If you live somewhere that experiences the brunt of Jack Frost’s wrath then you know how hard it can be to get active when winter strikes. While it is important to brave the cold and spend some time outside, it isn’t practical to plan daily outdoor exercise. So if you live in a winter wonderland three months of the year, here are some things you can be doing to stay in shape.
Start Building a Home Gym
A fully established home gym can be very expensive and difficult to store in smaller spaces. However, you don’t need to purchase every piece of equipment right off the bat. To start creating your own personal gym at home, all you need to get started are some weights, a yoga mat, an exercise ball, or any number of small yet beneficial exercise tools. If you can afford a larger piece of equipment such as a treadmill, that can also be an ideal way to see yourself through the winter.
Find or Write a TV Workout
A current exercise trend, particularly among young people, is exercising alongside a favorite movie or TV show. It works by assigning a certain exercise to occurrences in the show or movie. For example, a Harry Potter workout might have you perform ten sit-ups each time someone casts a spell. You can find premade workouts for more popular films and shows online, but if you want a more customized workout, tap into your creative juices to come up with a few all your own – and maybe share them with a few of your fit friends.
Try Short Burst Workouts
There is new evidence to show that short yet high-intensity workouts might be more effective than lower intensity, prolonged workouts. Exercising indoors can get boring and repetitive, but if your workout is only eight minutes long, it becomes much easier to tolerate. Short burst workouts can either encompass many moves performed one after the other or something as simple as running up and down your stairs as fast as you can until you can’t do it anymore.
Combine Work and Working Out
If you’re a desk warrior, spending most of the workday at a computer or sitting at a desk, you are actually in the perfect position to work out while at work. Desk exercises are small actions that you can do throughout the day to keep your blood flowing and muscles working. It may not replace a full workout, but it is certainly helpful to those working more sedentary jobs. Exercising at your desk is the perfect placeholder to keep your body fit on a busy schedule. However, it is best to supplement these activities with gym time or home workouts.
Staying fit in the winter may not be as exciting as a hike through the mountains in the summer. However, you have the power to make it fun with your favorite TV show, spicing things up at work, or even going out shopping for your new home gym. Wintertime and the holidays do not need to spell disaster for your health. Instead, they offer you the challenge of keeping fit in a creative, season-appropriate way.