Fitness 101: How to Be Fit and Active While at Home

Who says you have to hit the gym to be fit these days? You might be using this excuse for the longest time on why you haven’t been exercising: you don’t want to go to the gym. Maybe you’re the type who wants to work out on your own and the many pairs of eyes on the gym distract you. Maybe you get insecure with your weight and seeing fit bodies all around you makes you uncomfortable and ashamed. Maybe you can’t afford to go to the gym because you have other bills to pay. Maybe there’s no gym nearby and getting to it is already quite a chore for you. Or maybe, you did manage to sign-up for the gym but you haven’t been using your membership because your schedule has been too tight and you can’t squeeze in any time to break a sweat. If the problem is the space and you still really want to get into fitness, then the answer might be right where you are now. Because you can definitely work out at home! There won’t be strangers bothering you. You don’t have to pay a membership fee. You can work out at any time you wish. You can show off your fats without being self-conscious. Now, the next question is could you really get a great home workout as good as a session at the gym? You will be able to imbibe the fitness lifestyle if you start working out even without leaving your house. What matters is you do something anywhere you are. You don’t need a lot of upfront investment if you want to design a fitness program that will work at home. You can invest in dumbbells, exercise bands, push-up bars, and fitness balls—and that’s it, you can already work on major muscle groups and get that fit body you’ve always been dreaming of. This equipment could be easily stored in your garage. Just make sure there is enough floor space for your fitness equipment and your car. Install smart storage solutions such as overhead storage racks and wall shelves from FlexiMounts so that your belongings stored in the garage will be off the floor and there’s space for your dumbbells and even more room for you to exercise. If you don’t want to buy equipment, you can still burn calories by doing at-home exercises. There are many videos online that target specific body parts or whole body weightless exercises to get you fit.

Elements of a Fitness Program

If you are making your own fitness program, then make sure it has these five components according to WebMD: warmup, a cardiovascular or aerobic workout, resistance or strength-building exercises, flexibility moves, and lastly, a cooldown. You could brisk walk in your neighborhood as a warmup or if you have a treadmill at home, jog or sprint for five to ten minutes. Pedaling on a stationary bike is also a good warmup to prepare your body for your exercise session. The next part could be to pick a jump rope and let your heart rate increase. You can also do jumping jacks and burpees for the cardiovascular portion of your exercise today. Afterward, get serious with a number of sets for squats, crunches, push-ups, and sit-ups. You could pick up some weights if you want resistance training. Just make sure it’s a weight you could carry and execute a move in proper form.

Improving Flexibility

We could not emphasize enough the importance of stretching. It will help improve your body’s flexibility so get down the yoga mat and do some poses. Stretch until you can reach your toes or straighten those legs. You could also dedicate some time to yoga which will require strength and flexibility. Stretching can serve as your cooldown to release the muscle tension in your body after a strenuous workout. The cooldown’s goal is to bring your heart rate down to its resting level.

Scheduling Your Workouts

There are people who prefer full-body workouts to target every part of the body when they exercise. There are some who divide the days in the week for leg or butt day then the other days will be for the abs and arms. There are some who combine or do HIIT and strength training separately. In any case, the warmup and cooldown maintain the same goal—the warmup is to get the heart rate up while the cooldown is to return the body’s heart rate to its resting rate.

Increasing the Intensity

Gradually increase the intensity levels of your workout. You have to keep a training log so you could track your progress. You should challenge yourself to be better than your last workout. For example, you did five push-ups last Monday. Today, you’ll do 10 pushups. For example, you ran the neighborhood in two rounds last Tuesday. Today, you’ll run around it thrice. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you just have to keep progressing and improving yourself the more you exercise.

What Exercises to Do

You could make up your own fitness program by making sure that you check out the five components every week. To work out, do more than one muscle group at one time, do compound exercises such as squats and pushups. You’ll be able to target a lot with these basic moves. If you’re feeling lost, you can always scour through the World Wide Web and follow fitness programs of influencers and creators on YouTube, Instagram, or Tiktok. Follow them according to what you can do at the moment then gradually improve towards the days and weeks of consistent exercise.

How to Get Started

The key is to just always do something on a designated day of workout. You could do at least 20 to 30 minutes of exercise and call it a day for fitness. No one is pressuring you so it’s much better to start slowly and be consistent with the routine than speed up your progress and then give up altogether quickly. Add reps as you get better. Lift heavier weights if the light ones are already too light for you. And of course, one of the most important pieces of advice is to listen to your body. Know when to push your limits and when you’ve already pushed too much.