With the summer days becoming more hot and humid, my clients that like to exercise outside are suddenly LESS motivated to step out the front door. I don’t disagree – sometimes sweating buckets and gasping for thick air while your skin cooks is not the best thing for an intense workout. Days like this can decrease motivation, increase fatigue and ruin a perfectly good workout.
There are some great things to do inside (after you turn up your A/C) to get a workout; and remember it doesn’t all have to be at once, either. Do three to five 10-minute intervals throughout the day if you are hanging around the house. Here’s what I do to get clients’ hearts racing and muscles pumping:
- STAIRS are my favorite. If you have a long flight of stairs, run (or walk) up and down – you will work up a good sweat after several minutes – and alternate by taking one stair at a time, then two, etc. If you only have a few stairs, you can do something similar and pretend like you are in a step class: do standing jumps up the stairs, step up and down 2 at a time, do a fast shuffle up and down the bottom step.
- Mix in jumping jacks and running in place to keep up your heart rate. Plus it’s more fun!
- Lunges and squats are great to slow yourself down but keep the intensity UP. Good for butt and thighs, they will keep metabolism up and increase tone.
- Finish with some push ups (on your knees if necessary – no one can see you!) and planks for some quick core and upper body.
The great thing is that there is no equipment involved – which is the point, because it’s a quick workout – and that you can vary the intensity based on your level of fitness. As a beginner, do this almost every day for 30 minutes and you will notice a difference. As an avid runner or more advanced exerciser, use this to fill in gaps when the weather stinks. Either way, have fun with it (it may make you feel like a kid again, bouncing around the house) and get moving when you are not motivated to go anywhere!
