As summer begins, goal-oriented and routine-based workouts may give way to more mood-driven exercise. Even if you don’t go to the gym as many times a week as before, or if your workout frequency decreases in other ways, that doesn’t mean you’re no longer exercising regularly. If working out indoors doesn’t appeal to you in the summer, you can find other, more enjoyable ways to stay active instead of your usual routine. Here are five tips to help you enjoy an active summer.
1. Enjoy summer sports
In the summer, you should definitely take advantage of the sports you can’t do during the winter. These include, for example, cycling, trail running, open-water swimming, inline skating, and beach volleyball. Summer sports offer a nice change of pace from your winter training routine.
2. Exercise outdoors
When the weather is nice, you can move your gym workouts outdoors. Take advantage of outdoor exercise areas and adapt your gym routine to use outdoor equipment. This also adds variety and provides different stimuli for your muscles. You can find various outdoor workout tips on EasyFit’s social media, for example. Quick workouts also work well in the summer. You can do a couple of them a day, so your workout doesn’t take up too much time at once.
Check out these exercise tips for working out outdoors.
3. Take advantage of online workouts and virtual classes
While on vacation, be sure to take full advantage of the EasyFit Online service. The Online service offers a comprehensive selection of different workouts. You can do these online workouts both indoors and outdoors, so you can choose a workout that suits you and work out even on the dock.
The online service is included with all customer accounts.
If you’re spending your summer vacation in your hometown, take advantage of your local fitness center’s selection of virtual classes. That way, you won’t be tied to the schedules of live group exercise classes—you can work out whenever it’s convenient for you. If you have access to all our centers, you should definitely take advantage of the services offered at the center in your vacation destination as well.
4. Functional Exercise
In the summer, we naturally spend more time outdoors. This means we’re more active without even realizing it, and it’s easier to get in some incidental physical activity. Incidental physical activity is definitely one of the best ways to stay active. Any kind of physical activity counts: gardening, mowing the lawn, carrying water to the sauna, playing in the water with the kids, and so on.
If you have a smartwatch that tracks your activity, you can easily check your activity levels right on the watch. You might be surprised at how easily you can reach your activity goal just by going about your daily activities. If your watch indicates that you’ve met your activity goal, there’s no need for a separate workout.
5. Make your workouts more effective
You shouldn’t completely neglect maintaining your muscle tone over the summer. If possible, go to the gym at least once a week during the summer. When you do, make sure to do a full-body workout so that every muscle gets a balanced workout each week. For example, you can pick the most important exercises from your regular gym routine and combine them into a single workout, or design a completely separate summer workout program.
Include at least one exercise for your legs, back, shoulders, and abs in your workout. Focus on multi-joint exercises that engage multiple muscles or muscle groups at the same time. Examples include squats, pull-ups, and push-ups. Also try different combination exercises, such as a deadlift-to-row combination with a kettlebell, or perform exercises as supersets or paired exercises, which allow you to complete more exercises in the same amount of time.
You can find a workout suitable for summer indoor training on this blog, for example.
If you maintain good muscle tone throughout the summer, it will be easier to get back into your regular workout routine when fall arrives.