By Kel­ly Dinar­do, The New York Times

There’s a rea­son “COVID curves” and “the Quar­an­tine 15” are now com­mon­place terms. While researchers are begin­ning to look at the con­nec­tion between the pan­dem­ic and weight gain, it’s appar­ent that we’re mov­ing less dur­ing this top­sy-turvy peri­od: A pre­lim­i­nary study pub­lished in May and led by Iowa State Uni­ver­si­ty and Trin­i­ty Col­lege Dublin report­ed an aver­age 32% reduc­tion in phys­i­cal activ­i­ty once social dis­tanc­ing went into effect.

Being active is a huge health boost. It improves mood, reduces stress, increas­es ener­gy, enhances brain func­tion, low­ers risk of chron­ic dis­ease and so much more. And research pub­lished in med­ical and health jour­nals con­tin­ues to emerge sup­port­ing the idea that unless you’re train­ing for some­thing spe­cif­ic, like a marathon, short bouts of exer­cise through­out the day have the same ben­e­fits as con­tin­u­ous work­outs. Here are a few ways to sneak in some extra movement.

Move While You Wait

Use the time it takes to brew cof­fee, warm up lunch or boil water to squeeze in mini-work­outs. Rotate through 10 reps of each of these until the microwave dings.

Kitchen counter push-ups: Stand fac­ing the counter and place your hands on the edge just slight­ly wider than shoul­der width. Keep your arms straight and step your feet back so your body forms a plank. Keep the heels lift­ed, abdom­i­nal mus­cles engaged and back straight. Inhale and bend your elbows out to the side as you low­er your chest to the counter. Exhale as you push back up.

Side lunges: Stand with your feet shoul­der-width apart and toes point­ing for­ward. Take a wide step out to the right as you press your hips back while keep­ing the left leg straight and both soles of the feet on the ground. Push your­self back to the start­ing posi­tion and lunge to the left.

Stand­ing bicy­cle crunch­es: Stand tall with feet slight­ly wider than your hips. Inter­lace your hands and place them behind your head with elbows wide. Raise your right knee up as high as you can as you simul­ta­ne­ous­ly twist your tor­so to the right and draw your left elbow to the lift­ed knee. Alter­nate between sides.

Milk jug swings: Grab a bot­tle of milk, water or orange juice, and make sure the lid is on firm­ly. Stand tall with feet hip-width apart and hold the jug with both hands. Bend your knees, shift your weight into the heels, low­er the butt back and bring the jug between the legs. Dri­ve through your heels and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly straight­en your legs and extend your arms hor­i­zon­tal­ly in front of your chest, con­tract­ing your abdom­i­nal mus­cles and squeez­ing the glute mus­cles as you rise. As the jug descends, shift your weight back into the heels, hing­ing at the hips and return­ing to a slight squat.

Multitask Your Muscles

Find moments through­out the day to incor­po­rate move­ment into more mun­dane tasks. It’s not difficult.

Tooth­brush squats: Use this two-minute morn­ing rou­tine to wake up your low­er body by squat­ting while you brush your teeth. Stand with your feet shoul­der-width apart. Keep your chest up, bend your knees and push your hips back until the back of your thighs are par­al­lel with the floor. Pause so you’re not using momen­tum to push back up. Then, dri­ve through your heels and press back up to standing.

Vac­u­um lunges: Step into a full lunge when vac­u­um­ing or mop­ping, and you’ll engage the low­er body and abdom­i­nal mus­cles. As you reach the vac­u­um for­ward, step one foot for­ward, bend the back knee and low­er straight down. Keep your tor­so straight and abs in as you push through the front heel, pull the vac­u­um back and return to stand­ing. Alter­nate legs.

Dish­wash­ing lifts: While stand­ing at the sink, add in calf rais­es to tone the low­er legs and glute mus­cles. Lift your heels and come up onto the balls of your feet as high as you can. Squeeze your glute mus­cles at the top and low­er your heels.

Tooth­brush rolls: Foot mas­sage improves cir­cu­la­tion, decreas­es stress and releas­es endor­phins, all of which pro­motes bet­ter sleep. Use your before-bed brush to roll out the feet. Place a ten­nis or sim­i­lar ball under the ball of your foot. Put as much weight on it as you can tol­er­ate, and roll the ball back and forth the length of your foot sev­er­al times. Repeat with the oth­er foot.

Walk while you talk: Take that work call out­side for a walk. Start by ask­ing if it’s OK to walk while you talk, and let them know they may hear some back­ground noise. Be sure to use ear­buds or head­phones. Then pick up the pace as much as you can with­out huff­ing and puff­ing while you talk. If you can, aim for a speed of 3 mph (or a 20-minute mile). Last­ly, remem­ber that not every meet­ing is walk-and-talk appropriate.

Zoom and Move

When you can’t slip out­side for a walk­ing meet­ing, turn off the video and sneak in a short desk work­out or stretch ses­sion. Again, con­sid­er whether it would be appro­pri­ate for you to do so.

Trash can taps: Stand in front of a small garbage can and shift your bal­ance to one foot and then tap the edge of the can with the oth­er. Repeat. Speed up to make it more intense.

Tri­ceps dips: Scoot to the edge of your chair (make sure it’s sta­tion­ary). Place palms flat on the edge of the chair with fin­gers fac­ing for­ward. Low­er your­self until your elbows are bent back between 45 and 90 degrees. Keep your back straight and close to the chair. Press into your palms to straight­en your arms and return to the start­ing posi­tion. Repeat 10 times.

The prayer: Sit upright with both feet flat on the floor. Bring your hands togeth­er in a prayer posi­tion in front of your chest. Push your hands togeth­er as active­ly as you can for 30 to 60 sec­onds and release.

Wall sit: Stand with your back against a wall. Walk your feet out and slide your body down until your hips are lev­el with your knees and your knees are at a 90-degree angle. Hold for 30 to 60 sec­onds and release.

Stand­ing ham­string curls: Stand in front of your desk and light­ly hold onto the edge for sup­port. Shift your weight onto your left leg, bend your right knee and bring your heel to your butt. Low­er the foot. Repeat 10 times and switch legs.

Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Sitting

Use your binge-ing TV time to your advan­tage. Instead of skip­ping the clos­ing cred­its, recap and open­ing cred­its, rotate through 10 reps of these couch moves until the show returns.

Couch climbers: Face the sofa and place your hands on the seat at shoul­der width and step back to cre­ate a straight line with your body. Engage your abs, squeeze your glute mus­cles and push the heels back. Hold this plank posi­tion for 10 sec­onds. Then draw one knee and then the oth­er to your chest as if you were run­ning. Repeat for 30 seconds.

Hip thrusts: Start in an ele­vat­ed bridge posi­tion with your upper back rest­ing on the seat of the couch, feet on the floor and knees bent. Inter­lace your hands behind your head, hinge at the hips to low­er your bot­tom to the ground and squeeze the glute mus­cles to lift back up to start­ing posi­tion. Repeat 10 times.

Decline push-up: Come into a high plank posi­tion with your feet on the edge of the sofa and your hands on the floor at shoul­der width. Low­er your chest toward the ground by bend­ing your elbows out to the side. Push up to the start­ing posi­tion. This is an advanced push-up vari­a­tion so do as many as you can with­out com­pro­mis­ing your form.

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