Last night at my weekly Survive & Thrive group, one of the women mentioned the Joe Wick’s YouTube videos as a great place to start for home workout inspiration. Today, I typed in Joe Wicks into my YouTube search bar and was delighted when the first videos to pop up were his current internet challenge called #28DaysOfSweat.
This challenge is all about introducing regular exercise into your life, starting with just ten minutes a day.
Last night at our Survive & Thrive group, we had an incredible young woman by the name of Mairead Cooney join us to talk to us about the research she has been doing at the DCU MedEx Centre, paid for by the Irish Cancer Society, into the benefit of exercise post cancer treatment.
Mairead also talked about the research and studies done across the world to date which encourage people living with and beyond cancer to strive for thirty minutes of exercise five times a week.
Mairead discussed that depending on where you are in your cancer journey, this may not be achievable initially but that absolutely any activity in your day counts towards creating a more healthier version of you.
She talked about an idea of activity snacking – that is, taking a break from sitting on the couch or at your desk for a quick ‘activity snack’ of a walk, some exercises, a trip up and down a flight of stairs, etc, as a great place to start.
If you are wondering where you can start with exercise in your own cancer journey, the Cancer Research UK website has this really great article on Exercise guidelines for cancer patients for more information.
I really loved Mairead’s phrase of “activity snacking” and thought about it today quite a bit, before also remembering the mention of Joe Wicks’s YouTube channel. So I thought, what a perfect place to start this idea of activity snacking in my own life – with the #28DaysOfSweat challenge.
I cast the above video from my laptop to the TV in my sitting room and rolled out my yoga mat. Joe launches straight into the exercises so before you start, I’d recommend grabbing a bottle of water and doing a light warm-up of walking on the spot and a few exercises/gentle stretches for a couple of minutes. The yoga mat also ended up getting in my way (my sitting room has a carpet floor) so I quickly moved that out of the way – you might not need it. I wasn’t even in workout gear (but I would recommend good supportive wear for ladies for these workouts). If you are only returning to exercise, these videos may be quite a challenge – if you try one, please attempt it slowly and see how you get on. If you are three to six months+ post cancer treatment, I think you will find these videos quite enjoyable.
I did Day One and Day Two of the challenge today – it only took me 20 minutes and it was a great activity snack, leaving me with lovely buzzy endorphins and that feel-good factor. With the wind and rain here this week, online videos to get your daily exercise in are a wonderful idea and I’m just delighted to now know about Joe and his Body Coach YouTube Channel (thank you Rachel!). Lately I have been feeling a little anxious when the weather hasn’t been accommodating for my daily walk – so this 28 day challenge is right up my street at the moment.
I hope you might check Joe Wicks, AKA The Body Coach out and even give his #28DaysOfSweat challenge a try.
For more information on the Irish Cancer Society research mentioned above, visit this link.
For more information on exercise guidelines for cancer patients, click here.
