How to make it easy to workout at home

I had never really been one for working out at home until the pandemic hit. I exercised regularly, but I went to the gym or for a run. When the gyms closed I started to look for alternative ways to exercise, and even though we are still members at the gym I've continued to workout at home as well. I like having that option, especially at this time of year when it's so dark and cold outside.

For exercising at home I still wear my exercise clothes, as I find that helps me to get into the right mindset. I don't buy expensive active wear though, I have several basic running tops from Decathlon that were less than £3 each, and I also buy bits from Amazon and the supermarkets. 

I do think that it's important to wear shoes when working out indoors, and some exercises like a plank are very difficult if you are just in socks. I keep a specific pair of trainers for indoor workouts so I don't need to worry about them bringing dirt inside. But they don't need to be fancy ones that you might wear for running outdoors, they just need to have a bit of support and a sole with some grip. 

I like to get my clothes ready the night before so I'm all ready to go. I also have in mind the exercise that I'm going to do the next day, whether that's a stint on the cross trainer or a selection of videos to work through.

Most of my indoor workouts are following a video on YouTube, and there are so many free ones to choose from. I'd recommend having a browse and trying out a few different styles to see what works best for you. I have a couple of playlists set up, for example shorter daily workouts and some longer cardio sessions.

A few of my favourite fitness video YouTube channels:

Rachel Gulotta Fitness - a great selection of cardio and strengthening workouts. The videos are very calming with gentle music and regular stretch breaks featuring beautiful nature scenes. You can get a great workout, especially from the longer HIIT and cardio ones. She also publishes regular daily and monthly workout schedules and challenges featuring different combinations of her videos so that you don't get stuck in a routine.

Joe Wicks - these are mainly HIIT workouts but there is plenty of choice with weights and targeting different parts of the body. Some of these are very tough so you need to take it easy at first!

Chloe Ting - another selection of very aesthetic videos, often targeting particular areas, for example the abs. A really good selection of videos with different lengths so you can make up your own workout.

For a time we also had a free trial of Apple Fitness+ which was also very good. I don't have an Apple watch myself, but my husband does, and I was still able to do the workouts. We enjoyed the trial but decided that we could find everything that we needed on YouTube, especially as we have a premium subscription so we are advert free.

Here are a couple of my favourite short workout videos:

Savage 10 Minute Leg Burner by Joe Wicks - it's only ten minutes long but the clue is in the title, it's not an easy one and will definitely leave you with wobbly legs!

 

10 Minute Lower Abs Workout by Rachel Gulotta - definitely an area of my body that I need to work on and this workout is brilliant. If you can manage the ten minutes every day then you can feel and see results within a couple of weeks.

I also have a few bits of exercise equipment. A yoga mat is probably the most important and they can be picked up for a few pounds from the supermarket. I also always have a small towel nearby. I recently purchased some resistance bands which I find really good for a different type of workout, and we have a few hand weights that we bought years ago. 

I like to keep my exercise equipment neatly stored but also easily accessible. At the moment I keep the rolled mat and resistance band on the bookshelf in my study. Having it in plain sight makes it a good visual reminder to pull it out! 

If you are serious about working out regularly at home then it might be tempting to invest in a larger piece of exercise equipment. Last year we bought a cross trainer which we are very pleased with and which is still in regular use. But we are lucky enough to have the space to use it comfortably and to store it out of the way.

It's important to think about the sort of exercise that you want to do and which can't be replicated elsewhere. For example I wouldn't buy a treadmill because I enjoy running outdoors for free. Think about how a larger piece of equipment would fit, both into the physical space that you have and into the time that you have available for exercise. 

I hope that these tips were helpful if you were thinking about upping your exercise this year!

Main image credit Elena Kloppenburg via Unsplash

How my exercise routine has changed over the last year

As restrictions ease, our gym is now open again. But we've not been going regularly for a long time - we stopped visiting in March 2020 when the speed of coronavirus ramped up, and we only went back for a few tentative visits in October before they closed again. 

So a few months ago we made the difficult decision to cancel our gym membership. It was a shame, because we've been members for years, but we are hesitant about the covid risks and it's a lot of money to pay if we aren't going regularly. I do feel bad, because even though they are a big national chain I know that they will have suffered from the closures. 

It has worked out well for us though. Luckily we didn't have to pay any membership fees while they were closed, and so we have saved a significant amount of money. We have put some of this towards our own cross trainer, and also bought a few other pieces of exercise equipment - sports bras, leggings, new trainers, exercise mats, resistance bands, all sorts of things which are now in daily use!

At the start of lockdown we replaced our gym workouts with running. We both ran nearly every day, although we tailed off a bit as the summer drew on. But when the children went back to school in September I picked it up again and was running regularly three times a week.  

As the weather got colder in December I investigated home workouts on YouTube. I started with Joe Wicks after the success of his PE with Joe videos over lockdown. I found his workouts really tough at first but soon I could manage them without too much trouble, and I increased the intensity by adding weights. But I found that it was becoming a bit repetitive, and I also wanted to work out to music. 

I had a brief fling with YouTube dance workouts, but I never found them very satisfying as I spent most of the workout trying to follow along with the moves and failing miserably. So I settled on HIIT workouts to music, and with so many to choose from it's easy to keep a bit of variety.

I also found that I wanted to do some more targeted workouts, and I was really impressed with the difference that they made. I've been doing some two week ab challenges which really have helped to tone up my stomach, and I've noticed a huge difference in my leg flexibility after I started a ten minute daily stretching video in February. These are exercises that I wouldn't have thought of doing if I was still going to the gym. I have also developed the habit of exercising throughout the day rather than cramming it into one intensive session. 

The one thing that I will miss about the gym is the swimming pool. I enjoyed a swim after a workout, because as well as the exercise I find it a good way to stretch out and relax. Our local public pools are busy and expensive, and I can't see us using them. So I think it is very possible that we will pick up our gym membership again in a year or two, especially once the infection rates are down. 

My exercise routine is another one of those everyday things that has had a massive shake up due to the lockdown, and it's been a really positive thing for me. 

Our new cross trainer

We've been dedicated gym members many years now, since well before the children were born, but of course it has been shut for most of the last year. Even when it reopened over the summer we only actually returned in October for a month or so, and it has been closed ever since. 

I feel bad because I know that businesses like this, even a large national chain like our gym, are going to struggle with the  loss of income. But we have paid them a huge amount in membership fees over many years, and the truth is that not only have we saved a fortune this year, we've also realised that we can manage extremely well at keeping ourselves fit without it. So we have handed in our notice, and unless they are able to offer us a good incentive to stay then we will be leaving once we've worked through the notice period.

We decided to put some of the money that we have saved towards buying ourselves a cross trainer. We placed the order back in January when it was darker and colder than it is now, but due to supply issues we only actually took delivery of it this week. It was very exciting!

Thanks to having cleared and decorated one of our top rooms as a good sized office for Ram, we had plenty of space to fit it. It means that he can use it while he's working, and if I do feel the urge to exercise during his working day he can usually take calls in another room. 

We've only had it a few days but we are really pleased with it so far, and I'm planning to share a full review when we've been using for a couple of weeks. A big benefit is that I can prop my phone up and watch my own videos while I'm working out, instead of relying on the gym televisions, and it's nice and quiet so I don't need headphones. I haven't used a cross trainer much before so it's still quite new to me and I'm finding it very hard work. I can manage twenty minutes on the lowest setting before I wobble back down the stairs and collapse. 

Ram has been eyeing up those fancy sheds that you can install in the garden to use as a home gym. Probably with the amount that we'll be saving on gym membership it won't be long before we can afford one!

How I motivate myself to go to the gym

We have had a gym membership at a national chain for a long time, and I also try to get out for regular runs. When we first joined a gym we were child free, with all the time in the world to visit several times a week. Our attendance has dropped since having the children, and I am always trying to pick it back up again. Now that January has come around again, I always find it difficult to balancy my New Year eagerness to keep fit with the dark mornings and evenings that make motivation difficult.

So here's how I motivate myself to get to the gym or to go out for a run.

* I remember how much it is costing us. We pay for a year, or more, in advance to save money, which means that we don't have a regular monthly payment. It's a huge chunk of money which we really do need to make the most of.

* I try to fit my gym trips around doing the school run, as the gym is on the way there and it makes sense to save petrol and combine the trips. It also takes less time out from my day if I go straight after drop off or on my way to pick up.

* I plan to go to the gym in advance and make sure that everything is ready to remind me. So if I decide that I'm going to go for a run first thing the next morning, I get all my running clothes out and put my trainers by the front door. If I know that I'm doing the school drop off the next morning I'll make a plan to go to the gym afterwards and pack up my bag the night before so it's ready to load into the car along with the school stuff.

* Our gym has a large collection bin for charity shop bags. If I am tripping over a bag of things that I want to pass on, it's a good way to encourage me to go to the gym if I can clear some space by dropping it off!

* I don't really reward myself for exercise, but I am much more inclined to enjoy an extra piece of cake or chocolate bar if I feel that I deserve it.

* And finally, if my husband has been making the effort to increase his gym visits then I try to make sure that I'm matching his commitment - I don't want to be the one that isn't making the most of our investment!

Photo credit Bruno Nascimento via Unsplash