It’s happened to the best of us. We’re getting our workouts in, eating well and feeling great. And then summer hits. We go on vacation, we get busy and can’t make it to the gym as often as we’d like. Or we just don’t want to be stuck inside.
Innovative Fitness coaches to the rescue! Here are our coaches’ top tips for getting in shape at home (or at your home away from home) this summer.
Body Weight Circuits
If you have no equipment at all, then a body weight circuit of squats/jump squats, push-ups, lunges, mountain climbers, bear crawls, and plank variations will be a great substitute. Add in a TRX, which is relatively cost-effective and space-efficient, and you now have endless exercises for all muscle groups.
Adam Sippel, B. Kin.
Owner
Innovative Fitness Walnut Grove
People can get fit and active at home by incorporating mobility work such as yoga, bodyweight training such as squats and push-ups, and cardiovascular work such as knee drives, mountain climbers, burpees and jumping jacks!
Curtis Christopherson
Principal of Innovative Fitness White Rock
Take the Gym Outside
Staying fit in the summer is all about playing outside. Adding a resistance training program to an outdoor cardiovascular exercise like cycling, hiking or running can be really effective to help keep off those extra summer pounds.
Creating a backyard workout routine is easy to do with very little, if any, equipment. If you want to spend a couple hundred bucks you can get yourself into a nice set of exercise bands or a suspension trainer system and then your options really open up. But if you want to make some gains without the hit to your wallet, try simple bodyweight routines.
Start with low reps and slower transitions and as the summer progresses increase your repetitions and speed up the transition in between exercises to sustain a higher heart rate. To kick things off try this simple routine:
- Body weight squats
- Push ups (or modified push ups)
- Front plank holds
- Glute bridges
- Split squats
- Side plank holds
- Single leg glute bridges
- 3 minutes of moderate to high tempo cardiovascular work like skipping, running, jumping jacks or be creative and shoot some hoops!
Repeat the above as needed.
Yoshia Burton, B.Kin.
Principal
Innovative Fitness Abbotsford
Gardener’s Workout
You’ll need:
- Bag of Soil (5Lb-10LB)
- Open Space
Complete 3 rounds of the following:
10 Squats
- Bear hug bag of soil
- Pause at bottom, weight in heels
- Drive up, squeeze glutes at top
10 Front Lunge + Rotations
- Bear hug bag of soil
- Step forward, drop straight down
- Rotate from T spine with bag
40 High Knees
- Bag of soil on ground
- High knees and lightly tap bag with toes
- Continuous tempo
30 Plank Taps
- Plank on hands one hand length in front of bag of soil
- Without shifting hips alternate hand taps on bag
- Squeeze glutes and maintain a tight core throughout
20 Glute Bridges
- On back, legs bent and feet planted on top of bag
- Press through heels, squeeze glutes and lift hips up to the sky
- Squeeze glutes and pause at top, slow release down
Emma Dolphin
Professional Fitness Coach, FST
Innovative Fitness Toronto, Ritz Carlton
