WOFH
Working Out From Home
Fitness Distancing
I love going to the gym, swimming in the pool, sitting in the steam room, and seeing my friends at all of the group fitness classes. Working out has always been a social experience for me, so staying motivated without my accountabila-buddies has been a challenge since the gyms have closed, social distancing is in full swing, and I am staying home. My living room now doubles as my personal yoga sculpt studio, which definitely sounds fancier than it is!
Keeping a Routine
The biggest challenge for me has been keeping a routine. My goal has been to keep things as normal as possible, but with shorter commute times. Monday through Friday, Beaux and I are: up early for a dog walk; then I’m off to work in the guest room; Mondays and Wednesdays, I have a noon 30 minute yoga flow class with The Good Life Yoga & Pilates; lunch; back to work; 1 hour urban hike dog walk; yoga sculpt in the living room; shower; dinner; relax on the couch; go to bed; and REPEAT.
The weekends involve 2 urban hike dog walks, chores, meal prepping for the week, and more yoga sculpt. If the weather is nice, then I change things up with a bike ride.
Changing the Way I Workout
Working our from home has required me to do a mental reset of how I view my workouts and what I really need to stay motivated. Am I going to go for a jog to keep up my cardio? Nope. I hate running. But, can I go back to the mental head space that I was in when I traveled regularly for work and my co-workers at the work camps would tease me for working out with my iPad? Absolutely!
When I traveled regularly for work, it was fairly easy to find a hotel with wifi in the gym so that I could bring my tablet to the gym and play YouTube videos of some of my favorite classes at the gym to work out to! So, during stay at home, I’ve mentally reset to act like I’m on an extended business trip and need to find my favorite formatted classes on YouTube to work out from my living room for the same intensity as at the gym! I love YouTube workouts because they are free and are full of variety!
My favorite YouTube Channel is currently the Core Power Yoga Channel because they post 4 new classes a day with a variety of instructors. This way my workouts stay fresh and varied! Workout tapes are great, but I can only watch the same instructor do that same moves and tell the same jokes so many times before I start cheating myself from finishing the workout because I’ve already heard those jokes too many times…
Taking My Favorite Classes at the Gym at Home
Although I am currently in CPY Sculpt mode right now because I get a blend of cardio burst, strength training, and meditation, I do like to mix it up with body pump, turbo kick, zumba, piyo, and cxworx classes, all of which can also be found on YouTube by search by class name. While my favorite local instructor may not pop up in the search results, the class formats that I know and love do, so I’m sure to stay motivated and get a great workout!
Familiar Faces
I’m lucky to have Beaux as my stay home workout buddy, but sometimes, he isn’t enough to motivate and keep me accountable! That’s why we are so grateful for all of the virtual yoga classes with our friends at Yoga Dance Magic (YDM) and The Good Life Yoga and Pilates (TGLYP) so a few times a week we can stay connected and practice with our fiends! Both YDM and TGLYP offer several FREE yoga classes and MORE a week with sign ups on their respective websites!
I have been logging in Monday and Wednesday from 12:15-45 p.m. to TGLYP 30 min flow class as a work from home lunch break. On Tuesday or Thursday evenings, I try to catch YDM’s sunset yoga classes from 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Staying Motivated
I 100% support getting creative and trying to recreate an experience to make workouts fun! The other week, I took an evening yoga class in my living room at sunset and pretended it was October 2019, First Thursday sunset Yoga with Gold’s Gym on the rooftop of the Canary Hotel with a pre- and post- yoga wine tasting.
April 2020
VS.
October 2019
Lasting Changes
Prior to staying home and staying safe, I was trying to decide if I really needed two gym memberships. I really thought I did, but my new work out from home life style has taught be that all I really need is the one gym membership that has the pool because while I am perfectly capable of yoga sculpting from my living room, there is not enough room in my courtyard garden to install a pool and even if there was, I have feeling this is one expenditure, that even as the HOA President, I could not convince the rest of the board to get behind.
The Final Countdown
Get loud!
One of the most important part of group fitness is group participation! I love when the instructor counts down the reps and I join in without realizing it! When I find myself involuntarily WOOHOOing and shouting back at the instructor that I’m killing it! The same is true for a successful home workout and instruction: act like you are in real class and the Tv can hear you! I am that person counting down with the windows open and WOOHOOing at the YouTube, Facbook Live, or Zoom workout video like the onscreen instructor can hear me! I’m working out, being loud, and my neighbors love it! (Probably not, but who are they going to complain to??? The HOA President???)
Home Gym Work Out Gear
