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Picture this: your gym day has finally come. You have your clothes on, your
water bottle is filled, your bag – wait. Where did you put your bag? In the
closet? On the chair? You look for 20 minutes only to find that you put it away,
exactly where it was supposed to be. But you’re ready now. It’s gym time.

But, you don’t want to make any second trips, so you check your bag to make sure
it has your lock for the locker room, a personal towel, and a change of clothes
– but not your regular change of clothes, because you have plans later. Right.
Back to the closet.

Ok, it’s been half an hour, but you found the perfect outfit, shoes included,
and you remembered to bring make-up to finish off the look. Your bag is all
packed, and you’re finally in the car and driving 30 minutes to your closest
gym. You walk in, get your ID ready, secure your locker, find an open machine –
aaaand you forgot your headphones.

Last time, it was your water bottle. The time before that, one of your kids was
home sick. None of your gym days ever seem to be just perfect.

It shouldn’t be so time consuming and costly to have one good day to work out,
but high-intensity interval training (HIIT) done right from home is a great
replacement for your gym membership.

If you’re a frequent gym-goer, you’ve probably heard of HIIT, but here’s a
refresher in case you haven’t. HIIT is a cardio routine which involves short
bursts, or intervals, of high intensity exercising, followed by shorter periods
of rest. Each interval can range anywhere from 20 to 90 seconds, and the resting
periods between each interval are usually from 5 to 15 seconds. Because of the
short time frame for the intervals, the ‘high-intensity’ descriptor is no joke.
When performing exercises in a HIIT routine, pushing yourself to really sweat is
a vital component of what makes HIIT an effective workout, and heart rate
training is a good way to measure your intensity. Active.com has a comprehensive
guide to calculating your heart rate zones here
[https://www.active.com/fitness/articles/how-to-calculate-your-training-heart-rate-zones],
which you should figure out before getting started with your routine.

HIIT is great for home exercising because there is no need for equipment, and
the routines can be completed in a half hour or even less. There are even some
routines you can do that are made to keep the noise down, like Emi Wong
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bleOTMDa3_4]’s video routine, which are great
for when your household is asleep. Even other videos from professionals like The
Body Coach Joe Wicks [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q20pLhdoEoY], Moms Into
Fitness [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPpObC5PnwM], Stephi Nguyen
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02lWhOgmFAQ], Runtastic Fitness
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nbLvXr_Z8], are great for beginners or anyone
else looking for new routines.

With the brevity of the routines and the elimination of a commute, using HIIT to
work out from home is a surefire way to save you time and money, and the best
part is that it’s impossible to forget anything at home.

Having the same schedule every week can be nice. There are no surprises, it’s
easier to budget expenses, and theoretically, if you like one week, then you’ll
like all the rest. For most people, though, this feeling of being secure in a
routine doesn’t last long. Monotony is fine as it comes and goes, but when it
overstays its welcome, life can quickly turn dull.

This is especially true of workout routines. If you’re moving the same way every
time you exercise, not only can it get boring, but you probably aren’t getting
the results you’re looking for when you work out. This may seem counterintuitive
– if you work on the same routine, it should follow that your body gets stronger
as you master the movements. Unfortunately, this is not true, and in fact, the
less your muscles are challenged, the less progress you will make.

Along with changing up your fitness routine, there are other methods of sprucing
up your habits that will make you fall in love with fitness all over again.

First of all, for those of you working out at home (which you should be), what
does your fitness space look like? Is it a bit cramped? Is there enough
ventilation and sunlight? If you’re noticing that you don’t really love the
space you workout in, that’s enough of a buzzkill to make working out seem like
a chore. Change up your station by getting organized, opening windows, and
setting up a space for music or watching fitness trainers on a TV or tablet.

Speaking of music, do you have a specific playlist for exercising? If you’re
listening to random songs you love (or not listening to music at all), then you
might not be getting the full effects of songs that can really pump you up.
Research
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324883604578396670814453936#project=YHEALTH0402&s=D&articleTabs=article]
suggests that exercising to songs that are 125 to 140 beats per minute (BPM)
helps to create a more intense workout than listening to songs with slower
tempos.

If music really isn’t your thing, but you feel your mind wandering and slowing
you down while you’re moving, try following your favorite trainer online and see
if they stream live fitness routines. Apps like UBQFIT allow you to follow
professional trainers and watch them livestream their workouts, which is perfect
for keeping you concentrated on your fitness long enough to meet your target
heart rate. It also helps to invite friends or family to move with you, as there
is evidence [https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-10/aoa-gei102717.php]
of a reduction in stress levels with we work out with company. Together, you can
choose several different favorite trainers from the app so that your routine is
always fresh and exciting.

Using high-intensity interval training (HIIT) along with Orange Theory fitness
is another great way to get you feeling challenged again in your workouts. HIIT
is a routine that calls for 20 to 90 seconds of intense exercise, followed by a
short period of rest, usually from 5 to 15 seconds, and then back to the
exercise interval and so on. There’s no better way to integrate new routines
than to get in touch with new trainers and fitness influencers. In the digital
age, there is no shortage of fitness inspiration and expert instruction. Find
trainers or motivational instructors online is a great way to vary your
workouts.

Orange Theory routines typically last for a minimum of 10 minutes, like ones
from Emi Wong [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ6voLaG9_I] and The Lean
Machines [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vEgwLEFJXU], but to integrate the
practice, you’ll probably working out for about 30 minutes to an hour. Orange
Theory fitness says that the best workouts are ones where 84-91% of your maximum
heart rate is reached for about a fifth of the total workout time. This is
considered the “orange zone”, hence the name, and combining HIIT with Orange
Theory fitness allows you to measure your progress and increase the intensity of
your workouts.

Don’t forget, there are as many fitness routines as there are people, so even if
Orange Theory routines aren’t right for you, there are many alternatives.

You may feel like there’s no way to get back to that honeymoon phase of fitness,
but there is no doubt that making even one of these changes is going to bring
back the lively nature of working out, and you’ll be reminded of why exercising
was squeezed into your busy schedule in the first place.

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of fitness DVD’s and workouts on YouTube, but
there is an even more exciting trend that makes working out at home all the more
beneficial.

Before we talk about what that trend is, ask yourself: why do you still have a
gym membership? Chances are, you’re paying about $50 a month, or $600 a year, to
not even go to the gym the amount of times you should be going in order to get
your money’s worth. Gyms profit off of the fact that they have more memberships
than their facilities could hold at one time, which is why they convince people
whom they know will never show up
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/12/30/373996649/why-we-sign-up-for-gym-memberships-but-don-t-go-to-the-gym]
into paying for annual contracts. And of course, with annual contracts comes
fees. Annual fees, registration fees, and more likely than not, some sort of
cancellation fee if you were to try and rip yourself from the claws of a gym
contract.

One of the many reasons people end up paying for memberships they never use is
an ignorance of how long commutes actually affect our likelihood to work out. It
can be hard enough to get into the habit of exercising, but for people whose gym
commutes are longer, that habit becomes impossible to stick. The Wall Street
Journal
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-close-do-you-need-to-be-to-your-gym-1490111186?tesla=y]
reports that those with a mere five mile commute travel to the gym only once a
month! Even with commutes that are about four miles (3.7), the average amount of
trips people make to the gym per month increases to only five. While it’s true
that there are some cheap gym memberships, there is no way that going to the gym
five times a month will meet any of your fitness goals.

Eliminating your gym membership and subsequent commute to the gym are only some
of the positives to working out at home. When you make the switch, you also open
your flexibility with exercising in your busy schedule, and you never have to
worry about uncomfortable stares when you’re getting in your #squatgoals or
performing other high-intensity interval training (HIIT) routines. Best of all,
you get to partake in the trend that is live-streaming your workout.

Live-streaming your workouts from apps like UBQFIT is a great way to join a
fitness class right at home, and there is an unexpected benefit to hopping on
this trend. According to Men’s Journal
[https://www.mensjournal.com/sports/can-watching-sports-make-you-fitter/], when
we watch physical activity being performed, the sympathetic nervous system in
our brain is activated. The study
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2013.00102/full] shows that
there are cardiovascular changes in our bodies, such as increasing heart rate,
respiration, blow flow and sweat release, which is our brains’ way of prepping
our bodies for intense movement. Of course, the sole act of watching trainers
work out is not enough to make you physically fit, but it can help with your
motivation to do so! To inspire your workouts, take a look at this 32 minute
cardio home workout [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWy_aOlB45Y] by the workout
power couple behind Fitness Blender [https://www.instagram.com/fitnessblender/],
or this 20 minute routine [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyFjMupI5B0&t=24s] by
instructor MadFit [https://www.instagram.com/madfit.ig/].

Not only does it cost nothing to start body weight training at home, but you
don’t have to worry about a limit to the number of guests you can invite with
you to workout! Bring your family and friends over, and together you can pick
out your favorite live-streaming trainers and create your own workout community
where you encourage each other to reach your goals.

As you can see, working out from home takes the away the worst parts about a gym
and keeps the parts that you might have felt were reasons for staying. If you’re
at home, there are no more commutes, no more unnecessary expenses, no reasons to
be self-conscious, but all the benefits of having professional trainers and an
exercise community remain with the addition of a more flexible schedule. So when
you’re cancelling your gym membership, good luck – and watch out for those fees!

Squats are easy to get the hang of, but doing them at a gym is kind of tricky if
you’re a woman. Unfortunately, this has more to do with the environment than
with the exercise itself. For example, when we go on the treadmill, a guy starts
talking to us. Or when we use the pull down, another guy starts talking to us.
Filling up our water bottle, and yet another guy starts talking to us. These
interactions cause countless eye rolls, but it can make some of us feel even
more self-conscious than we already do. Feeling like we’re being watched by a
bunch of strangers can take the fun out of an activity which is meant to make us
feel empowered and good about ourselves.

And, let’s face it, a big reason we go to the gym is to get ourselves looking
the best we can, so the stares can be even worse when we’re working on shaping
our butts. If you’ve ever made an offhand comment about your bum, you’ve no
doubt heard ten different people giving you the same advice in unison: “try
squats”. The truth is that they really aren’t wrong. These types of exercises
lift your glutes and strengthen your thighs by building lean muscle that rounds
out your butt, and on top of that, squat exercises workout your core which means
your abdominals and lower back are gaining muscle and losing fat at the same
time.

Whether you’re a frequent gym-goer or you just think your tush could use a bit
of improvement, one foolproof way to forget about the staring is to workout
using body weight training from the comfort of your home.

While you may think it’s extreme to leave your gym memberships behind, there are
loads of other reasons to workout at home. Body weight training, which doesn’t
require equipment, is known to keep you more stabilized, improve your
functionality and give you better stamina than strength training at the gym.
Working out at home also opens up your flexibility with your schedule, and when
you have a routine down, you can exercise on the go, like at a park or in a
hotel room on a business trip. If you’ve already made a group of friends at the
gym, working out at home doesn’t mean leaving that community. Try inviting them
to partake in body weight training, or even a new fitness hobby like cycling. If
you don’t have anyone to workout with, but you’d like to find people, sharing
your progress on social media is a great way to connect with others with similar
goals.

If you want to give body weight training a go at home, this squat routine is
perfect to start. Note that some of these exercises are done with dumbbells,
which are easy to buy and easier to replicate using household objects of similar
weight.

The Basic Squat [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhZp3xXxCN0] demoed by the
hilarious PrettyKeli [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_6nnp5Sui-xF1y-M8ssQ3g]

The Squat Jack [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn4YH5MjF9E] demoed by Group
HIIT [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_aLZ9YxRrGmCe1Zd3GSkEA]

The Goblet Squat [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeIiIdhvXT4] demoed by
ScottHermanFitness [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEtMRF1ywKMc4sf3EXYyDzw]

The Squat Jump [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72BSZupb-1I] demoed by Les Mils
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChJHUmT_EREEs4WV6jpmnBw]

Being comfortable in your own skin should mean being comfortable in your
environment, and in the wise words of Dorothy, “there’s no place like home”.

Why do people make New Year’s Resolutions? Is it due to regret over the choices
that were made in the past year, or is it more about optimistic goals for the
future?

Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter is that around 80% of Americans
don’t even keep their New Year’s Resolutions by February. And guess what: gyms
depend on this (NPR
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/12/30/373996649/why-we-sign-up-for-gym-memberships-but-don-t-go-to-the-gym]).
They plan on you paying for a membership and not showing up, and while that may
be a great business plan for them, there are absolutely no benefits for you. If
you’re thinking that means you should just give up on getting fit, it’s actually
the contrary. There are some key components to keeping your New Year’s Fitness
Resolution, and this Top 5 list takes all of the common tips, plus some unique
advice from American Psychological Association
[https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/resolution.aspx], Erica Andersen
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2018/01/28/four-simple-steps-to-keeping-your-new-years-resolutions/#21d7294034d3]
and Kevin Kruse
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2016/12/26/7-secrets-of-people-who-keep-their-new-years-resolutions/#45373e097098]
on Forbes, and puts it all together so that you can best master the art of
conquering your goals.

1. Baby Steps

When you set a goal for yourself, it can be tempting to put in your maximum
dedication right off the bat. This can mean buying a gym membership, plus twelve
new cookbooks, four new fitness outfits, a desk bike for the office – you get
the idea. In actuality, creating smaller goals can help to focus your vision on
a slow but more realistic progress that helps to strengthen your daily habits,
which is truly the endgame of being fit. So instead of paying for that gym
membership you’ll never use, work out at home using beginner-friendly methods
like body weight training and high intensity interval training (HIIT).

2. Be Honest

The worst way to lose control of your resolutions is to be dishonest with
yourself. When (not if) you have an off day, be honest with yourself about why.
If you ignore the reasons that led to you feeling this way, you’ll always keep
falling off the wagon and your bad habits will never change. Even small
victories, like a 20 minute workout instead of no workout at all, are proof to
yourself that you can change. Acknowledge your mistakes, but don’t beat yourself
up over them, because that will ultimately turn them into reasons to give up.

3. Community is Everything

Now, this is a tip that all three articles share. Having a group of people as
your social support is critical to achieving your fitness goals, and this
support can come in a variety of forms. One way is to have an accountability
partner, ideally someone whose fitness goals are similar to yours, to be able to
not only hold each other accountable but also to raise each other up in the
process. Aside from an accountability partner, keeping a connection with
inspirational figures, like UBQFIT’s own Tony Surphman
[https://www.instagram.com/tonysurphman/], is also a great way to stay focused.
Simply talking to someone else about your progress and goals will also help to
solidify your promises to yourself. Your support can be your family, friends, or
even your colleagues, but just like the last tip, your community is totally
useless if you are not honest with them, too.

4. No Measurement, No Progress

Think of your fitness goals as your fifth grade science project. How can you
share your results with the class if you aren’t measuring where you started and
where you’re going? Monitoring your heart rate during workouts is extremely
beneficial for making sure that you’re pushing yourself enough to gain muscle
and lose fat, and you can learn more about how to measure this in our orange
theory fitness article. Another way to measure your progress is through weighing
yourself, but be aware that muscle gain means weight gain, so the further you
are into your fitness goals, the more your weight may fluctuate.

5. Find a Good Answer to Why You’re Keeping Your Resolution

If you answered that yes, you make your resolutions due to regret or general
optimism, then chances are that you’ll be included in the 80% statistic.
Discipline is necessary to complete goals you absolutely dread, but if your
plans are to change your life with healthy new habits, then discipline is not
enough. Your motivations have to be strong and heartfelt. Maybe you won’t fall
in love with fitness right away, and discipline is great for that beginning, but
your goals have to be meaningful and they have to lead you to believe that you
are giving yourself something you truly want. This can be newfound confidence, a
longer lifespan, having boundless energy, or anything that makes you feel
excited to be fit and healthy.

Your 2019 New Year’s Resolutions may be to get fit, but all these methods of
keeping your resolution shows how vital it is to love the process. You should
love all the small steps, love your honesty, your community, your progress and
your motivations. Once you find yourself in that mindset, then you should have
no trouble turning your resolutions into lifelong habits.

When it comes to working out, people tend to think they know enough on their own
to get started and for the unknown, there’s the internet. While the internet can
be a wealth of knowledge, there’s only so much that Google can do for you. But
luckily, there is a career field solely focused on ensuring people meet their
fitness goals. Trainers are often associated with wealthier people and seen as a
luxury. However, with the impact of the internet and apps such as UBQFIT,
trainers are an inexpensive and result oriented necessity to achieving
maintaining your personal fitness goals.

The biggest advantage of working with trainers relates to motivation. Most
individuals lack the discipline to adhere to their exercise regimen. However, a
trainer increases exercise adherence by providing their client with support,
structure, and accountability. When a person looks in the mirror and is
dissatisfied with their reflection, they tend to get frustrated. However,
trainers take that frustration and formulate it into motivation, a reason to
change what is being reflected. They do so by providing direct solutions to the
problems at hand. If their client claims to hate their thighs, the trainer
responds with the perfect workout to target that specific area. A workout that
they may have not come across on their own or more importantly, would have done
correctly.

Most of the time, people read about new exercises or see pictures; however, most
of the time they’re performing them incorrectly. The slightest misstep could
result in injuries. These exercise-induced casualties can be avoided by watching
trainers. It is easier to mirror a moving image than letting your imagination
take you from picture 1 to picture 2. Virtual trainers will also speak through
the movements to assure full comprehension of the movement and its impact on
your body. This incorporation of multiple senses guarantees you are getting the
best and safest workout for your body.

It is vital that a trainer has a deeper understanding of the body rather than
simply a vast knowledge of exercises. For this reason, most people look for
trainers who have college degrees related to the health exercise field. This
added benefit encompasses more than an understanding of the movements. It
ensures a healthy lifestyle is being procured as the trainer is able to
enlighten their client on healthy diets and body habits.

In addition to this, people gravitate towards trainers who are passionate,
empathetic, and demonstrate a fit physical appearance themselves. If a trainer
does not emulate the fitness goals of the client, it is difficult to trust that
they will help them in achieving their own personal goals. However, if the
trainer has an envious body and lacks the empathetic nature desired, people
could feel as if they’re competing with their trainer. To break down this wall,
social media fitness entrepreneur, Blogilates Cassey Ho, created a video on the
“perfect body [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsL7W-GHhJA]”. Throughout her
challenging workouts, Ho speaks conversationally. It is important for virtual
trainers to showcase their personalities throughout their videos such as Ho in
order to build a relationship and desire to be “workout partners”. In addition
to her workouts, she uploads videos focused on healthy recipes, confidence
boosting, and her personal life.

Ho is just one example of the new wave of virtual trainers. Once you find
personalities you enjoy in these trainers, there is an added incentive to get
yourself moving. So go out and watch a few videos to get you invigorated for
your workout!

Data. You collect it every day; yet, when it’s not physically logged, you cannot
use it to your advantage. By tracking our actions over time, we can create a
comprehension study on how those actions affect our personal healthy. The
benefits of simply logging your fitness data can lead the result oriented
fitness everyone wishes to attain.

While it is important to push yourself, there is such a thing as exerting TOO
much energy. To determine whether you’re pushing your body too hard, it is
crucial to measure your heart rate. The heart is one of the most important
organs in the human body.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that it plays a pivotal role in an exercise
regimen. As you strengthen your body, your heart is also being strengthened.
Heart rate based fitness gauges how hard you need to push your body to achieve
the level of fitness you desire. When training for general fitness, your maximum
heart rate should range as low as 50% or as high as 70%. Naturally, an
experienced athlete could have a maximum heart rate above 70% and as high as
80%. The most important part of monitoring your heart rate is understanding
exactly where you fall in these categories. If you moderately exercise, your
maximum heart rate should not be that of an experienced athletes. While people
are motivated to see results, it is counterproductive to blindly ignore such a
crucial facet of a workout. Not only can it be a waste of your time, it is
highly dangerous.

So in order to stay motivated and see healthy results, people must record their
heart rate during the activity, timing of the activity, and how it was done. By
logging the activity and results consistently, people can gauge their gradual
improvement which acts as motivation in itself. However, consistency is the
keyword. Data collected sporadically does minimal good as numbers can jump
around and confuse people on their fitness progression. In order to properly
benefit from data driven, people have to constantly log workouts and how those
workouts made their bodies feel. Hence, the more descriptive people get with
their data helps to understand which workouts are beneficial or harmful. Was it
easy to recover from the workout? Were you aching for days? Was your workout
focused on endurance or speed? There are numerous questions to ask yourself
after your workout that improve the workout exponentially. By focusing on the
workouts that increase your abilities, you can avoid overtraining and burning
out.

Once data is comprehensively collected, it can be utilized to optimize future
workout efforts. We may not all be runners in training, but incorporating that
mentality into our everyday workouts produces a sense of accomplishment and
success like no other.

So you’ve decided to get on your fitness grind by getting yourself to the gym.
You’re feeling super empowered and ready to go and then you’re faced with
complex machines and equipment and suddenly the panic sets in. Any courage you
had to get to the gym drains quickly and you retreat back to the comfort of your
couch and TV. Sound familiar?

You’re not alone. The idea of being surrounded by gym rats while attempting to
get on your own regime is daunting for any newcomer. Not to mention, the commute
to the gym can take up all your energy in itself. Don’t let gym rats and
commutes be your scapegoat to not working on your dream bod. Take matters into
your own hands and get into the new wave of fitness in your pocket.

Virtual trainers and fitness apps such as UBQFIT take away the anxiety of a gym
by providing users with live stream fitness in the comfort of their own home.
Transforming the way we workout, these apps offer users the ability to work out
on their own schedules while also providing motivation, accountability, and
track-ability—everything you need to successfully complete your fitness goals.

The virtual trainers provide the necessary, individualized programming for
starting a workout regimen—without breaking the bank. Live stream one-on-one
sessions grant users the ability to work on their targeted areas on their own
time. It can be difficult as a newcomer or a fitness fanatic to come up with
copious workouts specific to their body types. However, virtual trainers allow
for that specialized fitness expertise to guarantee users see the results they
desire. Furthermore, they ensure that the user is properly executing an exercise
to avoid workout related injuries. The virtual aspect also takes away any
potential intimidation from an in person trainer. This unique aspect also has
the added benefit of catering to your schedule rather than trying to fit into a
trainer’s busy schedule.

Apps also provide the accountability that people generally don’t have on their
own by setting reminders and keeping track of their progress. Tracking fitness
data is a huge component of successfully seeing results. Seeing your gradual
improvement motivates you to push harder to surpass those mini victories.
However, monitoring also allows you to see when you may be overexerting
yourself. The compiled information provides users with a comprehensive view of
their workouts and how to optimize them. Therefore, when that information is
easily accessible at the palm of your hands, there is no excuse not to continue
on your fitness journey.

With all these great perks, a concern may be the lack of community and
motivation people get from being in a physical gym. However, through chat
functions in UBQFIT, users can communicate and encourage friends throughout
their one-on-one live sessions. Therefore, users aren’t compromising the fitness
community for a no commute fitness experience. Why not have the best of both
worlds!

It seems like there is never enough time in the day. And between work and all
your other daily obligations, any free time you get, you want to spend on the
couch. But when you don’t have the time to incorporate working out, your body
suffers trying to keep up with all your activities. In order to keep up with
your hectic life, make exercising a priority by working out in the comfort of
your own home with a personal trainer.

Hiring a personal trainer can be a major investment that definitely pays
off…eventually. However, we’re in 2018 and shelling out cash for a personal
trainer isn’t a necessity now that we have smartphones. Virtual trainers are the
new wave of anytime, anywhere fitness in the palm of your hands and the comfort
of your home. Being at home, you can keep your own pace without the fear that
someone else is judging you. And that precious thing we call “time” is yours. No
more revolving your day around the gym rush or calculating in your commute time.
Now the power is in your hands, literally. Browse through virtual trainers you
like, add them on Instagram for that extra motivation, and get started. And
don’t worry if you can’t keep up, all you have to do is press pause. Finally a
solution for all those gym related anxieties.

Then there’s the drag of being confined to your same five workouts. Instead of
doing the same exercise routine day in and day out, virtual trainers give people
a variety of workouts geared towards their personal fitness goals to avoid
boredom of your usual, monotonous routines. In addition to demonstrating
exercises each step of the way, trainers provide words of encouragement to push
their viewers through the workout. Most videos do not even require any
additional equipment. In fact, a lot of the time virtual trainers will sub in
household items out of convenience. When it comes to excuses to skip the gym,
we’re full of them. So convenience is our greatest weapon in combating our
laziness. A consistent theme for this generation is over-programming. With
limited time, quick workouts are necessary now more than ever. These trainers
understand the necessity for quick, convenient fitness, so they often make their
videos about 10 minutes long. There’s even 5 minute workouts for anyone really
pressed for time.

However, with the conveniences of being at home, there are naturally safety
precautions to take when working out alone. In order to prevent muscle strain
and injury, it’s critical to do gentle static stretches to warm up your body for
the exercise ahead. While trainers provide demonstrations of how to execute a
workout, it’s easy to fall prey to incorrect form, resulting in a strain or
worse. To avoid this, video yourself doing the workout then compare it to the
trainer. These extra step will eliminate any potential risk. You’ll thank
yourself later for proactively ensuring the proper execution of workouts, as
they will expedite results.

While you’re reading this you’re probably thinking “at home workouts sound
ideal, they just never happen”. Many people correlate home workouts as an excuse
to not go to the gym, only to sit on your couch. Surely discipline is the
hardest aspect of deciding to workout in your own home. However, Instagram and
Youtube trainers surprisingly offer viewers a community to interact with and
motivate each other. The internet is vast and so is their communities which
means constant motivation, when you need it. Fitness bloggers also pop up on
Instagram feeds to act as reminders to get up and moving rather than aimlessly
scrolling. While there is no denying these benefits, if you really want to take
your fitness to the next level, you’re going to need to track your efforts as
well. However—like everything else in life—there’s an app for that. Fitness apps
help to focus your workouts, track your success, and map out your goals. This
element of data driven fitness optimizes your workouts so that you don’t waste
time on workouts that aren’t benefiting your specific body type. After all, it’s
everyone’s goal to work out less and get more out, especially with minimal time
in your busy schedule.

If you’re feeling motivated and have 10 minutes to spare, try one or all of
these workouts.

1.  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kQpTMkQo3Y]Shaun T’s 5-Minute Fat-Blasting
Workout [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kQpTMkQo3Y] by Shaun T

2. 4 Minute Workout That Replaces 1 Hour in the Gym
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRDGlIJTVt8] by BRIGHT SIDE

3.  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu1qJrjxzME]7 Minute Quick and Effective
Workout [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu1qJrjxzME] by Danielle Peazer

4. 8 Minute At Home Cardio Workout! Swimsuit Slimdown Series
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM_tQtO3QC8] by Blogilates