advertisement

Follow Mint Lounge

Latest Issue

Home > Health> Fitness > Get fit this year with three great home workouts 

Get fit this year with three great home workouts

Do you plan to get fit this year? Here are three different kinds of workouts that you can do in the comfort of your home

Try yoga, Pilates or strength training to get fit this year.
Try yoga, Pilates or strength training to get fit this year. (Istockphoto)

Listen to this article

According to online learning platform goskills.com, one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions around the world is to exercise more. I mean, New Year new me, right? But if you haven’t exercised at all before this, how do you start? So, whether you choose to do yoga, or Pilates or strength training, here’s a little something to help you take the first few steps at home. 

Yoga: Yoga can be as slow as you want it to be, and yet as intense as you are comfortable with. Plus, you don’t really need to invest too much in equipment or on space. According to Shammi Gupta, founder of Mumbai-based Shammi's Yogalaya, the suryanamaskar is a perfect place to start your journey because “it takes the body through a plethora of movements, which activates and allows the practitioner to stretch and contract each and every part of the body.  The alternating backward and forward movements, combined with rhythmic breathing, flex and stretch the spinal column and the limbs to the optimal.”

Also Read: How to do ab rollouts properly for a strong core

Pilates: Pilates is a full-body exercise method that will help you do everything better. It strengthens and stabilizes your core, so that you can move efficiently while improving your posture, flexibility, and mobility. You can start off your Pilates journey on the mat and slowly start using equipment to help you as your progress. “In my mind the first exercise of the system which is called hundred is an excellent example to show the holistic nature of Pilates. The Hundred is done in a hundred beats, thus the name. It’s a great warm-up as it gets the breath going, and the blood pumping and is an excellent exercise for abdominal strength and increasing torso stability,” says Vesna Pericevic Jacob, creator of Vesna's Pilates Method. 

Also Read: Three great fitness tips for the New Year

Strength Training: While we usually think strength training can only be done in the gym with many equipments and machines, you can easily start in the comfort of your home, with bodyweight exercises. “Nowadays people tend to just increase intensity without knowing where there weaknesses may lie. And then they get injured. So, to start off, please be aware of your weaknesses and take time to learn the basics,” says Pradeep Maurya, founder of Barbellboss Fitness.

Also Read: Three great resistance band workouts

Maurya believes strengthening the base is an important first step. For legs muscles, try doing simple exercises such as a wall sit hold or a primal squat. For your lower abdomen, you can opt for planks and shoulder taps to increase core strength. One part which gets ignored is the lower back, so try to include some superman holds and glute bridge. “Only when the basics are done, you should start moving towards more complex exercises. Don’t forget, these should be continued even if you are regularly going to the gym,” says Maurya.

Also Read: Why you need to do mobility exercises everyday

 

Next Story