Lunden Souza: No excuse not to exercise

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." Thank you, Benjamin Franklin, for being so blunt. One thing I have learned from roommates, classmates and friends is that excuses are worthless and come by the truckload, if you let them. Excuses are fueled by a lack of effort and commitment. I have heard so many excuses about why people cannot fulfill promises to lead a healthy and fit lifestyle.

At the same time, I have read many articles about people who have exchanged excuses for revision and transformation and find them extremely motivating. I have compiled a variety of easy, no-excuse ways to incorporate these practices into your everyday life. All of these exercises I have used myself. For pictures and more in-depth descriptions of these exercises, visit my blog at www.LundenMichelle.tumblr.com.

One of the most popular excuses/obstacles is work, and rightfully so. With the decline in the economy and the lack of job opportunities, it seems obvious that someone would take his or her job seriously and make it a priority over hitting the gym. However, because of the increase in technology, a lot of people spend most of their workweek behind a desk and in front of a computer, where motion and physical activity are drowning in a pool of poor posture. Here are a few exercises that you can do in the office during break, lunch or even a couple minutes of downtime:

The ordinary office chair can be used as a marker for squats. Stand up, then squat down until your butt barely taps the chair, then stand back up. Don't sit down in the chair; use it as a tool to know you are squatting low enough. Most office chairs have a height adjustor and can be lowered for an even deeper squat.

Now, stand behind your chair for some standing hip abduction. You can face the back of your chair and put both hands on it for support or alternate sides with one hand for support, whichever is more comfortable to you. You can also face the back of your chair, using both hands for support, and pulse your heel toward the ceiling to target the glutes.

A second excuse/obstacle to regular exercise is not having a gym membership. I rarely go to a gym. In fact, I usually work out outside, in my house, in my garage, on the patio, at a school with a track on the weekends, parks, parking lots, a friend's back yard, at a community pool or a friend's pool.

All parks have benches and sand. Pick a park bench nobody is sitting on and try these exercises: step-ups, incline/decline push-ups and inclined side plank.

In the sand, I like to do plyometric exercises -- squat jumps, squat jumps with a forward leap. If you're lucky, some parks even have pull-up bars for those of you who are up to the challenge.

Empty school or safe public parking lots and school tracks have a lot of a room for running sprints and walking lunges. I incorporate both of these into my workout at least two times a week. I use the painted lines on the concrete to divide the parking lot into sections and do high-knees one-third of the distance, butt-kicks the second third and then sprint the final distance. This variation makes it more fun and really gets your heart pumping.

On a track I'll sprint the straightaways and do walking lunges, high-knees and butt-kicks around the curves.

When time, work and space are an issue, I hope you can incorporate some of these exercises into your life.

Even for those who have a gym membership and all the time in the world, sometimes switching things can be a way out of a rut. That can happen when healthy rituals turn into annoying repetitions.

Remember to stay positive, focused and creative before you give way to an excuse.

Lunden Souza can be reached at lunden.souza@gmail.com.

This story was originally published August 13, 2011 at 1:08 AM with the headline "Lunden Souza: No excuse not to exercise."