It’s hard to stay fit when it’s frosty outside especially if your joints and muscles don’t have a friendly relationship with the cold. Sometimes, even for those experienced with moving about in cold weather, the fierceness of midwinter can drive all reasonable living beings indoors except for the most necessary things such as traveling to and from work. This can throw a damper on your fitness plan, but there are solutions! You can have a fitness plan for when the weather outside is frightful so that you can stay fit, active, and healthy while keeping the cold outdoors where it belongs.
Stay Toasty
One of the first benefits you may notice when you get started moving is that exercise knocks off the chill that winter brings. Getting your blood circulating is a great way to stay warm and keep joint and muscle pain away. Staying warm in this way, and by taking hot showers will help prevent you from becoming stiff and keep you moving painlessly. As you work on building a regimen of indoor exercise, you will see that staying warm will make working out an especially pleasant part of your day.
Find the Right Impact
There are plenty of great exercises you can do indoors, but it is important that you choose ones that suit your level of fitness and flexibility. When exercising anywhere, staying within workouts that you are comfortable with and slowly progressing to more challenging exercises is the best way to prevent injury and become stronger. Whether you are starting out low and slow or going for super high intensity, there is a home exercise for you, and it is a good idea to experiment and see what works best for you.
Low Impact
Low impact exercises are a great place to start if you aren’t very familiar with exercise, are elderly, or have just recently healed from being injured. As always, speaking with your medical provider is a good idea before starting any new workout routine. Some great low impact indoor exercises include:
- Slow Yoga
- Squats
- Plank Variations
There are also many low-impact workout routines online and on YouTube to try out that have a wide variety of exercises to target all parts of your body.
Medium-High Impact Exercise
Medium-High Impact Exercises are for those who need challenge in their fitness level and who are confident in their ability to perform the moves without injury. If you are working up to a medium-high impact level from something lower, it would likely benefit you to modify the harder workouts and make them progressively harder until you succeed in completing the exercise with proper form. Some great medium-high impact indoor workouts include:
- Burpees
- Squat Jumps
- Donkey Kicks
- Push-Ups and Push-Up variations
Medium-High impact workouts are a great way to stay fit and get your blood pumping at the same time.
Final Thoughts
Working out indoors may become your new favorite pastime. Whether it is, or you’re just waiting for the snow to stop falling so you can hit the gym, any day can be a day to improve your fitness, and your home is a great place to start. Staying fit in the colder months can help you feel healthier, become stronger, and stay injury free.
