Seven Changes That Finally Helped Me Stick to My Home Fitness Routine
I’ve been a longtime gym-goer (largely because I work there part-time as a spinning instructor) and have owned a Peloton for four years, but I’ve never considered myself a workout junkie. But lately, I’ve been taking it more seriously. I use apps to track my protein intake , fill my free time with exercise, and even — especially — work out at home.
Exercising at home has long been a challenge for me, as I find it hard to stay motivated in the same way I do at the gym, but I’ve found a few ways to stay consistent. Here are seven changes I’ve made that you can also try if you’re having a hard time getting yourself to break a sweat when your couch is beckoning you from across the room.
I invested in equipment
Money is a major motivator for me. Maybe it’s my Capricorn zodiac sign, the fact that I’m an only child, or just some personality flaw that can’t be explained, but the fact remains: I can’t enjoy a hobby without tying it to some kind of financial stakes. I can’t just love fashion; I have to constantly sell and rent out my clothes online to have money to buy new clothes. I can’t just take a spinning class; I have to get certified to teach one. It turns out that teaching spinning paid dividends for me: I got paid to do something I would otherwise have paid for, and I got a free gym membership to boot. However, it backfired at first: Since I was no longer paying for a gym membership, I stopped going to the gym when I wasn’t teaching. It turns out that this financial motivator was the key to my productivity.
To fix this, I started investing in health and fitness in other ways. In addition to buying monthly packages at boutique gyms like Pilates studios, I invested in home equipment. The Peloton app alone costs me $44 a month, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why I’ve been cycling every day for 106 days now.
I’ve also started collecting workout equipment, like dumbbells , a sturdy yoga mat , yoga blocks , and random tools like resistance bands and this weird little device for doing bodyweight squats more effectively. I keep all of this in plain sight in my living room so that I have to think about my investment every day. If I don’t use it, I know my money is going to waste. It’s an aggressive defense against my own lazy tendencies, but it works for me.
If your plan is just to follow a few home crunches or plyometrics you find on Instagram, you may lose motivation because it doesn’t really cost you anything. Up the ante with a small monetary investment and you’ll feel the burn in both your wallet and your core.
This also goes to one of the other ways a gym is generally better than a home workout: The more equipment you have, the more you can do, and the more you ’ll want to do. There’s no fun in following a YouTube video or a Peloton strength workout and not having the right tools. It’s worth spending not only money but also time figuring out what you need to achieve your goals.
I set specific goals for myself
I used to have pretty vague fitness goals: “Lose weight. Get healthier.” These are good ideas for pinning on a vision board, but they don’t do much in the way of planning or motivation. If you have a solid gym routine, they’re easy enough to maintain, but if you’re having to really force yourself to get off the couch and work out at home, I don’t think they’ll cut it. So I started setting much more specific goals, like “Do the splits by August.”
You can set a goal to lift a certain weight by your next birthday, gain a certain amount of bicep circumference by fall, lose a certain amount of pounds by an upcoming event – it doesn’t matter what your goals are, as long as they are unique, doable, measurable, and time-bound.
I’ve found that for me, reaching a goal by my own deadline is motivating enough to stay focused. I set a goal of doing a pistol squat by May and achieved it in April, which left me feeling smug and eager to move on to the next one. If a general sense of accomplishment isn’t enough, try a reward system : If your goal is to lift 30 pounds by December and you’re currently 15, consider a reward you can indulge in when you hit the 20- and 25-pound marks, like a meal at your favorite restaurant. If you’re on a weight-loss journey, consider allowing yourself one luxury workout outfit purchase each time you drop a size.
Don’t forget to track your progress toward your goals. F45 Global Recovery athlete Christina Chan tells me that when it comes to staying motivated to workout on your own, “tracking your workouts in a visual and useful way can make all the difference.” She encourages clients to mark their calendars, fill out a habit-tracking app , or even put sticky notes on their walls to track their active days. “Seeing your consistency grow over time is a powerful motivator, and it shifts the focus to results rather than just the physical.”
I dress to impress (myself)
Remember how during quarantine everyone told you to keep dressing for work even when you were leaving the house because it would put you in a “work” mindset? I’ve had success applying the same logic to my workouts: Every day, before I hop on the Peloton or settle into my yoga mat, I throw on a matching workout set. (My favorites are from Set Active because they’re all color coordinated and the fabric is compressive but comfortable.)
I could work out at home in my pajamas, but that doesn’t put me in a “workout” space. It puts me in a “rest” space. Making a conscious decision to get up and put on compression clothing, thigh-high socks, and a sturdy hair clip tricks my brain. I wouldn’t laze around in those tight clothes all day, so my mind automatically knows that it’s not time to rest. Even if no one sees me in my matching set, I “see” myself and know what time it is. When I finish my home workout, I put on new clothes as if I were leaving the gym.
I also prepare for my home workout as if I were going to the gym. I mix some creatine with water (I like Wellah creatine and am obsessed with matching my Owala water bottle to my outfit), pick the perfect playlist , and do a good stretch.
All of these rituals are about getting into the right frame of mind. Your living room probably doesn’t look or feel like a gym, so you need to make yourself feel ready to work out.
I am getting closer to a sense of community
I love going to the gym because I love being around people. It’s motivating to see the same faces every day and be surrounded by people who are also working out hard. When you’re next to someone on the treadmill or in a Pilates class, it’s almost impossible not to put a little extra energy into your own workout. Unfortunately, that energy is harder to replicate if you’re mostly working out at home.
That’s why I love going to Peloton classes. The leaderboards make it easy to feel like I’m part of a real class, and I always feel the need to compete with other people — even faceless strangers whose times I’m trying to beat in a virtual setting. If you don’t have a Peloton, there are other ways to achieve the same thing.
One option is to create challenge groups. Get together a group of friends who all commit to, say, posting workout selfies to a group chat once a day for accountability. (I follow a few people who do this publicly via Instagram Stories, but that’s too much even for me.) If none of your friends are into it, strangers online will: Search Reddit or Facebook for “fitness challenge” or “workout challenge.” Add your city or some handles like “ for moms ,” and you’ll find a group of like-minded people who want to hold each other accountable.
Many virtual fitness instructors, like those who upload cycling lessons to YouTube , also offer live classes. Just like signing up for a gym class, this can force you to work out when you otherwise wouldn’t want to. You don’t want to miss a class or leave other regulars wondering where you are.
I add variety
A key component of working out is avoiding boredom, which isn’t always easy to do at home. When you go to the gym, you see different people, have access to different tools and resources, and may even find entertainment on your commute. If you’re working out in your living room, there are likely no new people, limited equipment, and the commute may involve standing.
To add variety, I mix up what I do on my Peloton. I watch YouTube videos , play games , and take scenic drives. I plan trips with friends and have even taken language lessons just to force myself to pay more attention to the metrics on the screen. Outside of Peloton, I try to do a variety of other workouts, though many of them — like stretching and meditation — are also available in the Peloton app. I even split my days the same way I would at the gym, focusing on my legs one day, my arms the next, and so on.
Just because you’re working out at home doesn’t mean you can’t get outside. I consider running outside an “at-home” workout because it requires the same extra motivators as doing yoga in the living room: I’m alone, it doesn’t cost anything, and I have to convince myself to get up and go.
If you’re tired of the same four walls, stretch out on the patio. Run around the block. Get out of the same room you always find yourself in to keep your workout fresh.
I stick to the schedule.
It’s still a work in progress, but I think it’s important. For a long time, I’ve been doing at-home workouts sporadically. Some days, I’d jump out of bed to ride the Peloton. Other days, I’d wait until bed to push myself with free weights. Lunchtime runs, yoga when I was feeling stressed, randomly deciding it was just “YouTube Pilates time” at 8pm — all of these things kept me moving, but there was no schedule or structure that held me accountable to myself.
Now I’m slowly finding a schedule that works best for me, which is more difficult in the summer months when the likelihood of going out at night is much higher. For now, I do morning Peloton rides on days when I’m not already teaching a 7 a.m. Spin class (with a 10-minute Peloton “cool down” when I get home on days I do teach), then yoga, stretching, or Pilates on the mats right after work at least three days a week. I also try to have at least one class a week that’s more activity than relaxation, like golf, basketball, or swimming, and they’re usually scheduled on weekend afternoons.
“One strategy I always suggest to clients is habit stacking/linking your workout to something you already do every day,” Chan advises. “For example, if you always drink coffee in the morning, roll out your mat right after your last sip. This small trigger helps make movement an integral part of your routine, rather than something you have to constantly talk yourself into.”
I try to be kind to myself.
I’m serious about this. I’ve worked hard over the last year or so to stop beating myself up when I don’t excel at something the way I think I should. When I beat myself up, it just makes me feel worse, which isn’t particularly motivating. There are days when I really don’t want to or don’t have time to exercise, so I include a 10-minute meditation in the Peloton app to help me keep my active streak going. I don’t beat myself up about it, and that’s the key: I know that if I were feeling bad or lazy or guilty, I’d start associating those negative feelings with working out in general — and then I might quit.
If I can stay positive, tell myself it’s okay to have a day off as long as I’m back at it tomorrow, and stay focused on my actual goals rather than some arbitrary idea of how much I need to get done each day, I’ll continue to view working out as a fun and productive activity. And that means I’ll be much more likely to hop on the Peloton tomorrow morning.
Chan suggests having a “bare minimum” workout on those weekends—your version of my Peloton meditations. “Some days, the motivation just isn’t there, and that’s okay,” she says. “I tell my clients to always have a ‘bare minimum’ workout: five minutes of movement or three sets of a simple bodyweight circuit. Even if that’s all you do, you’re keeping the habit going. Most of the time, once you get moving, you want to keep going.”