Working Out During The Summer

Hello :)

I got a request to write about my workout plans for the Summer, so I thought I'd give you a little overview. I'm definitely not the most athletic person, but during the past few years I have found the workouts I enjoy and actually get excited about doing. I thought I'd share them then, so that people who like me, usually find it difficult to find motivation to work out, could maybe be inspired.

Anyway, as I've said frequently before, I am a yoga person, I just love the feel of it and the fact that I can actually see and feel how I'm improving. I think yoga is so much more than just being strong or being flexible, it's about understanding the body and knowing how each movement is done to maximise the effects of it. As for the Summer, I have continued to do yoga as often as I can, I would say an average of 5 days a week would be my goal, but if I don't reach it every week, then it's no big deal. The length of my yoga routine varies, I usually do a variation of sun saluatation as a warm up for my stretching routine and sometimes I also do some light hatha yoga at the end of my strenght workout.

As I said I have a stretching routine, which usually is about 40 to 50 minutes long. The main areas I focus on, while stretching are my hamstrings and hips, at first I do a selection of stretches that are focused on those areas and then I also practice my splits and hold them for about 30 seconds to a minute. Lately I've also been attempting to do oversplits, my right leg splits have improved a lot thanks to that, but it's definitely more difficult to do the left leg splits, at least for me. I see progress every time that I stretch and that motivates me to keep practicing. I also do a little bit of stretching for my back and shoulders, mainly in the form of backbends and camel pose, but lately I've been experimenting more with that as well. It's difficult to say if there's been much progress, but it feels good, so I keep practicing.

About one a week I try to have a longer strenght and flexibility workout, which pretty much means that I have my usual warm up of yoga, then do my stretching routine and end the workout with about 45 to 60 minutes of strenght workouts. I generally start with ab excercises of my choice. For example I do crunches, the plank, bicycle crunches, leg raises, side crunches or toe taps. Pretty much anything that I feel like doing at that current moment. I usually go for 25 or 50 reps of each exercise, depending how difficult they are to me. Alltogether my ab excerices take 10 to 15 minutes.

The second group of excericises I do are for arms, chest and back. So I do push ups, as many as I can, which isn't much, I start with my arms set quite far apart, that works the back more and the more closer I bring the arms to my body, the more it works out my arms and triceps. I also work out with light weights and just do a variety of workouts for my arms with those. This group of excericses also takes about 15 minutes.

Then lastly I do leg excercises, which personally are my least favourite, since I don't have very strong legs, but I do them anyway and try to improve that area. I usually start by doing a warm up of some leg kicks and lunges, then I do some squats, sit by the wall and also do some workouts on the ground, that have the aim to tone legs. Just like all of the previous ones, I just choose and pick what I feel like doing and do as many reps as I am capable of doing. This also takes about 15 minutes.

Once all of that is done I also practice my handstands. I've been doing that also about 5 times a week, I usually just practice against a wall, with one of my legs holding balance and I hold the handstand for as long as I can, while trying to make sure that my body is straight and alignment correct.

Other than that I don't do much working out at the moment. I do plan to do a bit of cardio once I start my Summer work, since I'll be cycling to work and back, which makes about 30km 3 or 4 times a week. If I feel like being particularly active, then I also might go jogging every now and then and it might even happen that I go swimming, but that's not in my current plan.

I hope I gave a somewhat good idea of my workout plans for the Summer, The main thing I try to focus on, is that I enjoy whatever I'm doing and feel like I'm giving my best, even, if I wish I was doing better, everything takes time.

Have a nice Summer and feel free to leave your workout plans in the comments below.

Kaiela :)