At-Home Exercise: Stay Active While Self-Isolating!

We had our fitness routines before COVID-19 struck the world and upended our regular day-to-day lifestyles. Whether you hit the gym regularly, climbed mountains, or even swam laps at your local pool, it doesn’t matter: we’re all in the same boat now, and that boat is stuck at home with nothing but time on its hands.

Despite our inability to access our usual workout facilities or even state park facilities, it’s vital that we maintain a healthy, active lifestyle from the confines of quarantine. Working out is of the utmost important to our health and wellness. Exercise on its own has been shown to increase serotonin levels in the brain, reduce anxiety and aid the symptoms of various mental health disorders.

Furthermore, remaining inactive, while obviously draining to our mental well-being, can also cause our bodies to experience all manners of malady. In fact, the inactive among us are at a far higher risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, metabolic syndrome, diabetes – you name it, and inactivity possibly has a hand in it.

We at CBD Choice are dedicated to the health and wellness of the world, doing our part in preventing the spread of this pandemic and offering access to a product we believe in: CBD. In these dire times, we want to make it easier for you to receive your necessary exercise and maintain the health, wellness, and sanctity of your body.

We’ve put together an at-home exercise guide, giving you all the tips and tricks you’ll need to get a gym-quality workout right from the confines of your home!

Pre-Workout Supplements: Start Energized!

Working out at home can be limiting, so you should get all the help you can find. That’s where pre-workout supplements come in handy: these over-the-counter supplements can be found in almost every grocery store, drugstore, and corner store, and it’s quite easy to find them online.

But why take pre-workout? These supplements have shown to increase muscle mass and energize you through your workout, allowing you to get the most activity for your body possible. Creatine, one of the most popular pre-workout supplements on the planet, has been shown to energize your cells after ingestion because it plays an important role in the energy production system within your body.

CBD Choice customers have even reported using CBD oil as a pre-workout supplement. This is because CBD has been shown to both relax the body and mind and fight off inflammation. This allows you to power through those tough workouts while potentially reducing the fatigue you may feel afterwards.

Warming Up: Get Limber!

No good at-home exercise guide would be complete without warm-ups! Warm-ups get your body ready for more intensive physical exertion. In fact, warming up gradually accelerates your cardiovascular system, increasing blood flow to your muscles and slightly increasing your bodily temperature. This grants you further leeway during the intense exercises to come and potentially limits your exposure to post-workout injury.

Stretching is the ideal warm-up when exercising in isolation because it requires no tools or weights whatsoever. All you need is enough space to move your body around! In addition, stretching your muscles loosens you up, reducing the risk that you’ll pull or strain a muscle during exercise, which causes unnecessary pain and inflammation.

Some light cardio is also recommended for at-home exercise, as it also doesn’t require equipment. And you may be thinking: how am I supposed to get cardio if I’m not supposed to leave my home? Well, there are many ways to get cardio! Brisk walking through your house can be a great, easy warm-up to get your blood flowing. Jogging in place has shown similar benefits. Furthermore, if your house has stairs, you’d be surprised what a great warm-up you can get from speed-walking up and down a few times.

Get limber! You may think it looks ridiculous to twist your hips and swing your arms around, but these motions actually benefit your exercise-to-come. You can limber up in any way you see fit: swing your extremities, do some light dancing, jog in place: it doesn’t matter! Just get yourself motivated with a warmed-up body, ready to tango.

The Meat of Your Workout: Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body!

Now it’s time to get to the star of the show: the meat of your at-home quarantine workout! These are the exercises you warmed up for.

But first, it’s important to note that our bodies are complex systems that possess a lot of moving parts, especially externally. This is why it’s so important to perform a variety of workouts and hit all the major body parts.

Here are all the bodily areas we’ll be targeting for at-home exercise guidance. You should not do all of these exercises in one day– spread them out over a period of a few days, performing 1 to 3 exercises per day so you can build muscle and target the parts of the body you want to get active without overworking one area of the body:

• Abs
• Legs
• Glutes
• Chest
• Shoulders & Arms
• Back

At-Home Ab Workouts

Your abs are your quintessential core muscles. Working them out can increase protection from fatigue – more important than ever before – and injuries, as well as increase your endurance.

1. 10 Knee-to-Elbow Crunches: lay on your back with your legs straight in front of you, lock your fingers behind your head and touch your right elbow to your left knee, raising your knee to meet your elbow, then cross your left elbow to right knee, alternating back and forth.
2. 8 Leg Lifts: lay flat on your back with your legs straight in front of you, lift both legs at the same time until you feel a crunch in your stomach.
3. 8 Upward-Downward Dogs: yes, like the yoga poses– start in the upward dog position (feet flat on the ground, palms flat on the ground facing forward, back arched upward) and move to downward dog (palms flat facing forward, legs outstretched behind you with the tops of your feet facing the floor, back arched downward), alternating back and forth.
4. 10 Elbow Plank Step-Outs: get yourself in the plank position (lay on your stomach, toes and elbows lifting your body straight up from the ground, forearms flat in front of you) and step outward to one side with one foot at a time, then step back into your original position and step outward the other direction, alternating between the three.
5. 8 Side Bridges: lay on your side with your body leg and bottom forearm lifting yourself from the ground, make your body as straight as possible and dip your hips toward the ground before returning to the straightened position; switch sides after 4 side bridges.

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of three times for beginners or five times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

At-Home Leg Workouts

Our legs contain the muscle groups most likely to become weak while quarantined, as many of us find ourselves sitting or lounging for the majority of our isolation. Working out our legs is important because a strong lower body can help stave-off injuries.

1. 10 Lunge Steps: go into a lunge, but after returning to the standing position, jump off the ground using your lunge leg; alternate legs.
2. Squat Hold: go into a squat position, but instead of returning to an upright position afterward, hold that squat for 20 seconds or more.
3. 10 Squat: now do 10 squats to follow the squat hold.
4. 10 Front Kicks: get your karate on by lifting one knee into the air and then extending your leg forward in a kicking motion; alternate legs.
5. 10 Calf Raises: stand upright with your hands behind your back, raise your entire body weight using only the tips of your feet, quite similar to standing on your tippy-toes.

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of five times for beginners or seven times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

At-Home Glute Workouts

Your glutes control your backside and support the back. Working out your glutes is important for proper pelvic alignment, posture, and stance. Plus, strong glutes are tied to greater back health and strength, allowing you to fight off the classic aches and pains commonly associated with this overworked part of our body.

1. 25 Jumping Jacks: the classic playground workout, but do 25 or more per set.
2. 10 Bodyweight Squats: similar to the squats we did during our leg workout routine, bodyweight squats are like regular squats but you entwine your fingers behind your head, aligning your body weight more evenly down the center of your spine.
3. 10 Donkey Kicks: get on your knees and put your palms flat on the ground in front of you with your fingers pointing forward, pick up one leg and stretch it straight out behind you; alternate legs.
4. 10 Fire Hydrants: stay in the donkey kick stance, but instead of straightening your leg out behind you, maintain your bent-knee stance and raise your entire leg outward; alternate legs.
5. 10 Butt Lifts: lay on your back, put your feet flat on the ground with your knees bent, lift your butt off the ground toward the sky as high as possible.

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of three times for beginners or five times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

At-Home Chest Workouts

Chest exercises target a handful of smaller muscles found in the upper body. Exercising these muscles has been linked to increased breathing capacity and improved posture, making chest exercises an important part of your at-home workout routine.

1. Plank: the dreaded plank; hold it for at least 30 seconds, but aim for 60 seconds.
2. Side Planks: similar to the side bridge position from our ab workouts, lay on your side with your bottom leg and bottom forearm lifting you from the ground, maintain a straight posture through your spine, and hold this position for 15 seconds, then switch sides and hold for another 15 seconds.
3. 10 Push-Ups: we all know push-ups, but make sure to align your hands directly under your shoulder blades and keep your back completely straight while going up and down.
4. 10 Wide Push-Ups: stay in the push-up position but widen your hands about 6 inches out from your shoulder blades.
5. 10 Close Push Ups: while continuing to maintain push-up position, make a diamond with your hands beneath you (touching the thumbs and pointer fingers of your hands together with a diamond shape in the empty space between them) and perform your push-ups as such; remember to keep your back straight, which can be extra difficult in this position!

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of three times for beginners or five times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

At-Home Shoulder & Arm Workouts

Your shoulders and arms contain a variety of muscles that help build your exercise capacity, making future workouts much, much easier. Additionally, healthy shoulders equate to a healthier posture, improving your physical well-being while being stuck at home.

Because the majority of shoulder and arm workouts involve using weights, we are giving the number of reps per workout for unweighted arm and shoulder training. If you have access to weights at home, halve the number of reps per set while using them.

1. 20 Unweighted Shoulder Presses: sit straight in any arm chair (preferably one with good lumbar support and a hard back), make fists with your hands and hold them vertically at your shoulders, then press your fists toward the ceiling as high as you can go.
2. 20 Unweighted Rows: stand up straight and make fists with your hands, raise your fists straight up to your shoulders, then let them down slowly.
3. 20 Unweighted Lateral Raises: stay standing up straight like you did with the unweighted rows, but instead of lifting your fists straight up to your shoulders, lift them outward.
4. 20 Unweighted Tricep Extensions: lay on your back, entwine your fingers together to make one balled fist, hold this fist directly over your head, and slowly lower it behind your head, almost as if you’re putting a pillow beneath you.
5. (optional) 8 Pull-Ups: if you have a pull-up bar at home, add sets of 8 reps into the end of your arm and shoulder workout routine.

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of three times for beginners or five times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

At-Home Back Workouts

Healthy back, healthy life. No rhyme needed when the importance of your back health is at stake. Especially now in quarantine, your back can begin to lose muscle mass, leading to a handful of possible ailments down the line, not to mention a mess of aches, pains, and cramps.

1. 10 Diver Push-Ups: get into a regular push-up position, do your push-up, but instead of coming back to a normal push-up position, go all the way to the ground and then extend both of your arms and both of your legs skyward behind you.
2. 20 Lawn Mowers: standing upright, make a fist with your right hand, touch this fist to the outside of your left foot in a succinct, singular motion; alternate hands and feet.
3. 20 Forward Bends: stand upright with your hands on your hips, bend your body forward at the waist, keeping your back completely straight; try to go low enough so that your back and your legs make close to a 90 degree angle.
4. 20 Double Chest Expansions: stand upright, make karate chop formulations with both of your hands and stack them one on top of the other beneath your chin, now send them flying outward until your arms are straight, making a T-pose; alternate the hand that’s on top when beneath your chin.

After you finish, take a 2 minute breather and return to the first step in the cycle. Try to run through the cycle a total of three times for beginners or five times for more advanced exercise aficionados.

Stretch, Again? Yup.

Now that we’ve run through all the CBD Choice at-home quarantine exercise routines for each of the major muscle groups, it’s time we wind down from our exercises. How? Stretching. Yes, again. Stretching both before and after your workout can lead to some pretty dramatic results, including allowing your muscles to absorb all of that hard work you just put in.

Furthermore, stretching after a workout fights against fatigue and muscle soreness, giving your body a better way to unwind than if you were to just stop your workout on the spot.

We also recommend post-workout supplements. Dead opposite of pre-workout supplements, which are meant to energize you before your workout, post-workout supplements are designed to relax your body and mind after strenuous physical exertion. Especially in a time of self-isolation, you need all the potent relaxation you can get. Post-workout supplements offer that relaxation after a hard-earned workout.

CBD oils have shown themselves to be a great post-workout supplement. While some prefer to take them as pre-workout, CBD is a versatile compound that can fit many routines and uses. As a post-workout, CBD oils can help to potentially stave off inflammation and pain acquired during exercise. CBD oils can also relax the mind, lowering heart rate and allowing you to regroup after physical activity.

Hit the (Cold) Showers

Working out is vital during quarantine. We do not want our bodies to become unhealthy simply because we cannot leave the house and hit our usual exercise facilities. Here at CBD Choice, we are here to help, offering you all the best CBD products to aid in your at-home workout routines.

And now that you’ve completed the CBD Choice at-home exercise guide, hit the (cold) showers – shown to offer more post-workout benefits than hot showers – and apply some needed CBD topicals to those aching muscles!