We all know how important it is to maintain an active lifestyle – but joining a gym can be expensive.
Here are 5 ways to keep fit and active over winter without blowing your budget.
1. Skip
The humble skipping rope offers a lot of benefits. Skipping gives you a high-intensity cardio workout (you can burn up to 1300 calories an hour) as well as improving coordination, speed, and strength. This can all be achieved without even leaving the house. Skipping ropes are also pretty cheap and are easy to store.
Cost: $10-30
2. Put together your own sports team
Pick your best friends and make a pact with them to work out together every week. You can choose to meet in the park for a team sport (soccer, frisbee) or you can just form a jogging group. By exercising together, you can keep each other motivated (and you won’t have to pay any club membership fees).
Cost: Free
3. Do the Royal Canadian Air Force work-out.
This is a classic 11-minute workout that people have sworn by for decades. Developed specifically for the Canadian Air Force in the 1950’s, it quickly became popular with people looking for an all-round regime to get them fit fast.
The basics:
- toe touching/warm-up: 2 minutes
- partial sit-ups: 1 minute
- leg lifts: 1 minute
- push-ups: 1 minute
- stationary running: 6 minutes.
A perfect indoor winter regime! There’s a bit of everything in this workout and it can be adapted for your fitness level.
Cost: Free
4. Resistance bands or home-made dumbbells
If you’re looking to tone or bulk up a bit, you don’t need expensive gym equipment. Resistance bands are a versatile piece of equipment that you can use to work out all kinds of muscles. Or, if you’d rather stick with weights, but don’t want to purchase dumbbells, check out Livestrong’s guide to dumbbell substitutes.
Cost: $15-30
5. Sample some indoor sports and games
Winter is the perfect time to try out some new indoor sports and games (or maybe some you haven’t done since you were a kid). Find some friends and agree to try out a new sport every week. Try; Ice skating, Bowling, Rollerblading, Table tennis, Indoor rock climbing, Squash, Futsal or Laser-Tag.
Cost: $15-30 per session
For more ways to get involved in sports in your local city, check out our sports in capital cities articles below.
