Today's topic
Today on A.Vogel Talks Menopause, I'm going to be talking about exercising at home at this moment in time and easy ways that you can keep active.
Over the new few weeks, I plan to do shorter blogs, twice a week. And I'm going to be covering topics that are pertinent to this situation at the moment because I'm in it as well, so I just want to share what's happening to me and also just to give you support to help you through everything as well.
So just now, a lot of people are at home. Gyms are shut. Exercise classes are off. We're worried about losing our fitness. And this is so important during the menopause and also, we're losing the camaraderie as well. That's one of the things I know that I'm going to miss quite a lot.
But there are things that you can do at home. Getting into a routine and making sure that you keep my tips in mind will hopefully help you. It's so easy when you're at home for a long time just to let everything slip and especially if you feel a bit despondent about everything. So, I'm going to look at little things you can do to help yourself.
Why is it important to stay active during menopause?
Exercise is so important in the menopause. It helps with weight control. It helps your mood; it creates happy compounds that will really lift your spirits up.
It's going to help with your sleep. It's going to help with your heart and it's going to keep your muscles strong as well.
Simple ways to keep active at home
1. Use your own body weight
You can do things like planks. You can do push-ups, either on the ground, or against a wall, or even in the kitchen in between doing cooking and other things that that you may need to do. You can just hold on to the side of the sink. You can do squats. These are another one, either just by themselves or holding weights in your hand.
2. At home equipment
Get yourself a mat. If you've already got a mat, that's great. If not, if you've got a big beach towel and then it's a little separate area for you. And that, again, is going to help with remembering to do this on a regular basis.
If you have kettlebells and also these exercise bands that are really good to help with a lot of the exercises. If you don't have anything and you can't get out, you can use tin cans.
You can use water bottles, either half empty. You can make them heavier the more amount of water that you put in them.
3. Skipping
You can do skipping. I love skipping. It's such a really good heart exercise and you don't have to do it for long. Apart from anything, you'll just end up getting puffed out.
4. Stair Climbing
If you have stairs in your house, you could time yourself walking or running up and down the stairs. You could try and increase the number of times you do it just to prove to yourself that you're keeping your fitness up.
5. Online exercise videos
YouTube is absolutely fabulous. There's loads of things that you can click on to, all sorts of different exercises from yoga to high intensity and also, a lot of these are different times.
If you've not got a lot of time, you can do short ones. You can do two short ones a day if you feel that one long one isn't really your cup of tea.
You can get DVDs as well, off Amazon, that give you lots of little exercises that you can do, short sessions and longer sessions.
6. A.Vogel Get Active
And we also have our own fitness hub on our website. It's called A.Vogel Get Active. So you can click on to that and you get loads of different exercises for flexibility, for balance, for cardio, and for strength.
You can find all of our exercise videos on our YouTube channel and Get Active Playlist, see below:
7. Dance
Put some music on and dance round the house, whenever you feel like it. That's a great one for exercising and it does make you feel good all over.
8. Housework
You could do housework, although I think that would probably be the last on my list. Although at this time of the year, lots of people do spring cleaning so it might be a good excuse to do some really good exercise as you're cleaning your house, too.
9. Running or walking (once a day)
You could also look at running, if you're still able to get out. As long as you're not in a popular area, you could still go for a brisk walk. And at the minute, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to get out every lunchtime to give myself a brisk walk before I have to come back and start with the rest of my work.
My home exercise circuit
I normally go to two to three exercise classes a week. I love them, and as I said before, it's not just the exercise, it's about the camaraderie. It's about the fun, too.
So, I've set up an exercise circuit in my own house. So far, I have got one of these little mini rebounders so that's in the middle of the floor. Every time I pass it, if I'm going to the kitchen, from the kitchen, I have to do 50 bounces, obviously, not with anything in my hand, just to keep my circulation and everything going.
And I've got other stations where if I pass by them, I've got to do 10 jumping jacks, I'll have to do press-ups, and maybe I might just put somewhere to do a burpee, maybe in the corner because I don't like doing those.
So, you can make daily exercise a little bit of fun and then, you can either increase the stations you've got in your house or see how long it takes you to get around all of them. And again, you can time yourself for that.
So, I hope this has given you some help and support just to keep things going at the moment.
Extra tips for exercising at home
Have a look at this article "Easy ways to exercise at home" by our Get Active Fitness Enthusiast Louise for lots more tips and advice on how keep active and fit at home.
I would also love to hear how you are keeping fit at the moment. Share your fitness story in the comment section below.
