#59: 5 Ways to Stay Active at Home

Coronavirus has businesses across the country (and the globe) shutting down for the foreseeable future, and that includes many of our gyms. While your fitness routine may be shaken up, you don’t have to put it on the back burner entirely. The great thing about staying active is that you can adapt it to meet your needs and what you have available to you, whatever that might be. If COVID-19 has you stuck where you are, here are five ways to stay active at home.

5 Ways to Stay Active at Home

1. Bodyweight Training

No equipment? No problem. The only thing you need to work on your fitness is you.

Even the most simple bodyweight exercises can be scaled to be as challenging as you need. Aside from doing more reps to increase the difficulty, think of things like…

• Elevating your feet on a piece of furniture to make push-ups more difficult.
• Doing air squats with a pause in the middle on the way up and down.
• Slowing the down-phase of a sit-up for a bigger burn.

And likewise, you can always scale bodyweight movements down to make them less challenging. For instance, you can do push-ups on your knees or with your hands on an elevated surface, which takes some of the load off. 

The point is this: Bodyweight exercises are a straightforward and effective way to stay fit at home.

Here’s an example workout to get you started:

For 15 minutes

• 20 air squats
• 5 push-ups
• 10 sit-ups
• Repeat!

2. Yoga

Don’t underestimate the power of yoga. It’s good for the mind, body, and soul. 

It may not feel as intense as throwing around a heavy barbell, but rest assured you’re still getting a solid workout. The American Osteopathic Association says that yoga improves flexibility, muscle strength, tone, respiration, energy, metabolism, and heart health, and it can even help prevent injury.

One of the best parts? Yoga requires minimal space. You don’t even need a mat. Try stacking a couple of towels and use that to cushion yourself instead. If you’re not well-versed in yoga poses and don’t even know where to begin, hop on YouTube and look for a beginner-level yoga video.

“But yoga’s just a bunch of stretching,” you’re saying. Not true. It’s also about breathing and focus, and it requires a lot more strength, coordination, and muscle stability (especially in your core) than most of us realize. 

While we’re on the topic of stretching, though…

3. Stretching

Do you typically spend a lot of time sitting? Then you need to stretch.

Do you typically spend a lot of time standing? Then… you need to stretch.

Staying in any position for prolonged periods of time does a real number on your muscles — tightening them in ways they don’t want to be tightened. The long-term results can range from minor nuisances like dull discomfort to serious, full-blown injuries that stem from immobility.

For instance, when you sit, your hip flexors begin to tighten up. Even once you stand, they’re still tight — and now they have to compensate for that tightness. To do this, you end up jutting your ribcage forward and sticking your behind out — something called anterior pelvic tilt. This is a common cause of lower back pain.

This is why it’s a smart idea for people who sit a lot to make time for exercises that stretch out their hip flexor muscles (and hamstrings and pecs and shoulders).

And that’s just one example of how stretching can help you stay active at home, with no equipment and no access to a gym.

4. Hop on the Stationary Bike or Treadmill

If you’ve got a stationary bike or treadmill at home, it might be time to dust it off and power it up, because these two pieces of equipment are excellent for staying active at home.

While you can absolutely use them for endurance training — where your pace is slower but steady — also consider challenging yourself by doing sprint intervals. 

For instance, you can do 10 seconds of maximum effort (meaning pedal or run as fast as you can) followed by 20 seconds of a slower pace or total rest. Repeat this for rounds.

This type of training more so falls under the category of high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. HIIT is good for heart and lung health and is also smart to incorporate if you’re looking for a lean and strong physique.

Another idea is to adjust your treadmill so that it’s on an incline, which adds a little challenge to walking and running. For a stationary bike, try increasing the resistance.

5. Lean on Electric Muscle Stimulation

Electric muscle stimulation (or EMS) is one of the easiest ways to keep your muscles and joints healthy even when your fitness routine is compromised.

For starters, it’s a powerful tool that you can use to help you maintain and improve mobility.

Secondly, it enhances muscle strength whether you’re using it at rest or during your workout. Utilize it during movements including push-ups and air squats for training that packs a bigger punch.

Additionally, because it encourages blood flow and circulation (and thus the transport of nutrients throughout your body), electric muscle stimulation keeps your tissues healthy and nourished and boosts recovery, while warding off inflammation.

Whatever kind of training you might be participating in, if you want to stay active at home, an electric muscle stimulation device PowerDot is the perfect companion and an excellent complement to your routine.

What PowerDot is Doing to Help Right Now

We realize that it’s a scary time. Coronavirus has many of us confined in our homes. We don’t have the same access to our gyms, and some of us might not be able to see the medical professionals who help keep us healthy — like physical therapists and chiropractors.

Our mission always has been and always will be to help you stay healthy, no matter.

Shop our collections now. Stay safe out there, friends.