When I became a personal trainer, I wanted to train under the philosophy that you don’t need all the equipment or a gym membership to get a good workout. You have your body and that’s enough to start. You can create a home gym with everything or just the basics but here are 7 things that I have learned from working out at home. It’s all about being intentional with time to get in your home workouts.
- Do more on your downtime: Movement is key! When taking Heisman for a walk, while he is doing his business I’ll do squats. We might go for a longer walk around our place. It’s about making the most of little moments. If you wear an Apple watch, you’ll get a notification at 10 til if you haven’t moved it will go off. I have a sitting job and it typically goes off. I have a list of exercises that I rotate through for a full-body workout.
- Use everyday objects as weights: I would say this all the time when I was a trainer at Planet Fitness. if you can’t make it into a gym you can still get in a workout. There are so many things around the house that you can use as weights. My go-to recommendations are water bottles or veggies cans.
- Schedule your workouts: Put it on your schedule like any other appointment. I have to schedule my workout or else I won’t get it done. Also, this doesn’t have to be an exact 30 minutes of workout. You can schedule a little burst of workouts throughout your day. Schedule what works for you. One of my favorites is doing calf raises while brushing my teeth.
- Eliminate Distractions: For me and probably everyone else it’s my cell phone. If it’s within a hand grab away, I’m reaching for it. If it’s in the other room I barely notice that I haven’t gotten on my phone. My workout is an app but I have put it on an old iPad so I don’t reach for my phone.
- Make use of your TV Time: This doesn’t need to happen every time you watch tv, but adding it every now and again won’t hurt either. I do this naturally, and now it’s a habit for me. During commercial breaks, I get up and walk around our place. Do a few laps and sit back down or even do a few chores. It’s breaking up the sitting there and giving my body a jolt of energy. Another opportunity I make use of TV time is during sporting events. For example, during the Super Bowl create a workout plan for different scoring options. If one team scores do 10 squats. If the away team scores it’s a different exercise.
- Have a Workout Spot: This has been a tough one for me because when we lived in a small 700-square-foot apartment, and I dream of living in an RV. So not really the best for creating my own workout spot. I have had to get creative on triggering my brain it’s time to work out. I have a yoga mat that I use for all my workouts, when I roll it out it’s my time. Now that I have a house and my own space I love it.
- Change your Clothes: I learned this habit from working with my life coach. I had to change my clothes when going from activity to activity. During quarantine, I would get up and have my work clothes. When I wanted to work out, I had a different set of clothes. Another trick that works well for me is having my shoes on. When I have any type of shoes on my brain knows its time to work. Home workouts are so much easier when you are in the right mindset.
