Home workouts are where it's at, people. You can make as many ugly, sweat-drenched faces as you want without being judged (except maybe by your dog, but what does he know?), and you don't have to wait for those annoying dudes to be done hogging all the free weights. There is, however, the issue of getting home from work or school, feeling exhausted AF, and going down the list of excuses for why you should skip your daily workout. It's on those low-energy days when you need a few tricks to working out at home in your back pocket to help you stick to that routine, no matter how lacking your motivation is on any given day.
Let's be real: It's pretty easy to say you'll work out when you get home at the end of the day, but it's a whole other reality to actually maintain motivation and consistently commit to your routine, day in and day out. The couch looks far too tempting and comfortable, your favorite Netflix series is calling your name, and you just bought a brand new pint of Ben & Jerry's that must be devoured — like, ASAP.
But, come on. Think about how amazing all of those things will feel after you've completed your scheduled workout, when your body's been flooded with all of those feel-good endorphins. Here are five tricks for sticking with your daily home workout, and keeping yourself consistently motivated.
To help yourself stay consistent in your home workout routine, sit down one day and make a schedule of times that you know will work for you. Writing out your exercise schedule will give you a visual goal for each time that you sweat it out, and it'll help you steer clear of falling back on excuses when you realize you carved this time out for one thing, and one thing only.
According to LIVESTRONG, knowing what your plan is each day will help you pump yourself up for your workouts, and it'll reduce the chance that you'll talk yourself out of exercising because you're "too tired" or "don't have time."
Pro tip: Have fun with this! Color-code the crap out of your calendar, and make it as artsy as possible — whatever it takes to get you amped up for that daily dose of movement.
If you're working out at home on the reg, it's probably no secret that your shoebox studio apartment is not a gym, fam. While there are definitely ways to make room for your challenging sweat sessions, you'll need a bit of a game plan for how you'll move things around to make way for all of those burpees.
According to Greatist, it's best not to save the set-up for the last minute, because TBH, moving furniture around might be a workout in and of itself, and you may not have any motivation left for those ab circuits after getting all sweaty from moving your enormous couch.
Whatever you have to dismantle or move, make sure you do it prior to starting your workouts, so that you don't find yourself riding the excuse train minutes before your sweat sesh.
I, for one, have always dreamed of living my entire life in workout clothes. And, luckily, with tons of athleisure brands making exercise outfits that are cute and appropriate enough to wear to work, my dream has come true.
This can be an especially good trick on those days when you come home from work or school in a really bad mood, and the last thing you feel like doing is changing into your workout clothes, let alone actually exercising. In fact, a 2012 study from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology revealed that if you stay in your workout gear as much as possible, simply sporting that athletic attire can help trick your brain into motivating you to exercise. That's right, girl — I see you beating the system.
It might be tempting to hold yourself accountable for your home workouts by posting about it on social media all the time. However, the results of a 2008 study published in the journal Psychological Science suggest that going too public with your goals, and plastering them all over Twitter and Instagram, may actually make you less likely to follow through with the original plan.
You don't need to be totally silent on social media about your fitness goals, but a healthy limit to your posts certainly doesn't hurt. Maybe go for the Insta when you beat your own plank record, but consider keeping that selfie of you in your 10th pair of Lululemon leggings in your phone's photo album, you feel me?
If the thought of an hour-long workout when you get home makes you want to gag, try motivating yourself with short, 10-minute workouts, instead. High-intensity interval training (HIIT), for example, consists of short, challenging workouts that build muscle, increase metabolism, and put your fitness skills to the test — all in a relatively short amount of time.
It'll be pretty hard to talk yourself out of such a quickie sweat sesh, my friend. And once you're done, you might even find that you have the incentive to go for another round — 'cause, I mean, you're already sweaty, right?
