This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Northeastern chapter.
With all the things going on in our busy schedules, sometimes it feels impossible to get to Marino or Squashbusters on a regular basis. But, believe it or not, your dorm room or apartment holds a variety of household items that can easily transformed into workout equipment. Use these tools to easily make up a new creative workout to fit into any time of day, whether it’s in between classes or at 2am.
Your bed and chair: The edge and headboard of your bed is a perfect place for you to get a quick and easy workout. You can balance yourself on the edge of your bed or chair to do tricep dips or you can do standing pushups against your bed’s headboard. You can also fit these in between studying to get an energy boost!
Textbooks and Water bottles: Thought you needed to buy a set of weights to tone up your muscles? Think again! Textbooks and filled water bottles easily double as weights. Use either to do a variety of weight lifting exercises, such as tricep and bicep curls or overhead presses.
Resistance bands: Resistance bands are inexpensive and allow you to work your muscles in new ways in a small space. Attach them to your doorknob to work your back muscles or stand on them to work triceps and biceps.
Jump rope: Jump ropes are the focal point of your dorm room or apartment workout. Everyone knows that doing cardio exercise is essential for a healthy heart and mental wellbeing, so you should be sure to include it in your workout. It’s fun and doesn’t take up much space, and still burns tons of calories. So turn up your iPod and get jumping! Try alternating 5-minute spurts of jumping rope with some of the exercises above and your workout will fly by in no time.
Your computer: Almost every college student has a computer, so take advantage of yours to get a workout. Pop in a workout DVD and you won’t have to worry about making up any of your own routines. You can perform most exercises from workout DVDs in a small amount of space, which make videos perfect for a dorm room or apartment workout.
Your Floor: Use your floor to stretch, do conventional abdominal work, or yoga poses. You can buy a yoga kit and use the ball or mat on your floor. You can also roll up a towel and use it as a tool for stretching, or use the space to do jumping jacks.
If you don’t feel up to one of the traditional workouts I mentioned, you could always try cleaning your room- a 140 pound collegiette burns approximately 200 calories per hour and ends up with a tidier, more organized space while doing so!