Tips For Amping Up Your Indoor Fitness

If you've gained the COVID-19 – as in, 19 pounds of weight due to the inactivity of quarantine – there is hope.

And you don't need a fancy gym or miles of open road to get a quality workout. Just ask Broward Health, which shared these tips for bringing your exercise inside with creative workout routines.

Indoor Aerobic Activities

Aerobic exercise helps your heart and lungs and offers proven stress-reduction benefits. Do moderate-intensity aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes every week; 30 minutes a day, five times a week is an easy goal to remember. Here are some ways to do aerobic activity inside:

• Follow along with an exercise DVD or online video.
• Dance to upbeat music.
• Go up and down the stairs.
• Speed up your vacuuming, bathroom cleaning and kitchen cleaning.

Strengthen Your Routine

Strength training helps your bones and muscles. Do strength-training exercises at least two days a week. You can bring strength training indoors, too:

• Begin with soup cans or light dumbbells, lifting eight to 12 times in a row. When you can do more than 12 reps, move up to a slightly heavier weight.
• Do push-ups or pull-ups.
• Try pulling on resistance bands.

Don’t Forget To Stretch

Stretching keeps your muscles flexible and helps prevent injuries. Stretch after you do your regularly scheduled strength and aerobic activities. Here’s how to do it inside:

• Learn yoga or tai chi from a video, book or class.
• Lift your arms toward the ceiling and stretch. Hold the stretch for 10 to 30 seconds, and repeat every stretch three to five times.
• Never miss a chance to move. For example, you can lift hand weights, march in place, dance or stretch while watching TV. But don’t work the same muscles two days in a row so they have ample time to recover.

For more information, visit browardhealth.org.