Living an active lifestyle is crucial for your overall physical, mental, emotional, and social wellbeing. It helps you get in shape without worrying about performing intense aerobic exercises and HIIT workouts.
Exercise increases your energy levels, burns more calories, improves your appearance, and mitigates the risk of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular conditions, hypertension, diabetes, stress, depression, and anxiety.
Besides, exercise develops your cardiovascular endurance, improves flexibility, strength, and range of motion in your muscles, increases lead body mass, and helps you stay focused.
However, many people find the exercise boring and quit their daily workout regimen. So, how to stay more active by making your workout fun. Let us answer this question!
Tips to Make Exercise Fun
Many people don’t have access to quality, safe, and affordable places to work out. Some people lack social support, while others don’t know where to begin. Numerous excuses make people quit their exercise regimens. These include:
- I don’t have enough time to exercise
- I am too tired to workout
- I don’t have quality equipment
- I can’t afford hefty gym fees
- I don’t have the motivation to exercise
- I don’t have an exercising partner
These are a few excuses people usually make to avoid exercise. Remember, neglecting to work out daily or at least 3-5 times a week can take a toll on your overall health and wellbeing. Not only does this affect your health, but it also speeds up the aging process and causes mental health issues. Here are a few ways to make your exercise more fun.
Go Hiking
Hiking is the best way to kill two birds with one stone. It is an adventurous activity that keeps you engaged, and at the same time, it burns calories effectively and quickly. That’s why we recommend leveraging the power of hiking to stay fit and enhance your mood.
Avoid choosing the flattest trail because it will make you feel bored. Challenging yourself and others will keep you busy, active and make the activity more fun. So, if you want to burn fat content in your legs and abdominal region, nothing is better than hiking.
In addition, make the activity more fun by listening to a podcast, music, or taking photos and videos for your Instagram. You can also try geocaching, perform outdoor yoga poses and meditation to get the most out of your activity.
Hiking is a total-body workout that strengthens your muscles, improves flexibility, and increases range of motion. That way, you can reduce the risk of inflammatory-related health conditions, such as back pain, and keep your body active.
Dance, Dance, Dance
Dancing is the most entertaining activity, whether you do it alone or in a group of family members and colleagues. When you dance, you involve your entire body in the activity. So, this increases blood flow to all your organs, including the brain. The brain releases happy hormones, such as serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins.
At the same time, dancing is a form of exercise that connects your brain’s emotional areas, meaning the increased blood circulation causes your neurons to suppress cortisol, a stress-causing hormone, and increase serotonin, a mood-enhancer.
We recommend taking an organized dance class, such as Zumba, Salsa, hip hop, or dance at home to increase your heart rate. Elevated heart rate during the exercise is directly proportional to increased energy levels and improved metabolic rates. That way, your body burns fats efficiently and quickly.
Stand Up Paddleboarding
Another way to spruce up your mood and achieve your workout goals is by playing on the water. Stand-up paddleboarding is an excellent, fun, and entertaining way to perform a full-body workout. It is a unique way to exercise because when you stand at full height on the paddleboard, you can view the underwater environment and soothe your eyes.
Besides, stand-up paddleboarding engages your abdominal muscles, builds strength, and increases endurance, allowing you to achieve lean muscle tone. It also strengthens musculoskeletal structures in your spine, legs, shoulders, and arms.
Paddleboarding activates your latissimus dorsi, deltoids, biceps, triceps, abs, and other muscles in your body, leading to improved overall physical health. At the same time, the soothing sunrays and cool breeze while playing on the water create a pleasant environment, allowing you to stay calm and relaxed. We think paddleboarding is a helpful way to connect your mind, body, and spirit and open your chakras.
Walking at a Brisk Pace
Some people quit exercise because they think it requires increased stamina and endurance. However, this is a misconception. When you follow a step-by-step approach and start with low-impact activities, you can improve your stamina.
That way, you can shift from low-impact exercises to high-intensity exercises. Remember, this requires time and effort. Walking is an excellent low-impact exercise that engages almost all muscles in your body. The best thing about walking is that you can do it anywhere.
For instance, you can do it at home, on staycation, lake, beach, park, or any other place in the city. However, if you want to make the activity more fun, we recommend taking a walk after dinner with your spouse, child, or other family members. Make sure you walk at a brisk pace – i.e., 15 minutes a mile to burn more than 300 calories per hour.
Have Fun in the Pool
Swimming in the pool is another low-impact exercise that engages all muscles in your body. At the same time, swimming is a fun activity, especially when your family members or friends accompany you.
Not only does swimming puts less stress on your musculoskeletal structures, including bones, joints, muscles, and other soft tissues, but it is also an ideal activity for people of all ages, including older adults, children, and pregnant women.
When you lap swim for 20-30 minutes at a moderate pace, you can burn 250-300 calories. Make the activity fun and entertaining by playing the mirror game, getting underwater, balancing on floats, and racing with your family members or friends.
Final Words
A balanced diet, mindfulness meditation, and exercise are integral components of your overall health and wellness plan. However, exercise is the epitome of a fit body because it increases blood flow to your organs and tissues and triggers cellular processes to improve metabolic and homeostatic levels.
Not exercising can lead to severe health complications. If you find exercise dull – don’t worry at all. You can perform the activities above to get the most out of your workout and maintain your health. Remember, it is all about your mindset. So, positivity and creativity are two things that can help you achieve your exercise goals.