There is nothing like Easter to derail a health kick.
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After setting your 2021 goals at the start of the year, you may have worked yourself into a nice routine over the past few months.
But the Easter long weekend, the lead-in week and the mop-up operation that follows is enough to make you feel like you have undone weeks worth of gym sessions or kilometres pounding the pavement.
For me, a self-confessed chocoholic, it seemed like everywhere I looked last week a chocolate egg or bunny was looking back at me.
When I bought my morning coffee, it came with a solid chocolate egg on top. At work there was the customary Easter morning tea and a trail of eggs left littered across work stations.
So, this week you might be feeling like you have to take things up a notch to burn off Easter but instead of panicking look upon it as time to reset.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Go back and ask yourself, what goals had you set at the start of the year. Are you on track with these? Do you need to work harder? Do you need to adjust them to ensure you stay motivated?
Holidays also throw routines into disarray so you might need to get inventive with how you continue to be active either while away or perhaps while juggling work with kids at home.
Some ways to do this is by splitting your exercise into smaller periods throughout the day, such as 10-minute workouts. Examples of these are:
- 10 squats, 10 lunges each leg, 10 dead lifts. Continuous for 10 minutes;
- 10 push-ups, 10 rows, 10 shoulder press. Continuous for 10 minutes;
- 10 crunches, 10 burpees, 50 skips. Continuous for 10 minutes.
These could be done throughout the day or as one 30-minute workout.
If you have no equipment, stick to bodyweight exercises. You could do a 20-minute workout such as:
- 5 squats, 5 push-ups, 5 plank jacks, 5 lunges each leg, 30 seconds running (this could be a 10-metre shuttle); 10 x each exercise and 60sec running; 15 x each exercise, 90sec running; 20 x each exercise, 2 minutes running. Keep progressing until a set time limit is reached, in this case 20 minutes.
Some ideas for getting the kids to burn off excess Easter egg energy include going for a bushwalk or bike ride, hitting the local park for a game of soccer, cricket or frisbee, booking in to a trampoline park, or setting up a mini circuit at home or on holidays that could include hopping, star jumps and running on the spot.
Workouts - The Egg Burner
Set 1: 10 minutes done 1minute on, 1min off. Do alone or as a partner workout where you alternate working and resting. This could be skipping, running, walking hard, cycling, rowing, depending on where you are.
Set 2: 15min continuous x (10 squats, 5 push-ups, 10 dead lifts, 5 burpees, 10 lunges, 5 plank jacks, 10 crunches). Do continuous or with a partner, alternating exercises with rests.
- Renee Valentine is journalist, qualified personal trainer and mother of three.
