Getting in shape doesn’t have to mean dragging yourself to the gym in the cold! These simple at-home workouts will help you tone and tighten at home while simultaneously bringing you face-to-face with just how disgusting your apartment floor is.
Pilates
Created by Joseph Pilates during World War I, the “art of controlled movements” improves strength, flexibility and coordination with minimal equipment, so it’s great to try out at home with some YouTube videos. Start with a basic core-strengthening plank, hovering your body about six inches above the floor, focusing on the area under that shelf, which you’ve never vacuumed under ever, have you? Wow, you didn’t realize dust bunnies could get that big. Do you even own a vacuum, or just that dust buster you got at RadioShack four years ago? That’s not even carpet anymore; really, it’s like 50 percent carpet fibers and 50 percent your own hair and skin flakes.
Yoga
Another minimal equipment body weight-based approach, yoga is easy to practice on the disgusting hardwood floor in your disgusting living room. Strengthen your shoulders and triceps with adho mukha shvanasana, or “downward dog”. Oh wow, from far away it looked like those marks were part of the wood grain, but they definitely are not. Nope, they’re coming off when you rub them. Ew, what is it? Have they been here since you moved in? Have other people been noticing this stuff?
Tabata
Trendy tabata training makes the most of limited time and space with short, high-intensity intervals. Your Dry Swiffer really is not getting the job done in here, is it? Do you have the wet ones for mopping? If not, maybe you could use a wet paper towel. That’d be better than nothing, right? When this workout is done, you’ll totally do something about these floors.
Resistance Bands
What is that, soy sauce? Why the hell is there soy sauce on your bedroom floor? Wine makes sense, cookie crumbs for sure, ciabatta bread dust, ehh, but you don’t even like soy sauce. Don’t even look under the bed; the lint situation down there is bananas. Where does lint come from, anyway? Does it just collect out of the air? Good news is, here are those underwear you thought you lost last year; bad news is, you have to throw them in the garbage immediately. Resistance bands build muscle and may even improve bone density.
Pushups
That time Lauren stayed the night on the air mattress she must have seen all this up close. Maybe that’s why you two haven’t hung out in a while. She knows how gross you are, and she’s probably told everyone else, and they definitely all laugh about it over brunches you aren’t invited to. You need more than a workout; you need a cleaning lady, or maybe just to invite your mom over. She would take care of this. Anyway, do some pushups until you get so grossed out by your floors that you have to go shower.
As these examples prove, just because you don’t make it to the gym doesn’t mean you can’t stay in great shape. There are so many options for at-home workouts. Just remember: Being in shape doesn’t necessarily mean that you have your life “together”. Have some self-respect and mop those floors—housework burns 165 calories an hour!
