So, with your freedom limited by the nationwide lockdown, there’s a fairly good chance you’re substituting your usual gym or exercise routine for, well, probably not an awful lot. Not to worry, we’re here to help! There are an abundance of fitness routines to keep you healthy and in shape, which work out just about every muscle you could work in a gym setting. Carry on reading to find out our home workout tips, along with some of our favourite exercises!
Set up a place to workout
In order to effectively destress and keep you motivated it’s really important to set up a workout space away from your usual day setting. This means if you work from home, set up an area away from that space – ideally in a separate room. Even if you don’t work from home, try and find a space that’s away from where you’d usually spend most of your daily hours.
If you have a garden, take advantage! Set yourself 30 minutes a day to spend some time outside exercising. This doesn’t have to be intense, weight-focused workouts – even something as simple as jogging around your garden, or if you already have one in your house, use a skipping rope. Skipping is a great method of working your cardiovascular system, and it also gets your happy hormones going!
If you need some tips around how to effectively work from home, take a read of our
Working From Home Guidance blog.
Use social media
The advantage of you being forced to stay in your home is that everybody else is being forced to as well. For the regular gym-goers or fitness influencers, this is their time to shine and you’ll see a wealth of short, easily-digestible clips of workout exercises to do indoors – a lot of the time using just your body weight or regular household items!
You’ll find these videos on Instagram, Twitter and even on TikTok – search in popular hashtags, such as ‘#fitnesstips’, ‘#fitness’ or even ‘#30minuteworkout’ and get started!
No equipment, no problem!
Prior to the mandatory nationwide self-isolation, the majority of us would have made the excuse of “can’t be bothered to go to the gym” or “I don’t have the time”. Well, what this situation has proved is that, well, you don’t have to leave the house! Here are some easy workouts you can do with regular household items:
- If your property is more than a single story or even if you live in an apartment building, utilise the stairs. Use them for step-ups or try an up-and-down workout for 15 minutes.
- Have any paint tins laying around anywhere? They’ll work great as a kettlebell.
- Tights, leggings and even any old lycra you (might) have laying around can be used as a resistance band.
- A sofa or chair (ensure it’s sturdy!) can be used to do dips, leg raises and many different ab exercises.
Exercises
To finish, here is a list of some exercise ideas from our very own Personal Training tutors. We do understand that it can be difficult to find the motivation to get started, especially if you now have your children at home –
our latest blog could give you some tips!
- 30:2 method – Martin Hamer, Manchester PT Tutor:
This is one for all of our home-workers out there. The principle follows that for every 30 minutes you are stationary, you must supplement that with 2 minutes of movement. Now, this doesn’t have to be particularly rigorous movement or full-blown mini workouts, it can be as little as a stroll around inside or can be as much as a mini-circuit!
Of course, for most people it isn’t always possible to pause working every half an hour. So, for example, if you pause work every 2 hours, you’ll need to make up the missing minutes with a total of 8 minutes exercise!
- No equipment exercises – Claire Smith, Hatfield PT Tutor:
Single arm row – using a chair or bed.
Overhead press and bench press – using a full shoe box or all that extra pasta you have!
Squats – variations include body weight, wall sit, dumbbell, single leg, Bulgarian split squat and overhead squat.
Lunges - forwards, backwards, to the side or try the Claire Special: Right leg forward x 10/Left leg back x 10/Left leg forward x 10/Right leg back x 10.
- Stress buster workout – Liz Shaw, London PT Tutor:
Quick Workout & Stress Buster!
Do each section for one min then one min rest – reduce the rest to 30 sec if you’re up to the challenge.
- Spinal Roll Down to Walk Out, Roll Up to Arm Circle
- Body weight squat with wrap around
- Grab a skipping rope! One minute of skipping however you want – preferably with a good soundtrack in the background.
- Roll Down & Walk Out to Plank & Walking Plank
- Burpees
- Spinal Roll Down & Walk Out to All 4’s & Cat Stretch
Finally, here are some great
10-minute workout tips from the NHS which could be a handy way to start off your day!
Find out more here