You’re enjoying the holidays visiting friends and family, indulging in your favorite annual treats. If you’re like me, workouts are critical to staying sane and feeling good for the duration of your stay. While sticking to a schedule is great for boosting accountability and maintaining routine, you may need to modify to accommodate everyone else in the house.
Keep these etiquette tips in mind when giving your body the love it needs, whether you save your favorite plyometric workout for the afternoon or prep breakfast the night before your morning run.
1. Choose low-impact morning workouts
If you’re planning to do a few at-home workouts in the morning, stick with low-impact options that require minimal jumping, leaping and any movement that could be loud for the host and other sleeping guests. In this case, you may want to focus on core workouts, which require slow, controlled movements, rather than jumping and slamming. Give this quiet core workout a try:
20 reps each, repeat 3 to 5 times
- Walkout + 3 second plank hold
- Toe touch crunches
- Forearm plank leg lifts
- Double crunch
- Standing oblique crunch
2. Keep your alarm low for morning workouts
A loud alarm could wake everyone in the house, including sleeping babies and their tired parents. If you want to wake up before everyone else, keep the alarm nearby so you can still hear it on low. More importantly, don’t hit snooze if you can avoid it, to reduce the likelihood of someone else hearing it. Finally, make sure you turn it off when you’re up and ready to go. There are few things worse than trying to sleep while someone else’s alarm is going off incessantly.
3. Leave everything by the door for a morning run
If you want to stick with your morning running routine, get everything ready the night before and leave it by the door. Instead of rummaging through the hallway closet and clunking through the house in your shoes, you can quietly dress in your room and then suit up quickly before heading out.
If you know you’ll be desperate for fuel and water when you get back, move quietly through the kitchen—it may be wise to have breakfast ready the night before so you don’t need to blend a smoothie or bang on pots and pans while everyone’s still sleeping.
4. Save plyometric workouts for the afternoon
If you’re trying to burn serious calories after a big holiday meal, a plyometric workout is the way to go. But save this one for the afternoon, when everyone is awake and moving around. This reduces the risk of waking anyone, and allows you to ask your host where they’d prefer you to do the workout. They may not want you jumping around in the second floor guest room, and instead would prefer you to do your workout in the basement or first floor all-season room.
Don’t forget: morning or afternoon, always put your headphones in for an at-home workout. Even if everyone is up and moving around, they may not want to hear your pump-up tunes in the background as they’re relaxing and chatting.
5. Put everything away immediately
If you brought equipment to train with, don’t leave it hanging around the house. Even if you’re working out in your room, the basement or the garage, where few other people will be, the homeowners may not want your equipment cluttering up their home. Keep everything in a corner or closet, so others don’t have to see it laying around.
Stay fit & enjoy your holidays
You can stick with a workout routine while staying at someone else’s home for the holidays—just be respectful of those around you. Ask your hosts where they’d prefer you to do your workouts and be quiet if you’re up early. Everyone is enjoying vacation in their own way, and you don’t want to disrupt the little time they have away from work and the stress of life.
For more inconspicuous workout ideas, check out 7 easy ways to squeeze in 30 minutes of exercise.