5 Easy Steps - How to Exercise at Home Effectively
Often we hear from our clients that it can be difficult to stay consistent when exercising at home. Given that the only current option is to work out from home, this is a problem we’d like to help solve. This blog post outlines some of the things we’ve figured out make us and our clients more consistent and successful in the long term.
These items shouldn’t be a surprise as they greatly apply to any workout, and any habit for that matter. It’s much easier to automatically have these things fall into place when you can ONLY work out after work, or you can ONLY go the gym you pay for, or you ONLY have goals for specific lifts. When you have a wrench thrown into these plans it can be a challenge to course correct in order to have the same success you may or may not have had in the past with fitness. It comes down to building strong habits, and all five of these steps reinforce habit building.
1. Stick to the Same Time - Find a time that works best for you and keep it. Wake up and knock it out as soon as you wake up! Get home from work and throw some workout clothes on and get cracking. Just whatever you do don't tell yourself you'll do it before or after something. Especially at home, there can be so many distractions in life, to include other chores, other interests, relaxation, food, etc. You start one thing, and then another and another, and before you know it you missed your workout window. Make it a priority and it will be easy to make the specific time you’re setting. Don’t procrastinate, just get it done at the specific time you’ve set at the same time every day!
2. Always the Same Place - Pick a spot in your house that is THE workout spot. Much like only using your bed for sleep in order to teach yourself to go to sleep effectively, you want to try to set a chunk of space aside just for working out at the designated time. Some of you might ask “What if I do not have the space available to make an exercise ONLY space?” I hear ya! I’m in the same situation, and it isn’t JUST about space. Make the environment unique to when you’re working out and it will be like it’s a new space. If you want to use the living room then turn off the TV, put on some music, move the coffee table, and it’s a whole new space! Pairing a place with a consistent time will help build a strong habit.
3. Set Strong Goals - As I mentioned above, some of us may need to re-address our fitness goals, while others may need to set them for the first time. That doesn’t mean we need to abandon our old goals, but we can pause them for the time being and set some new ones that we currently have the tools for. The most popular way to set goals is to use the S.M.A.R.T. method. S.M.A.R.T. stand for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time bound. All this to say that having a target destination makes the journey possible and reachable without being nebulous and pointless.
4. Record Your Results - I know this was probably the biggest game changer for me when I first started in the gym. Before that I was randomly lifting weights and just hoping to see some changes eventually. Once I bought a log book (we can use apps now) and saw my progress and improvement I was sold! This also shows you that the work takes time, and gives you another level of patience to get to what you’d like to achieve. Seeing your progress and gaining motivation allows you to have a long-term vision of what you’d like to one day achieve and also helps you reevaluate your goals and understand how you can really achieve your goals.
5. Hire an Online Trainer 😊💪 - No matter your skill level there are people out there that can help you improve! Leveraging today’s technology and the amazing devices we all carry in our pockets you can be directly connected to expert trainers that develop content JUST for you. You can communicate directly with them about your fitness goals, workouts, and motivation. Our application even supports a video library so that you can watch us perform the activity before you give it a go. It truly is amazing how much we can get accomplished in this way!
Hope
@daytodayfitness