Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Animals



I have heard people say that they can't work out at home because they have pets. I have two dogs and two cats and they love it when I roll out the yoga mat. They know that means I will be getting down on the floor with them. Yes, their attention when I'm trying to do crunches can be annoying, but it's also a welcome distraction. It's hard to be upset when your dog steps on your chest to pin you down to lick the sweat from your brow. I laughed so hard when she did that, I felt it in my abs as much as the core work I intended to do. They also make the moves seem a bit more real to me. I know exercises are designed to target, but they aren't truly representative of how you'd use that muscle in the real world. If you're doing lunges over and around the dogs playing, that's more of a real world maneuver.

If you're using the presence of animals in your house as an excuse to avoid being active, you are just avoiding being active. It's not really because of the animals. You could just as easily use them as your excuse to be more active. I have rarely met a dog that didn't want to go on more and longer walks.

2 comments:

  1. Well, if you've got animals AND a small place, it really is nearly impossible to work out at home unless you lock the animals away or are doing something relatively harmless like yoga. I tried to do a more strenuous P90x workout and nearly broke the kitten's leg because he got under my feet at the wrong time. Haven't tried that workout again since!

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    1. I know you're not using the animals as an excuse to avoid working out. You work out all the time.

      I was doing pull-ups for P90X and the kitten was on the chair I had my feet on. He was attacking my toes.

      The dogs get in my way all the time when I am working out. Sometimes I end up locking them away, other times I just laugh.

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