Active Life: Do You Need To Go To The Gym?

In Spain, according to data published in 2018 in one of the largest studies in the area, 36.8% of the population does not practice enough physical activity. In fact, far from improving, the figure continues to worsen; so people are increasingly away from an active and healthy life.

At the same time according to what is reflected in the latest annual report of the European market for the Fitness and Health, the fitness has become the most practiced form of physical exercise in Europe. In this sense, Spain is among the main leaders in the sector.

However, it seems that the gym is not the solution to make most people have an active life since, regardless of its possible benefits, it is not generating sufficient adherence in the population.

In addition, research establishes that beyond complying with the recommendations for daily physical activity, to have a healthy lifestyle you must avoid spending too many hours sitting.

Loss of interest in gyms

In terms of health, it seems that going to the gym is unnecessary and insufficient, since not only does it not prevent people from spending too many hours sitting, but it is not even serving to cover the physical activity recommendations for not promoting consistency.

As the following article published in 2012 in the Sports Psychology Notebooks explains , this lack of adherence may be due to the fact that its practice requires time that most people say they lack.

Likewise, other people find it boring or consider that they do not have the adequate information to work on their physical form.

How to include physical activity in a routine?

As we have been saying, in Spain and in some of the western countries there is a problem of physical inactivity. Therefore, to avoid the damages derived from this habit, it is necessary to:

• Comply with the daily physical activity recommendations made by professionals.
• Avoid sitting most of the time.

According to a WHO publication, it is advisable to perform a minimum of 20 minutes of moderate physical activity a day, or what is the same 150 minutes a week.

Active life: tips for everyday life

In order to reach the 150 minutes per week recommended by the WHO and avoid adherence problems, the best will be the following:

• Go up stairs instead of taking the elevator.
• Going to and from work by bike or walking.
• Walk to take or pick up the children from school.
• Do the grocery shopping. In terms of physical activity, the ideal would be to do small purchases on a daily basis.
• Avoid using any automatic means of transport for journeys of less than 20 minutes.
• Opt for public means of transport.
• Carry out household chores.
• Go for a walk. If you can end the day with a short walk, in addition to contributing to physical health, you will be improving your psychological well-being.
• Do some kind of physical exercise that is fun for you.

Active life: specific strategies for sedentary jobs

In addition to the above, it is important to implement strategies within the workplace. Why? Because it is the place where perhaps most of the day is spent and, therefore, not being active within it implies being sedentary.

Therefore, it is important that everyone at work does everything possible to stay active. Again, it is about including physical activity in a daily work routine:

• Try meeting in remote places. In this way, try not to organize the meetings in the next room.
• Avoid sitting meetings and encourage them to do them walking.
• If you need to talk to someone, put down the phone and go to their workplace.
• Identify those activities that you should do outside of the workplace. Then plan their duration to distribute them throughout the day. Ideally, every hour you should have a reason to get up from your chair.
• If you do physical exercise, whenever you can, do it at the time of day when you anticipate that you will be more sedentary.

• If you feel overwhelmed, take the opportunity to go outside and walk for a few minutes. This, in addition to clearing yourself, will help you resume projects more efficiently.

Start taking care of yourself today

Remember that to avoid the risks associated with physical inactivity, it is not enough to comply with the recommendations for daily physical activity, but that “sedentary time” must also be reduced to a minimum and here the gym cannot provide any solution.