Everyone thinks they are busy until they have kids and realize how few 24 hours are.
Parents, especially stay-at-home parent(s), often have to give up on activities to leave enough time and energy for taking care of their kids. And fitness? Well, that takes the back seat for at least a few years.
Luckily, busy parents can work on their fitness and make steady progress while spending most of their time at home and raising kids. With that in mind, let’s go over three workouts for stay-at-home parent(s).
Workout #1: 10-Minute No-Equipment-Needed Full-Body Routine
The first routine is a simple and effective way to train your entire body and stay in shape, even if you don’t have any equipment around. The goal is to go down the list of activities and rest for up to a minute in-between. A single round should take you no more than ten minutes.
Push-ups - 5 to 15 reps
Glute bridge - 10 to 30 reps
Mountain climbers - 30 seconds
Bodyweight squats - 8 to 30 reps
Donkey kicks - 8 to 20 reps (per leg)
What matters most is that you perform each repetition slowly and with complete control. Don’t rush through the exercises because doing so often leads to technique breakdown.
Workout #2: A Simple HIIT Workout You Can Do While Your Kids Nap
The second routine on our list is a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout. While similar to the previous workout in some aspects, HIIT is slightly different. The goal here is to focus on more dynamic exercises and perform intense bursts of exercise. You then have to take a brief break before doing another round.
Alternating Lunges
Jumping Jacks
High Knees
Mountain Climbers
Do each exercise for 30 seconds, going as quickly as possible while maintaining proper technique. Once finished, take 30 to 60 seconds to catch your breath and move to the next activity on the list. Doing all movements will be one round. You can start with a single round and gradually work up to two, three, even four rounds.
The great thing about this workout is that you can do a round here and there as you find some free time. You can do one round in the morning, one at noon, and the third one in the evening.
Workout #3: Strength and Conditioning Workout to Build Muscle And Burn Fat
Our final workout will be a mix of the previous two. The goal is to combine strength-based movements with elements of metabolic training for more balanced development, an excellent caloric burn, and muscle growth.
Like our HIIT routine, we’ll be doing each exercise for a given period with some rest in-between. The only difference is that we won’t fixate on speed but instead do slow repetitions, focusing on a full range of motion and feeling the correct muscles doing all the work. We will also alternate between an upper and lower-body movement to keep fatigue moderate and prevent technique breakdown.
Here are the movements:
Goblet squats (holding a dumbbell, kettlebell, milk jug, or something else)
Standing shoulder press (with dumbbells or another type of weight you have around)
Dumbbell Romanian deadlift
Bent over dumbbell row or inverted row (underneath a table or desk)
Do each movement for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, and go down the list. Start with one round and build up to three, even four, per workout.