up the steps with groceries is also great to improve bone density. Weight bearing exercise improves bone density. Now if you are carrying extra weight then that is ideal. Otherwise if you are only carrying your own weight, then the thinner that you are, the less effective it is for bone density.

[jgarma]

03:25 PM on 07/01/2011

Per usual, Chuck, you're spot on!

[The Revolving Diet]

02:19 PM on 06/29/2011

Good article and a simple reminder that any type of exercise we do can help us! You do not have to put out tons of money at a gym to accomplish what a simple daily walk can do.

Even parking your car further from grocery store or mall can also add a little extra exercise to your day.