Tag Archives: home workout

Play Your Way to a Summer Body Without Losing Intensity

Three women doing push ups in park

As you roll out of bed, you are met by the warm sunshine of spring. Finally! After months of oppressing rain and cold, warm weather is finally here.

So what to do first? I know! How about we go and sit in the dark, dingy gym to work on our summer bodies we have all procrastinated on.

Sike! Walking on a treadmill while peering out of the gym windows at the blooming flowers and chirping birds is right next to jumping off a cliff on my list of things I would like to do with my time.  However, something must be done about the several mugs of hot cocoa and cookies being used as insulation to keep warm during the winter months. Very strategic. But, now it is time to unveil the holy beach bod and it appears the only choice we have is to drag ourselves into the gym if we want to get a workout intense enough worthy of a bikini ready booty.

What’s that, you say? Tight and toned without a dumbbell? That’s right. Those extra few pounds may just be enough resistance to build a bit of muscle. Now, let’s go to the park for a full body workout!

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Posted on April 29, 2024 by Mariah Edwards-Heflin

6 Ways to Turn Spring Cleaning into a Full-Body Workout

clean

 

We’ve made it through the long winter and spring is finally here and in full swing! ‘Tis the season for baseball, sunny days, green things growing and everyone’s favorite activity: spring cleaning! Since free time is something that most of us don’t have an abundance of, it’s good to know that you can easily multitask while engaging in your spring cleaning chores. According to My Fitness Pal heavy cleaning can burn up to 250 calories per hour, making it a worthwhile fitness activity. And, by adding in just a few simple moves to your cleaning routine, you can burn even more!

Here’s six ways to fire up your heart rate, engage your muscles and get a calorie-blasting workout while you get your spring cleaning on:

 

tunes

1. Blast your favorite heart-pumping tunes
Before you start cleaning, make a playlist of music that gets you pumped. Think about songs that you listen to when going for a run or doing a cardio workout at the gym. Music with an upbeat rhythm is more likely to make you not only clean faster, but help you have fun while doing it. Go ahead and blast that music and dance around with that mop or duster (and burn a ton of calories while doing it!). You’ll discover a whole new appreciation for cleaning.

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Posted on April 22, 2024 by Lauren Martin

Get the Biggest Bang for your Workout Minutes, Even if You Only Have a Few

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions that people strive to stick to each year is to exercise more. It’s also the one that most people tend to give up on before January is even over, often saying, “I just don’t have enough time.” The truth is, you have time for anything that you make a priority. Our lives are super busy with work, school, kids, etc., but that doesn’t mean that you can’t find at least a few minutes each day to focus on improving your fitness level. After all, any of exercise is better than nothing.

forearm plank

Here’s a list of the best bang for your buck in the amount of time that you have to exercise:

Got 4 minutes?

Try a Tabata workout. The idea behind the Tabata method is to work at your maximum level for 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest. This pattern is repeated continuously eight times for a total of four minutes of training. If you’re doing more than one Tababta drill, take one minute to rest between exercises. I would recommend doing a total of no more than six sets total, since you’ll be working at such a high level of intensity. If you only have time for one Tabata, consider doing an exercise like burpees, which is more demanding and works muscles throughout the entire body.

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Posted on January 30, 2024 by Lauren Martin

A Quick, Full-Body Workout is as Simple as a Roll of the Dice

The key to keeping up with an exercise routine for so many of us is having variety in our workouts. Doing the same workout routine every single day can get pretty boring and cause us to throw in the towel all together. I love to mix up my workouts. Changing things up constantly ensures that I work a variety of muscle groups and that I keep those muscles confused. Doing the same workout day in and day out will cause your body to adapt and you’ll eventually stop seeing progress. I also find that I actually look forward to my workouts when they vary from day to day.

I’m also a big fan of go anywhere/do anywhere types of exercises. These are the types of workouts that you can do in your living room just as easily as you would in the gym. They’re also great for traveling, as you can perform the exercises right in your hotel room! You can get a killer workout without using any equipment at all—just relying on your body’s own weight.

To satisfy both of these criteria I just created a new mobile workout actually does require some equipment—but it’s small enough to fit in your pocket. All your need are one or two dice!

dice

(Don’t have dice to roll? No problem—here’s a virtual dice roller that you can use!)

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Posted on January 21, 2024 by Lauren Martin