It seems that as fitness trends come and go, some are truly effective while others are a tad bizarre. The latest craze boasts a strange name, but luckily it falls more into the first category. It can help you burn more calories during a workout, and it even benefits your community!

We’re talking about “plalking” or “plogging”, which are just funny names for combining walking or jogging with “plocka upp”, Swedish for “pick up”. With their sense of efficiency and love of community betterment, it’s no wonder the Swedes have been combining exercise with cleaning up their parks and roadways.

Plalking or plogging is simple: You choose a route, walk or jog it, and stop to clean up litter on the way.

It’s easy to see how this benefits your community, but how does it benefit you personally? Each time you squat to retrieve a piece of litter, you’re working the muscles in your butt and legs. Essentially, plalking or plogging is another way to combine more than one move, creating a more dynamic workout.

You burn more calories this way, too. Consider this: A half-hour of jogging results in an average calorie burn of 270. Plogging for a half hour, by contrast, burns 330 calories.

So, while plalking and plogging might sound silly, they’re seriously a good workout! Aside from being good for your body and your community, some people find that assigning a purpose to their workouts is more motivating. It’s easy to “cheat” and skip an exercise session when it’s just you, and no one will know anyway. But when you reap a more personal fulfillment from your workout, and you know your local environment is depending on you, you might feel more excited and fulfilled by your exercise routine.

So, grab a trash bag and some gardening gloves, and give plalking or plogging a try. Even better, you might invite a friend to join you, or organize a community group.

For more advice on fitness, or for help reaching your weight loss goals, call us to schedule an appointment. We can help you identify your obstacles, and come up with creative solutions to make a healthy lifestyle more convenient and fun.