14 DAY TRIAL // If someone told us a few years ago that we could stay fit without as much as getting out of bed, we would have probably laughed at the assumption – or immediately thought of something inappropriate, or that would require the presence of another person. These days, we have Bedercises, a new form of exercises that are performed on the bed, thus combining the benefits of staying fit with some people’s desire of not getting up to work out.
Bedercises will not get us in a Madonna-like shape – not by far, it’s easy to imagine – but at the very least they can guarantee we shape up and tone our muscles while not actually feeling like we’re working out. After all, they do say that the hardest part about sticking with a workout routine is getting over the feeling that it’s something that is imposed upon us, thus the biggest barrier is the one we set up in our very mind, it has been claimed. With Bedercises, such a barrier disappears completely because, well, as long as we’re lying down in our own bed, there’s no way this can feel like an actual workout.
Bedercises were created by sports specialist Sue Jepson from Manchester Metropolitan University on the occasion of the “National Love Your Bed Day,” a celebration created for the 60th anniversary of Silentnight Beds. The idea was to come up with a form of exercise that toned the muscle without the one doing the workout actually having to leave the bed. Mrs. Jepson also took into account the possibility of two people sharing the same bed so she created exercises both for singles and couples, with the possibility to increase their degree of difficulty by choosing a less stable surface (that is, a softer mattress), because that encourages an increased use of the abdominal muscles.
There are seven types of individual exercises, each of them working a different group of muscles. We’re to start off with the Star Stretch that “tones and stretches lower leg muscles. Mobilizes wrists and ankles. An overall wake-up stretch.” then continue with the Ab-Pillow Pass, which requires two people to pull off. Up next comes the Side Trimmer, which is no different from the exercise we also see on TV and have perhaps even done a couple of times in our Pilates or aerobics class. It “is a good exercise to help tone the outside and front of your thigh. It will also stretch the muscles in your bum.”
The A-B-C-ABdom-Bed-Curl actually means doing sit-ups using the side of the bed as prop for our legs, while the Bed Bum Toner will tone the muscles of the thigh and backside. The last two exercises are also designed with a couple in mind: the Pillow Throw and the Spoon Stretch, so you might want to ask a friend to lend you a hand if there’s no one special in your life right now. One thing we must bear in mind at all times, Silentnight Beds says, is that instructions are to be followed to the letter, while paying plenty of attention we don’t fall off the bed and injure ourselves. See here for more details and do get back to us if these turn out to work for you.