Sometimes, I find Alexander and his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to be extremely relatable. Today I had planned to till the back yard. When I woke up, it was raining and even after it started drying up, the tiller wouldn’t start. Now I’m moody and I skipped my workout anticipating the yard work. So, what are we going to do about it?
Well, not working out is not really an option. Not for me anyway. Rest days are definitely good and you should have them. I just don’t really define rest days as days where I don’t do anything at all. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t sometimes skip your workout. We all have really bad days, get sick, are too busy, or have other reasons to just… skip it. But on days when I want something light or if I just don’t want to work out because I’m in a bad mood, this is a better option.
10 Minutes of Yoga
We’re going to start this lazy workout with some really good yoga. Now, don’t get me wrong, Yoga can get super intense and there are moves that have me on my booty after a few seconds of trying to hold the position. But it’s also easy to do the easy stuff! Yoga is great because anyone can do it and most of the basic stuff, you don’t even need any extra equipment. Here’s my lazy day yoga routine:
Minimum Effort Cardio
This is a bit harder but honestly, you should still get your heart rate up even if you’re not going for your usual run. You can go through this routine pretty quickly though:
- 10 Mountain Climber
- 30 Seconds Run in Place
- 20 Jumping Jacks
- 10 High Knees
- 30 Seconds of butt-kicks
- 30 Seconds of Jump Rope (optional)
Repeat this another two times to get a decent cardio workout on an off day!
No Equipment Strength Workout
I think a lot of these are good for at-home workouts anyway, even on normal days. Just increase or decrease your intensity or reps. I won’t give exact numbers on this, it’s just good ideas for what you want to include in your rest-day workout.
Arms:
- YTW’s
- Push-ups
- Planks
- Arm Circles
- Cross Punches
- Walkouts
Core:
- Sit-ups
- Glute Bridge
- Dead Bugs
- Bird Dogs
- Elbow Planks with Reach
Legs:
- Squats
- Lunges
- Side Lunges
- Wall Sit
- Bicycle Kicks
- Donkey Kicks