Stay Winter Active With These Tips
Winter is here. Depending on where you live, you may be experiencing snow, ice, plummeting temperatures, and the overwhelming need to stay indoors under a cozy blanket. For others, however, the winter months open up a ton of activities that aren’t possible during other times of the year. Either way, winter is here…
Stay active this winter…
For people that love being active but don’t love the cold, it can be difficult to stay active this time of year.
If you don’t love the snow but you’re looking to find ways to stay active, you may need to embrace winter sports, take part in outdoor hobbies, try modified summer sports or just find ways to stay active inside.
Winter Sports
Snowshoeing, skiing, or ice skating are all winter versions of the fun activities you love doing in the warmer months. Not only are those activities enjoyable and help to break up the monotony of winter, but they also encourage staying active.
So instead of turning up the heat and hibernating all winter, try out a sport to keep yourself interested in the outdoors and staying active with something fun.
Outdoor Hobbies
Some activities are obviously more rigorous than others, but for some, it’s not necessary to find an activity that doubles as a full-body workout. Winter-related outdoor hobbies offer some low-impact exercise to get you out of the house.
Snow angels, building snowmen, and sledding are all great winter hobbies that can encourage time spent outdoors and are also somewhat active. You can also try metal detecting to find lost objects in the snow which offers a ton of positives including low-impact exercise for any age.
Ice fishing, bird watching, and photography are all outdoor hobbies where you’ll need to spend time outdoors and stay moving even though the exercise isn’t intense.
A summer lover that usually spends an hour a day hiking or walking the dog may not feel fulfilled making a snow angel or bird watching, but it’s an option to get outside and stay moving.
Modified Summer Sports
Just because it is cold out doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t continue to do the summer sports or summer activities you love doing in the warmer months – you just may need to modify them.
Camping, jogging, bike riding, and rock climbing are all activities that are typically done in the summer that can easily be modified and done in the winter months. Even surfing can be done in the winter – there are wetsuits designed for winter surfing.
Snowshoeing into a winter camp spot, jogging with warmer clothes, wider bike tires, or a different rock climbing location are all ways to take the same loved summer sports and make them work for colder weather.
Keep it Inside
For some, venturing into the freezing outdoors is just not an option. It is inside or nothing for many people that really can’t handle the cold or don’t want to.
Fortunately, just because you can’t run around the block or go mountain biking doesn’t mean you can’t work out. Joining a gym, buying a home workout machine, doing a Wii workout, or taking the season to focus on easy at-home exercises are all options to keep yourself active. The fun outdoor activities to take part in during the winter are great, but not many of them can be utilized as a daily workout very easily.
For this reason, some prefer to just complete an exercise indoors instead of bundling up and attempting to snowshoe in place of their daily workout. By preparing a workout by doing a set of crunches, pushups, and lunches around the living room or even doing some at-home yoga you can stay active while staying warm.
Wrap-Up
The key here is just to remain moving during these months that can be the most difficult to stay active in.
Especially for those that would rather stay active with activities rather than a gym routine, it can be easy to slip into a less motivated routine.
With options like taking part in winter sports, starting an outdoor hobby, modifying summer activities, and working out inside, it’s possible to stay active during the winter even if it’s just getting out and doing something instead of binging on Netflix under a blanket at home.
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