The Ultimate Home Workout routine for stress relief

I’m not going to teach you anything. Moving your body is good for your health. Activating your heart and activating your muscles contribute to keeping us healthy and in good shape and can have many long-term benefits.

Today, more than ever, our physical activity is put on hold. For my part, I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer screen and it is useless to remind you how much this is not the best thing for our body. For me, doing sports and especially HIIT and strength training, is essential to not let my body sag in bad positions.

To remedy this, sport, physical activity, simply moving, is greatly beneficial. A sports session of about 30 minutes at medium intensity allows our brain to secrete endorphins, the so-called “happiness” hormone, up to 6 hours after exercise. 

That’s why you always feel good after training, even if it was hard and even if the motivation was lacking at the beginning. And feeling good right now is essential! Isn’t it?

To remember before to start:

⇒ Vary the sessions by targeting one muscle group during each session: For example, do an “Upper body” session on Monday, and rather a “lower body” session on Tuesday or Wednesday. And repeat the following days.

⇒ Start your sessions with a few minutes of warm up. Even a 3 minutes warmup will be beneficial and prevent you from getting hurt

⇒ Go slowly: start with 2 or 3 sessions per week, 30 minutes each, then gradually increase the pace according to your progress.

⇒ Listen to yourself: listen to YOUR body and find your own rhythm. My advice is not necessarily applicable to everyone and if a movement / exercise is painful, do not do it or adapt it!

⇒ Find a place where you feel good: a little cocoon just for you 

How do I start my routine:

I like to do my workout early in the morning around 6am. I always start my workout routine with a 10/15 mn HIIT session. The HIIT, short and intense workout punctuated with reduced recovery phases, allows you to tonify your body quickly. Intense sport over a short period of time is what HIIT offers, an effective fractionated workout for slimming. Because it is based on the afterburn effect, a process that consumes a lot of calories after the session and increases your basal metabolic rate (use this calculator to measure your BMR). It’s a fast and effective method to lose fat. Two to three days a week is a good way to see results as long as you give your body 24 hours between each session to recover properly.

You can find a lot of free programs on the web. Popsugar, Self and HASfit, Pamela Reif are some of my favorites YouTube channels for HIIT. 

For me, a stress relief workout is a session of HIIT. We are all different, some prefer strength training workout, others cardio and for me it’s a mix of the two.

What’s next:

I also always add to my routine some strength training. If you don’t have dumbbells or kettlebells you can use a jug of water. My advice if you have time, add to your HIIT workout a session of 15 to 20 minutes of strength training. Add one legs session, one upper body session and one full body session. You can try these workout sessions from Popsugar, Madfit or Heather Robertson.

I have to confess that my favorite session is the upper body one.

My favorite finisher

For me, the best way to finish your workout is by adding a 5 minutes plank challenge. Even if you don’t have time for the rest, at least try to find a few minutes for your abs workout. The plank solicits most of the trunk muscles but above all it helps strengthen the superficial and deep abdominal muscles (right, transverse, oblique). It protects the intervertebral discs by developing the tone of the back. It’s the perfect exercise for good posture and a flat stomach!

Because I’m a working mom, my workout routine rarely lasts more than 35mn and I try to exercise 3 to 4 times a week usually early in the morning.