Does Cleaning the House Count as Exercise? Here’s What We Found

The fitness industry in the USA alone has an annual revenue of $32 billion. That is a massive amount of money and all of this is generated through people looking to lead healthier and fitter lives through exercise. What if you could achieve your fitness goals while having a clean house? That would be a true win-win situation. So, does cleaning house count as exercise? Let us find out.

Let us talk numbers

The number of calories burnt during a workout session depends on a wide variety of factors such as the person’s weight, type of exercise, location, etc. However, for the purposes of simple analysis, let us take a ballpark value. A 30-minute session of the workout will burn anywhere between 90 calories and 130 calories. These are, again, moderate estimates that will vary from person to person. Let us now come to the activity in question – cleaning. This again can have a lot of variabilities.

The effort you need to put in will depend on the tools you have available to you, the present state of the area you are cleaning and the methods you are using. Again, for the sake of convenience, let us assume that you have standard cleaning agents and tools and the area you are cleaning is moderately dirty (the kind, a regular household can become in a couple of days without cleaning). In the same half an hour period, you would burn between 70 and 90 calories. If the cleaning involves stubborn spots then this number will go up. The point is, even moderate cleaning will expend about two-thirds the energy you would if you worked out at a gym for the same amount of time. That is quite a significant number and definitely makes cleaning houses an exercise.

Glamour and peer pressure

There are a couple of big driving forces behind people joining gyms. One of them happens to be the perception that working out at a fitness center is the ‘it’ thing to do. Another big reason is peer pressure. Many join a gym just because someone close to them does. These aren’t great motivators when it comes to sustaining your drive to keep working on your fitness. Cleaning house, on the other hand, is something that will always be required. If you can stay fit while keeping your home clean, what more is needed?

Functional training

One of the buzz words of the fitness industry is functional training. These are workout routines meant to mimic real-life activities. Why mimic something when you can do it for real. Cleaning is the ultimate real-life functional training method accessible to everyone.

Should you stop working out completely?

If you are already following a fitness regime then it does not mean that you should forsake it if you start cleaning your house. As we saw, numbers are close but not the same as an actual workout. It also does not require your entire body which means that all your muscle groups won’t get the same level of workout. The best way to look at it is as a supplement to your regular fitness routine that will help you reach your goals a little quicker.