Exercise – Easy Strength Building Tips for House Cleaners and Maids

The Ask a House Cleaner Show and Podcast with Angela Brown

Exercise, especially core building exercise will strengthen your lower back, abs, and glutes. This will give you the physical support you need for house cleaning. Today on Ask a House Cleaner we discuss ab exercise. Both ab crunches and use of a mini trampoline in a popular activity called rebounding will build core muscles and physical stamina. We also look at easy tips to prevent shoulder pain. You'll also learn about physical therapy for rotator cuff injuries. And how to use resistance loop bands for daily exercise and injury prevention. You are the biggest asset of your business. So, taking care of yourself is paramount to your business success. Doing daily exercises will keep you in tip-top shape and going strong in house cleaning for years to come.

We also look at easy tips to prevent shoulder pain. You’ll also learn about physical therapy for rotator cuff injuries. And how to use resistance loop bands for daily exercise and injury prevention.

You are the biggest asset of your business. So, taking care of yourself is paramount to your business success. Doing daily exercises will keep you in tip-top shape and going strong in house cleaning for years to come.

Listen: Exercise – Easy Strength Building Tips for House Cleaners

Watch: Exercise – Easy Strength Building Tips for House Cleaners

Hi there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer.

Is House Cleaning All the Exercise I Need?

Today’s question comes from a girl who wants to know “Is house cleaning all the exercise that I need during the course of a day?”

Answer: No. You Need More Exercise to Build Strength

The answer is no it’s not.
I say no, it’s not because I’ve been doing this for twenty-five years. And I can tell you from experience that house cleaning alone does not give you enough strength to support the chores you do daily.

Your body is your biggest tool in your tool box. You are the engine that drives your entire business.

Having said that, you have to take care of yourself so that you can maintain the jobs that you clean on a day to day basis.

Look at the parts of your body you use to clean house? Your arms, hips, abs, back and knees. Are you doing exercise that supports that?

As house cleaners, we lift and carry cleaning caddy’s full of supplies and solutions, and we moving rugs and furniture.

Squats – An Awesome Exercise That Supports Your Entire Upper Body

We squat down and bend over to wipe lower cabinets, drawers, and baseboards. So you need to make sure that your lower core, and your core is from your shoulders to your quads, it’s this whole area that protects all the other elements of your body.

It protects your legs, your back, your neck, your hips, your shoulders all those things.

So, your core is super important. If you’re not doing squats every day, when you try to go pick something up, you’re not going to have the lower body strength from your lower back to support that.

So, you want to do squats every day.

Now here’s a really good recommendation. Let’s say that you don’t go to the gym every day and you’re not doing exercises. We do take little mini breaks throughout the day. Let’s say that you have to run to the restroom.

Well, when you’re in the restroom, your kind of by yourself and no one can see you.

So that’s a good time to just stand there and do ten or fifteen squats. Just hold your arms out for support, and just go down and do a squat and then come back up again.

But that will support your butt area, your quads, your glutes, the whole lower body part of your body so that you are strong enough that you can move around and do the things that are required from you.

Ab Crunches Are Mandatory Exercise For Core Strength

Another thing that I might recommend is you need to do ab crunches every day.

It’s not fun. Nobody likes doing ab crunches but do much of what we do in house cleaning depends on our abs.

Another part of our core which is super important if you’re going to be in this business for a long period of time.

So, you have to do ab crunches every day in order to support that part of your body.

Then there’s another thing that I might recommend and it’s going to come with prevention as well as exercise.

And that is your upper body.

Prevent Shoulder Injury With These Easy Exercises

Because if you’re in this business long enough, you’re probably going to have some shoulder problems.

And the shoulder problems come from your dominant arm and constant movement.

Where you’re wiping things down, and you’re cleaning things, and you’re vacuuming floors.

It’s all going to take a hit on your shoulder and rotator cuff.

And so, there are preventative measures that you can take. One is to take a small weight, and you want to lie on the floor where your back is flat so that you’re not moving because you don’t want to move your back.

You want to keep your body in one position.

And you want to move your arm from side to side.

That will support and strengthen your shoulder so that you don’t have shoulder problems.

Use Resistance Loop Bands For Strength Training and Physical Therapy

And then another thing, and you can do this while you’re watching TV, is to grab one of these resistance loop bands used for physical therapy and core strength building exercise and do stretches. You can do this while you’re watching TV, or while you’re surfing the internet. And you just stretch it ou and keep your back straight once again. But that will force your arms to get stronger as you go so that you can have the strength to do all of the things, and movement required for your job now and for years to come.

You can do the resistance band stretches above your head, you can do them in front of you, you can do them behind you.

The important thing is to do them on a regular basis.

And so, keep a set of stretch bands in your car, it’s great to do at a stop light or if you’re the passenger in the car.

You can keep one next to your computer. Keep one in your kitchen. If you’re waiting for something in the microwave to cook, you can spend just a minute and do the stretches.

But the most important thing is to keep your body in tip-top shape.

So that you are physically able to do this job for a long period of time.

Rebounding on A Mini Trampoline is The Best Exercise in Low Impact Core Strength Training

Now, another tip that I might recommend is at night time, when you get home and you’re going to wind down for the evening if you’ll put one of those little mini trampolines in front of your TV. They’re like $35 bucks at Walmart or Target, they’re not expensive. (Just found the exact one I have on Amazon for $19,29)

And you don’t have to bounce high.

I’m not talking about jumping three feet off the ground, it’s just this movement right here.

It’s not a big moment, but what it does is it completely realigns your spine.

Rebounding is Excellent Exercise for Weight Loss

So, if you’re one of these people where you have hip problems, and back problems, and knee problems, this totally strengthens your core.

It’s excellent exercise.

It produces oxygen in your body, it gets your blood flowing, it clears out your lymphatic system and so your whole entire body is just kind of like rejuvenated.

And then the next day when you go to clean houses, instead of showing up going “Oh man, my neck. My back. Oh, my shoulder, oh, my hips, my knees…”

You’re just kind of like “Woohoo I’m ready to rock and roll.” And you feel good because you’ve reset your physical body.

You are your biggest tool in your tool kit. And so, you have to take care of you and you do that through constant exercise.

Do These Easy Exercises Every Day to Stay Youthful

So, it’s a little daily practice that you do every single day.

And like I say, you don’t have to go to the gym, you don’t have to do anything fancy. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

But you’re going to be stuck with this body for 24 hours a day. Seven days a week. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Every year, for the rest of your life.

So, if you’re in a physically demanding job like house cleaning, don’t let the house cleaning be your only exercise.

You have to exercise in order to be ready for that job.

Because when this job ends for you, you don’t want to be left as a heap of crap because your body is not protected and you haven’t taken care of yourself.

You want to make sure that as you roll off the other end of this career, that you come out feeling on top of the world, because you stayed in shape and you took care of yourself through the process.

Okay, so that’s my two cents.

If you found this tip helpful, please share it with a friend. Share it with someone who can benefit from it.

And, please leave us an iTunes rating or YouTube rating. Let us know what you think of the show.

And until we meet again, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.

Disclosure

During the shows we recommend services, sites, and products to help you improve your cleaning and grow your cleaning business. We have partnerships with these companies to provide you with discounts, and savings. By clicking on and buying from the links in the show notes, we may receive a commission which helps pay for the production costs of the show.

Support the show so we can continue to bring you free tips to improve your cleaning and help you grow your cleaning business. THANK YOU!

About the Show

Learn how the show came to be, interesting facts about the show host, and other frequently asked questions about the show.

Permissions To Share

You Have Our Permission To Share This Episode

Resources Mentioned on The Show

Resistance Loop Bands for Strength Training & Physical Therapy – http://amzn.to/2papX5p

Mini Trampoline for Low Impact Core Strength Training – http://amzn.to/2pTZZCz

Fit Simplify Resistance Loop Exercise Bands with Instruction Guide, Carry Bag, eBook and Online Workout Videos, Set of 5 – http://amzn.to/2k7slrN

The Original Stretch Out Strap with Exercise Book by OPTP – Top Choice of Physical Therapists & Athletic Trainers – http://amzn.to/2hWjll4

Blue Ranger Shoulder Pulley (Web Strap Door Attachment) – http://amzn.to/2ztReAV

Idson Muscle Roller Stick for Athletes-18 Inches Body Massage Sticks Tools-Muscle Roller Massager for Relief Muscle Soreness, Cramping, and Tightness, Help Legs and Back Recovery, Black Green – http://amzn.to/2AaiZ4I

TheraBand Professional Non-Latex Resistance Bands for Upper and Lower Body Exercise, Strength Training without Weights, Physical Therapy, Lower Pilates, and Rehab, Yellow & Red & Green, Beginner Set – http://amzn.to/2hWKHr8

O2 Cold Therapy Shoulder Brace with Ice Pack and Air Compression Wrap, Universal – http://amzn.to/2AaC8Uc

Shoulder Pulley by Vive – Over Door Rehab Exerciser for Rotator Cuff – Home Cable Arm Rehabilitation Exercise System for Frozen Shoulder, Physical Therapy, Flexibility, Range of Motion and Stretching. – http://amzn.to/2Bt3Zx1