Exercise hacks to help you slay your home workout

Working out at home? You’re not alone. Finding the motivation to exercise can be challenging at best – impossible at worst. So, what exercise hacks should we be trying to help us get the best results? 

We reached out to personal trainer, Pilates instructor and healthy-type person Gabrielle Petterwood for some tips. And she dropped this extremely achievable, supportive and encouraging truth.

“The focus isn't as much on what we should be doing to make our workouts better. It's about what we should do to make the workouts happen,” Gabrielle says.  

Doable, yes! But how? 

Step 1 – schedule it in  

Treat it just like anything else in life. If you want to make your workouts happen, Gabrielle recommends you schedule them into your day the same way you would schedule a meeting or appointment. 

Solid plan, exercise hacker level seven.  

Schedule Zoom workouts to create accountability.

Step 2 – video call a friend 

If you’ve managed to get through the last year without having a Zoom party, we’re impressed. We guess that not as many people have done a Zoom workout with friends, though. 

Gabrielle says this works on two levels. Firstly, by providing accountability and secondly, by making it more fun. 

Step 3 – set realistic time goals 

Have you ever heard the phrase, done is better than perfect? If short workouts are easier for you to do, then just do them. 

Gabrielle advises that scheduling a ten-minute snap workout is an achievable goal. She encourages anyone struggling with motivation to simply try to find any amount of time they can. 

“I think it's important now, more than ever, to make sure that we are breaking our days up and still moving our bodies,” Gabrielle says.

A change in location is a great idea - head outside for your work out.

Step 4 – make it fun

Head outside into the sunshine, choose an online workout class that you enjoy or join in on some live classes with Instagram trainers you follow. 

“You're not going to stick to a program if you're just sitting there doing wall holds for 10 minutes. How boring,” Gabrielle says.

Just make sure you actually do it 

So, how do you stay in shape at home? Just use whatever time you have to apply these fitness hacks and get moving with a workout you enjoy. 

“I think the most important thing you can do is to make sure you're actually doing it, that’s what matters,” says Gabrielle. 

Related:

• What are the benefits of lifting weights?  
• Is it possible to overtrain?
• 7 things to do for your wellness when you’re stuck at home

Gabrielle Petterwood is a Personal Trainer with a holistic approach to fitness, nourishing the body with fresh foods and living a healthy and balanced lifestyle to realise full body health.

Reviewed by the healthylife Advisory Board September 2021.