Hone in on Your Home Gym

The key to reigniting your fitness routine lies just a few snooze buttons away from the comfort of your covers.

By April Cumming, Illustration by Jessica Wetterer

It’s widely acknowledged that humans have a tendency to replace solid reasons for hitting the gym with poor excuses to stay home. Often overlooked is the reality that gyms are all around us. With a little ingenuity and openmindedness, you’ll find you don’t have to change into your workout clothes, struggle to find a parking spot or pay a monthly membership to break a sweat. You can create a gym right in the comfort of your own home. All you need is a little willpower.

What: Warm-up
Where: Laundry room

Folding, bending, lifting: Doing laundry serves as a great warm-up to kick-start your workout. And the more trips across the house or up the stairs to distribute laundered items, the better.

What: Legs
Where: Living room

Revamp your couch surfing. Stand facing away from the couch and raise your right leg so the top of your foot rests on the edge of the couch at a 90-degree angle. The other leg should be firmly planted on the floor. Squat with your standing leg until your thigh is parallel to the floor and your kneecap is directly in-line over your ankle. Return to standing and repeat on the opposite leg. Reps: Complete 20 on each leg.

What: Arms
Where: Garage

Those storage boxes and coolers stacking up in your garage are meant for more than just taking up space. Elevate your weightlifting routine by utilizing one box or cooler, preferably 2 feet tall. (Thanks to their heavyduty stability, Yeti Coolers are great for this.) For beginners, arm yourself with one 5- to 10-pound weight in your right hand. Step up onto the platform with your right foot, push the weight above your head and lift your left foot up to stand. Step down with your right leg and lower the weight in sync with the lowering of your left leg.
Reps: Complete 10 on each side.
Tip: Don’t have weights? Replace them with books or magazines (We recommend that pile of Austin Woman magazines stacked on your bedside table.), using both arms to lift overhead instead of one.

What: Core
Where: Bedroom

This isn’t second-grade P.E. class. For situps, you don’t need a partner to act as Sasquatch on your feet. Simply lie down with your back on the bedroom floor and tuck your toes underneath the lowest part of your bedframe.
Reps: Complete 20 situps.
Tip: Don’t have a bed or bedframe that allows you to tuck your toes? Boat Pose is here to help. From a seated position, pull your legs in close to your chest. Place your hands on the underside of your knees and kick your legs off the floor and out in front of you. Keeping your chest lifted (as though a string is pulling your heart toward the ceiling), hold for 20 seconds. If you’re feeling ambitious, lower and lift your upper body and lower body in sync, creating a situp motion.

What: Full-body Stretch
Where: Hallway

With your back to a wall, take one arm’s-length step forward. Extend both arms above your shoulders, reaching toward the wall, and begin to tilt your head back, gradually walking your hands down the wall into a backbend. Welcome to Chakrasana, or Wheel Pose. Be sure to not bend past your limit. Push your hips forward to take pressure off your lower back. Slowly walk your hands back up the wall and return to standing.
Reps: Complete one to two bends.

Balance out the backbend stretch by gripping onto a wall column, kitchen countertop or doorknob (with the door closed and locked for safety) as though you are giving it a tight hug with your hands. With your feet planted near the base of the door, lean away at a 45-degree angle, keeping your legs straight and allowing your arms to slowly extend. Pull back and let all your weight go into your hands. This allows your upper trapezoid muscles to release tension and delve into a deep stretch.
Reps: Complete one to two stretches. What: Rest Where: Bed What’s the best part of working out at home? You’re always just a few paces from your bed, a comfy place to catch your breath and let your body soak in all the endorphins. That’s one amenity you won’t find at any gym.

Press Play

Are you more of a follower than a leader? Let these instructors guide you through an invigorating exercise routine. All you have to do is press play.

Yoga With Adriene
youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene

Adriene Mishler is an Austin-born and -raised yoga instructor and actress with more than 1 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, Yoga With Adriene. From Yoga for Complete Beginners to Yoga for Weight Loss and 30-day Yoga Camps, her videos range from four minutes to an hour in length. Get to know more about this positive and upbeat woman in our bonus Q&A at austinwomanmagazine.com.

Tone It Up
youtube.com/user/toneitup.com

Start getting in shape for summer with power women Karena and Katrina, the duo behind YouTube channel Tone It Up. With a pumped-up attitude and a pumpedup music playlist to match, their weekly videos are creating a media frenzy, to say the least. Dedicated to toning all areas of your body, they’re best known for incorporating HIIT (high-intensity interval training) into their workouts.

Black Swan TV
http://blackswanyoga.tvblackswanyoga.tv

If you’ve lived in Austin for more than 48 hours, chances are you’ve heard about Black Swan Yoga. But did you know some of the studio’s most popular instructors hold classes online too? For $8 a month, you can access all instructional videos, ranging from five to 60 minutes in length, from the teacher of your choosing.