What Are Active Minutes and How To Collect Them?
Quite often we get questions like "What are these YuMuuv activity minutes?", "My provider app shows more minutes than YuMuuv, what's wrong with that?" and "I went for a walk with my dog and only got a few minutes, how is that possible?". You can read more about what these activity minutes are and how we calculate physical activity levels in the second post on our blog, but in a nutshell, a YuMuuv activity minute occurs every time your activity monitor measures an average heart rate per minute greater than 60% of your maximum heart rate. The simple formula to calculate this is 220 - your age and take 60% of that.
Looking at the title, you might be under the impression that as you read on, you'll discover the ancient secret of how to get your daily minutes of activity without too much effort during an office fitness challenge. Almost, but not quite! Because moving and getting to move after (or before) a long day at work is usually an emotional war between our two ears, today we're publishing a few ways to get your heart pumping faster with less mental effort.
Table of Contents
Prepare for Less Emotionally
Often when you wake up in the morning or come home in the evening, you don't immediately feel like going out, much less going for a run or doing something more active. It does help, if you turn that emotional war in your head into a small battle - just put on your sweats, sneakers and have a thought like "I'm just going for a walk". Just set yourself up with the assumption that if you've shut the door and after 10 minutes of walking you've got the energy to take some running steps, you'll have the opportunity to do it. It's quicker to get back home!
You Can Dance, Believe Me
Have you ever been in a situation where you come home from a concert/party and discover that your step challenge goals for the next three days are completed during that one night? Let's put this practice into everyday life now. For example, the "Just Dance" game - 4 dances and your daily activity minutes are done! It's especially fun to do it with the whole family. Or why not to do it all colleagues together during the office step challenge? Two birds with one stone, both exercise and quality time! But if this playful dancing doesn't appeal to you, there's a whole YouTube full of "Dance workout" videos so you can dance as a workout.
Add Some Spice
We've all been in the situation where, on the way home, you throw the heavy bag away and sink headfirst onto the sofa. It is recommended that you get at least 20 minutes of activity every day. Now, doing 1+1, the result is that when you walk to the store (ideally about 20min walk), grab your backpack, fill up your stuff in the store, and when you get home, you'll have a full day's worth of activity minutes!
Invisible Activity
Anyone who lives in the countryside or owns a country house knows that the work in the garden never stops. A warm suggestion - next time you head out to the garden or shovel snow on a winter's morning, don't leave your activity monitor in the house. That day's workout is done! So if anyone feels like going to (grand)mum's house for the weekend to help out, have a nice hidden workout!
There are hundreds of ways to make your daily activities more active, just take note. But if you want to make yourself and your colleagues more aware on this journey, let us know and we will give you more step challenge ideas!
