Exercising at home is a critical way to stay healthy for those who cannot access gyms or normal workout activities^3,4,8,11. However, adjusting to exercise routines at home can be difficult. At Light Lounge, our mission to provide health benefits to people with Light Therapy extends beyond just affordable and accessible technology we want to provide information about healthy habits like exercising from home.

Benefits of Exercise

Regular exercise can promote health, and reduce the risk of serious health conditions including:

• Stroke, high blood pressure and heart disease ^6,9;
• Type 2 diabetes²;
• Health issues with the immune system^12,15;
• Mental health issues like stress, depression and anxiety¹⁴.

Exercise can help you stay healthy and make you feel good physically and mentally, but not everyone has easy access to exercise.

Exercising at Home

Planning times and places to exercise is more challenging than ever. Social distancing orders may keep gyms closed or at limited capacity for months to come¹. Even without the risk of COVID-19, gym memberships can be expensive to maintain. Busy schedules can also make finding time to exercise challenging.

Exercising from home offers a way around these barriers by ensuring a sanitary, accessible environment for working out^4,10. With minimal space and equipment, getting good information about how to exercise at home is crucial.

Light Lounge Tips for Exercising at Home

Each person's exercising ability is different, so it is important to find the right plans and habits for you. Note that this article serves as a jumping off point rather than an all-inclusive home exercise guide.

If going outside is a possibility, running and walking regularly can be a way to boost cardiovascular health, mood and maintain a healthy weight⁶. Running and walking require outdoor space, which may not be an option for people in urban areas or who have certain medical conditions.

Strength training using body weight takes minimal space and equipment, and is linked with improved cardiovascular health⁸. For home strength training, exercise experts at Harvard recommend squats and bent-over rows as low space and variable weight options¹⁰. Exercises like push-ups and sit-ups can also build strength with no additional equipment needed^4,10,. When doing strength exercises, remember to warm up and stretch before and after to avoid excessive soreness and injury^4,10.

If you are already comfortable with simple at home exercises, circuits can combine strength training with cardiovascular exercise for an extensive workout⁴. Combining sets of bodyweight exercises like squats, pushups, sit-ups, and planks rapidly with short breaks in between into a high-intensity circuit can make for a challenging, fitness-promoting workout⁴. Experts recommend starting slow with more moderate exercise and working up to more intense exercise over time⁴.

Exercising from home provides a way to get the health benefits of working out while minimizing risks and costs of going to places like gyms^1,13. Pick the workouts that you enjoy and are able to perform, and think about ways to stay healthy and injury free.

Recover with Light Therapy

Exercising at home can be just as challenging as other forms of working out⁴. As such, it is important to manage muscle, bone and tendon recovery^5,7. Light Therapy can assist in recovering from soreness and pain associated with any form of exercise^5,7. In the case of injury to muscles, bones or tendons, Light Therapy can help manage inflammation, pain, and help you get healthy faster^5,7.

The current COVID-19 crisis highlights how limited our access to exercise may become at any moment, but exercising at home and recovering with Light Therapy can keep us healthy despite limiting circumstances.

If you are interested in learning more about exercising from home and about the benefits of Light Therapy, feel free to reach out to our team on Facebook or Twitter. Follow our Light Lounge blog for more information about Light Therapy and general health and wellness tips.

If you want to try the benefits of Light Therapy, book a session here.