With all of the self-isolation and self-quarantining everyone has been doing and even mandatory shutdowns in some places, it can be hard to do a lot of things. Recently, stores have put a limit on how much food you can buy or how much toilet tissue you can purchase, etc. They have even started closing down state parks and places a lot of people go for activity. SO how do you stay active and healthy while at home? Well, here are three ideas of what to do and when!

1. Do Bodyweight Workouts At Home

There are many great places that offer free bodyweight workouts that can be done at home, but, if you go to our family’s YouTube channel, we have a few videos with bodyweight workouts that you can do that are fun and effective! You don’t even need a gym at home to exercise. You can just use a rug in your living room or the carpeted floor of a bedroom to perform these exercises. Our favorite times of the day to exercise are about 40-50 minutes before breakfast for about 30-40 minutes, before lunch for about 30+, or before dinner for 30-60 minutes. Just remember to have fun. Exercise is not punishment.

5 MINUTE FULL BODY BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT

Teen’s Review of Chris Hemsworth’s Program Centr 6 Week 5

5-Minute, Great Core Workout with Our Children

2. Do a 7-min Pre-Breakfast Workout or Pre-Dinner Workout

It is easy to quickly pump out a quick 7 minute workout before a meal. This little workout can consist of a minute of any 7 exercises or thirty seconds of 14 exercises. For example this is our normal 7 minute workout. 

• 1 min of jumping jacks

• 1 min of push-ups

• 1 min of sit ups

• 1 min of squats

• 1 min of high knees

• 1 min of mountain climbers

• 1 min of burpees

That is a very simple and effective workout that will make your heart rate start pumping and get your body going. If you would like to make it a lower-intensity workout, just swap out the high knees, mountain climbers, and burpees for lunges, high plank, and tricep dips (you can use a chair for this).

3. Give Yourself a Daily or Hourly Challenge 

If you are very busy or your family doesn’t like working out another way, one way to make activity fun is by giving those who exercise a reward like picking a 10 minute video to watch next time you watch as a family or something else your family might enjoy. The hourly goal could be 10 push-ups and squats every hour on the hour from 0900-1500 or something else that works for you and your family. A daily goal that will push you and kids is 10+ burpees, 50 push-ups, and a 1 min plank. Feel free to mix these up or add and subtract from these numbers. 

Bonus: Use an Activity Tracker

It can be helpful to use a device to track your activity just so that you have better visibility on your calories burned, active minutes, sleep quality, etc. There are a lot of options available from many companies including Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, Fossil, Misfit, and others. We have used Fitbits in the past but, currently, we use Apple Watches since they work so well with Apple’s ecosystem. The great folks at Consumers Advocate have a great guide to picking the right activity tracker if you’re not sure which tracker might be right for you.

Our family is currently following No. 1 and staying active by moving as a family and on our own. Staying active is one of the ways we keep the stress levels low in our home. If you try these tips out, please let us know if you liked them and if they helped you! Do you have other ideas? Please share them with us! 💪

Love, Heistheway