America. Apple Pie. Hot Dogs. Baseball. Most recently…multi-tasking.
We are a country that loves to multi-task. We email while we’re on the phone. We eat while we watch TV. We text while we drive. (OK, I didn’t say they were all healthy practices.)
I wrote a while back about the best time to do cardio. Now, I’m going to write on how to multi-task an exercise program with another interest. If the last post was the when, this one might be part of the “how”.
Ask yourself this. Have you ever skipped a cardio session because it was too routine, or too boring? How many of us haven’t used that excuse? It’s a good one, with a lot of mileage. Instead, let’s look at the flip side to the question. How do you marry up something you enjoy with an exercise routine you come to enjoy? Let me provide an example.
Cycling, by itself, can be a tiresome ordeal. Running on a treadmill with no set destination, or on the same road you’ve run a hundred times, can be boring. So, let’s talk about a way to make exercise into something unique and exciting.
In order to change up my cardio routine, I recently took up cycling. (In the past I’ve been more of a runner or skater.) However, hitting the same path over and over again quickly lost my interest. I decided to take the mash-up, multitasking approach toward my cycling. I married it up with my new hobby, geocaching.
If you haven’t heard of it, geocaching is a sort of GPS hide-and-seek. You track down caches that contain materials, and you can check in, sign a log, or even take an object and leave an object from a cache. It’s a treasure hunting exercise that is great solo, or with the whole family. Here in the Manassas, Virginia area, we’re blessed with a number of caches, plus Bull Run Bicycles; a kick-ass shop to help keep our cycles in shape.
I hate failing to find a cache or making it back to base on a long cycling run. So, I keep my body rolling and my legs pumping with a natural energy boost from Usana Health Science’s Rev3. Tea extract, natural caffeine and Stevia; all I need to make it through the trip back once I find my buried treasure.
(Note: some caches are tucked away and may require long pants and sleeves. There are also micro-caches which provide a handheld mechanism to log in and prove you discovered the hidden treasures, without trumping through the woods.)
Geocaching and cycling are a natural mash-up for exercise and a fun hobby. Tell me how you handle your cardio routine and keep it interesting. Our readers are dying to hear!
Till next time….All the best! “Love life, and live it to its fullest.”
nK