by Lisa Johnson
Our busy holiday schedules can easily toss our best-laid plans for exercise out the window. On top of holiday shopping, parties, year-end work responsibilities and extra family time, your sneakers might be gathering dust in the closet.
Here are some quick tips to burning off 100 calories or more in just 10 minutes!
Boot camp. Lunges, running in place, push-ups and crunches all done in rapid fire time will net you 101 calories in 10 minutes. Either find a video to follow along with or write out a routine before you begin your workout and go get 'em. Alternate upper body, lower body, abs and pure cardio segments and keep moving! You're allowed only to stop to take a quick sip of water, and that's it.
Shadow boxing. Hop onto your toes and keep moving, pretending to punch a surly store clerk as your move side to side and throwing punches in rapid combinations. Boxing tones your abs, legs and arms and burns 107 calories in 10 minutes.
Aerobics. Old-school aerobics is a quick and dirty way to burn calories. Pop in a fitness DVD or find a free workout on iTunes or YouTube. Even your cable company might have on-demand services that include short workout clips. On average, 10 minutes will burn off about 119 calories, pretty good for feeling your inner Jane Fonda.
Jumping rope. You can burn 119 calories in 10 minutes by jumping rope at a moderate pace. If you're an expert and can move rapidly, you can burn a whopping 142! If you don't actually have a jump rope handy you can pretend. The idea is to catch some air under your sneakers and rapidly jump up and down. This will be a sweaty few minutes. Try doing it right before you go in for your morning shower. You'll be totally energized and ready to charge happily into your day.
Stationary biking. You can work up to 131 calories in 10 minutes on a stationary bike at a moderate pace, and if you go flat out (it's only 10 minutes, right?), you can burn 155. Do lots of jumps on the bike and make sure you've got a good resistance on there. You want those legs to burn by the time you hop off.
Run up stairs. This is perfect for a lunchtime workout in your office building. Running up stairs, as quickly as yousafely can, will burn a whopping 178 calories in 10 minutes. Please make sure you're doing it in flats, not heels or dress shoes, and preferably in sneakers so your feet don't take a beating (remember there are cocktail parties to go to!). If that doesn't work, you can run in place in your living room for 10 minutes to knock off 95 calories (almost 100).
The idea here is to attack your 10 minutes with intensity. Make sure that you're constantly moving as hard as you can. Again, it's only 10 minutes, and at the end of that time, you'll feel healthy and energized. You'll also have a nice metabolism boost that lasts much longer than those 10 minutes.
These figures are based on the average 150-pound person.
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