Laundry Day Full Body Workout For Beginners
Looking for a fun full body workout? Try the laundry day workout at home! This total body workout for beginners will help you get stuff done around the house while toning and strengthening your entire body. Note: This post contains affiliate links.
There’s always a need for a beginner friendly total body strength workout for beginners. This beginner version of a full body workout is perfect for moms.
As someone who has been teetering between healthy and overweight pretty much her whole life, I have learned a few important things about weight loss.
Actually, I’d say I’ve learned some pretty important things about health in general now that I’ve experienced enough to really appreciate my own body.
One of those things is really important for everyone. Meaning, anyone who wants to lose weight AND anyone who wants to maintain their health.
And that is the fact that we just don’t move enough.
The ultimate full body workout for moms? Laundry + exercise! Lol.
People keep trying to remedy things (and lose weight) by investing in workout and diet products. We exercise and think that’s the end of it. Sure, dedicated exercise is important. But what are we doing the rest of the day?
Ultimately, a healthy weight is achieved with a lot of movement of your whole body. And healthy weight loss is ultimately achieved with a calorie deficit that happens over a period of time.
My point is that working out for 30-60 minutes per day is great, but it may not be enough if we are sedentary the rest of the day.
Overall, humans need to move more. Our bodies were not made for sitting around.
This is something that we all know – move more, lose more. Move more, feel better. But somehow we still neglect this fact and don’t keep moving.
(This no gym full body workout is super helpful for moms that work at home like me!)
When I first started blogging, I got sucked into it and gained a ton of weight. I sat around so much! I actually gained so much weight in that first year that I decided that I had to quit blogging altogether once I realized how much I’d neglected my health. (Which was SO much more important.) I even took a whole year off to really think about what direction my life was going to take.
Eventually, I gave myself an ultimatum – if I was going to blog, it needed to be health & fitness related. Why? Because I wasn’t willing to compromise on my health. And honestly, I needed the accountability. (That’s when this blog was born.)
I’ve shared a bit of my health journey here, but I’ve also shared that I’ve just begun a postpartum journey, too. I’ve obviously taken up blogging again, but I am keeping myself publicly accountable for moving more, getting healthy, and losing weight. (I also decided to keep myself accountable by becoming a personal trainer and going “all in” with fitness.)
I think that a lot of people can related to not moving enough (regardless of whether they workout). I want you to ask yourself if you really use your body every day. Then ask yourself how you use your body every day. It’s probably not enough.
If you’re working out often, but not seeing results, you’re probably eating too much or not moving enough (or both).
When I decided to hop back on the bandwagon, I started creating personal challenges, rules, and workouts for myself. Here are a few examples:
- Never sit for more than an hour without getting up to move around for a few minutes.
- Blog standing up – I’m not doing this right now since I’m recovering from having a baby last month, but my husband set up a standing desk for me and I will get back to using it soon.
- Try to add little exercises into my everyday tasks. (Like doing laundry!) I actually wrote a whole post about sneaking exercise into housework, which you can read here.
I decided to share my laundry day full body workout, since I know so many of you are either moms or are like me in that you could simply move more.
What the heck is the laundry day full body workout?
Honestly, I don’t have a designated laundry day unless I’ve been totally slacking in that department for a few days. I do several loads of laundry daily and this workout will work as long as you have clothes to fold and put away. (Yes, I do at least two loads per day because my husband’s work clothes is super heavy and huge!) But I do know a lot of people who have a “laundry day” and like I said, this workout will work for both types of people, HA.
Anyway, this as a full body workout for beginners because I do it as a bodyweight home workout, but it can be tailored to your needs pretty easily. I’ll share regressions and progressions (how to make it easier or harder) below!
This is a workout that is perfect for mamas or anyone who is at home doing the laundry. Sounds funny, right? But it’s simply a way to combine exercise with chores. And it actually makes laundry kinda fun. (Whaaat?)
What is a good workout for beginners? Well, one that is highly customizable, like this one!
What you need for the laundry day full body workout:
Here’s how it works:
Part 1;
- Choose a number between 1-10, depending on how much laundry you have to fold. If you have a little (like one load) then you want to choose a small number. If you have several loads, aim higher. (You’ll see why soon.)
- Choose 3-5 of the exercises I have listed below. You will repeat those to form a total body workout, so choose exercises targeting different areas of the body. (I usually pick pushups, planks or crunches, and squats.)
- Choose a rep number. You will do X amount of squats (or whatever exercise you’ve chosen) so make sure this is appropriate for your desired level of intensity and appropriate for your fitness level.
Part 2;
- Put your laundry somewhere where you will have room to exercise.
- Fold the amount of items you chose in Step 1 of Part 1. Example: Fold 5 items.
- Perform your chosen exercises for the number of reps you chose. Example: Do 10 pushups, 10 squats, and 10 crunches.
- Repeat until all of the laundry is folded.
Hopefully you can see how this can easily be changed depending on how much laundry there is. Can I do a full body workout every day? Sure, if it’s light!
Exercises to choose from:
- Squats
- Pushups
- Tricep Pushups
- Donkey Kicks
- Planks (20-50 seconds)
- Crunches
- Bicycle Crunches
- Calf Raises
- Lunges
- Russian Twists (using dumbbell)
- Overhead Presses (using dumbbells)
- Whatever you want!
Trainer Tip: Take a sip of water after each exercise set.
To make the laundry day full body workout easier:
- Do less reps or;
- Increase your clothing article number, thus increasing your rest time or;
- Do with only one load of laundry or;
- Just do one exercise after each folding session, i.e. only do pushups after folding
To make the laundry day full body workout harder:
- Add hand weights to your exercises
- Increase rep number
- Decrease your clothing article number, thus reducing your rest time
Don’t forget the warm up and cool down!
I never understood how important these things were before I became a personal trainer. I know that this workout doesn’t seem like it’s too serious, but I still recommend warming up for 5-15 minutes before starting. (Especially if you’re adding weight or doing a lot of laundry.) Walk, do jumping jacks, or do arm circles until your body is warm (5-10 minutes). Then foam roll if you have one. (If you don’t know how to foam roll, or what it is, this post is all about it.)
For the cool down, just do the same as during your warm up or do some static stretches. That’s it!
Do you have any fun or silly workouts you do? Or any odd ways to get yourself moving? I’d love to know about them! Leave me a comment below!
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- Tips For Working Out On Your Period
- Beginner Yoga For Stay At Home Moms
- Self-Care Habits For Overall Wellbeing
