4 easy steps to keep working out at home

It can be super challenging to continue working out at home. If you have a family or share your home, often the space, noise and time is an issue.

Also, you may just lack the motivation to work out. Home is our place to relax, where as the gym is where we work out. This is a natural response to environment but we now need to rethink the way we think! Your home is now your gym, restaurant, library, meeting room and more! So let’s reclaim our full life in our 4 walls. And it is possible, believe me! As a fitness teacher needing to continue my income, I have changed the energy of lockdown from stagnation to innovation.

So as lockdown continues and may even repeat, it’s so important to commit to your health, physical and mental. So here are 4 easy steps to get you there.

1. Buy online classes

Many people fall into the trap of ‘Classes are free on YouTube, I’ll do those’.

As an online teacher, I’ve chatted to a huge group of students who chose to pay for classes to commit. Free classes mean you are less invested and so don’t need to commit. You can do it later! And ‘later’ often never comes.

Find local, small studios doing online classes and pay for them. Once money is involved, commitment heightens! Also, helping small businesses is important during lockdowns. They often get closed, but expenses continue, so supporting them is great for your local community, to keep the local economy thriving and in turn, maintain real estate value.

2. Connect with people from home

Taking live classes may seem overwhelming at first but it really helps to connect with other people. And you can’t imagine how lovely it is until you experience it. If you feel like you just don’t want to connect with people, it could be the lockdown rut so don’t let it get too deep, time to get out of it! Log on to a live class and connect. In the first class, do not feel obliged to put your camera on or even talk. You can just be there and experience the class  until you are ready to participate.

This will do a world of good for your mind and soul. Take it step by step. Then when you are ready to turn on your camera, the magic is experienced in full. It’s fun! The teacher may give tips that suit you. And voila! Somehow, we are almost back in the gym. Be open to it and enjoy!

Some pre-recorded classes are great if the teacher is running the class as if you are there with them. It’s a wonderful and engaging approach as often the teacher themselves will get tired or miss a beat, keeping it human and achievable. Over edited videos with voice overs can make you feel like it’s unachievable or even make you lose motivation or get a little bored as they lack the energy of the workout coming through the screen. You’ll also be more inclined to pause or take longer breaks. So make sure you check out the video before you commit if you can. And choose one where the teacher is actually working out with you.

3. Space is not really an issue

Well, it is but it isn’t. It’s as hard as you make it. Being a fitness teacher during lockdown, I’ve found in my small 1 room apartment, so many ways to re-arrange my living room for a class and put it all back together again. I’ve even found a different configuration for when I am a student compared to when I am a teacher. Why? It puts me in the right mindset, it’s like I’m in another room another space.

In fact, having to re-arrange and also share my space online has helped me stay neater, more organised (with my 1000 notebooks) and more creative with my space. I’ve had the chance to declutter and remain clear and open.

I no longer see my lounge room as it was, I see it’s potential and feel like my space is bigger.

It’s all in the mind and all in our hands to change.

Also, online teachers are often teaching from their own home so they too don’t have much space to conduct the class. They will adjust the class to ensure it is small space friendly, so it will be suitable for any space you have. Working with a phone or laptop camera sized screen is a challenge but not impossible. Even ZUMBA can be done in a small space. Your teacher will make it work for you all, so give it a go.

4. Write a schedule and don’t miss class, it’ll cost you money

We no longer need commute to work, gym or home so all of a sudden we have some free time before and after work. And we if we don’t take that time back, we’ll give it to work or home schooling. So wake up at your normal time, and take that extra hour you now have to work out. Do it right before or after work. Make it part of your schedule, put it into your icalendar, so even your peers can see you are not available. The first 2 weeks may be hard for everyone to adjust but when they do they’ll thank you. Kids may work out with you, peers may be inspired to do the same, and you’ll find that putting yourself first is helpful to everyone, as you will be happier and they will be inspired.

If you find you are not taking a lunch break, maybe schedule in a lunchtime class instead. And try to take the class when it is running, rather than logging in to the recorded version.

And if you really can’t attend on time, don’t beat yourself up about it! Just do it when you can that day.

Start now, not tomorrow

Ok guys, now you have the 4 steps, start now!

Go online and find your fitness friends. Here are a few we love: