When you’re feeling stressed and busy but also a little restless, try a 10-minute workout—any of the ten listed below will suffice!—to clear your thoughts, take a break, and keep on track with your fitness programme.

Warm-up

Warm-up and stretch correctly before exercising to avoid injury and improve the effectiveness of your activities. This stretching and warm-up regimen should take around 6 minutes.

Booty blast 

All-day languishing? This quick glute workout will get your backside going. Walter Kemp, nicknamed The Booty Builder, conducts this 10-minute workout booty-focused exercise that consists of a standing and on-the-floor squat sequence.

Low-impact cardio dance 

Ana Clarke’s dancing cardio class will get your heart rate up (while still having fun!). This high-energy, full-body exercise incorporates boxing, aerobics, and body-weight strength training and is suitable for all ability levels — no dancing experience is necessary.

Abs 

This core training is an excellent complement to a stroll. Expect Russian twists, leg lifts, and basic crunches. Melody Davi emphasises appropriate form while also providing progressions for those looking to take things to the next level. 

Legs 

The lower body is the centre of this Pilates routine of a 10-minute workout. The good news is that you can do the full workout while lying down! But don’t imagine you’re in for a walk in the park. Marcia Meade, your instructor, walks you through a sequence of modest, careful moves.

1. Dining Chair/Stool for Push-ups and Tricep Dips: We know that chair is a designated laundry dump, but it can be used for purposes more than that. Tricep dips will show improvement in stability, flexibility and range of motion in your shoulders and arms. For the push-up, rest your hands on the chair seat instead of the floor and continue with a regular push-up.
2. Backpack Magic: As a kid, you would remember carrying 15 kilos of books to school everyday. Well, you have to do just that, but at home. To add weight to body weight exercises, such as squats, lunges, and pushups, carry a backpack full of books and canned foods (make sure it’s an amount you can handle). You can even take the backpack off and grasp the straps to perform curls, shoulder presses, or makeshift kettlebell swings.
   
3. Bookworm’s Blessings: A thick hardcover book can be great for strengthening the core muscles. Look to a thick volume, such as a hardcover dictionary, to use in abdominal exercises such as crunches. Keep the book on your chest as you’re lifting your abs and middle up, but be sure not to strain your neck.
   
4. Fabric Hand Towel and Paper Plates: These can be used as an alternative to sliders. You can easily re-use these for your next exercise too! You’re actually working your muscles harder to maintain your balance because the amount of friction between you and the floor has decreased. You can modify some exercises to include lunges or mountain climbers to give them a different spin. Controlling this sliding motion is challenging, so be sure to take it slow and steady!
5. Fruits, Not to Eat, but Workout: Fill a carry bag with fruits. Trust us, a bag of fruits can go a long way as the health benefits can extend to your tricep development! Use that bag as a tricep extension. The same bag can be used for kettlebell exercises. But make sure that the bag is sealed to prevent yourself from making a mess! 
6. Pack that Suitcase: You can fill up a luggage bag with canned goods to try to replicate the barbells in the gym. With bigger equipment in your home, you can now perform those deadlifts! You can also use a laundry basket for a deadlift.
7. Use a Couch for Glutei Bridges: Lie face up on the floor and rest your heels on the edge of your couch. Squeeze through the glutes and raise your hips, creating a straight line from shoulders to knees. Lower back to start for 1 repetition. Repeat.
   
8. The Old School Workout With Stairs: If you’ve got stairs in your home, you can get a cardio workout just walking up and down them a few times. Carry around any heavy objects while you do, and you’ve added weight resistance. Avoid the lift as much as you can.
9. Beer Bottles: These can be used a substitute for super lightweight dumbbells. The narrow bottle makes it easy to grip. Plus, if you pull the bottles straight from the fridge, they’re nice and cool to hold!
10. Beach Towel as Yoga Mat: Lay down your towel. It won’t feel as thick as a yoga mat, so you can double up if you want extra padding. And if you’re on a smooth surface, you can fold them up and use them for sliding exercises, much like the paper plates mentioned above.
11. A Duffel Bag As Sandbag: Fill a duffle bag with a bunch of clothes, and get ready to test strength, balance, and patience.
12. Use a Bag of Flour as Heavyweight: Use the heavy weight to make basic bodyweight moves such as squats and lunges more challenging. Avoid a messy situation by placing the bag of flour in a Ziploc bag before you begin.

Heavy weights and complicated machinery are great, but they’re not necessary. All you have to do is get a little creative with what you’ve already got.

Are 10 Minute workouts actually effective?
10 minutes workout at a moderate or high intensity can be really helpful and can make a huge difference in your health and fitness level. Science has consistently shown that some exercise, even just a few minutes a day, is better than none. As long as you can squeeze a few mini-workouts into your day, it is still worth your while in your busy schedule.

10 minutes sessions can help in gaining muscle, boost your metabolism, increase endurance and assist in weight loss. Even at the moment you feel flushed, to clear your head, take a break, and stay on track with your fitness routine, these 10 minutes workout come in handy.

And here you go with the Cardio Blast:

Note: Warm up with a light jog in place (30 seconds), then complete the following exercises.

Jumping Jacks : We’re sure you’re familiar with Jumping Jacks. 30 Seconds of Jumping Jacks really gets the blood moving and the heart pumping.

For a more challenging exercise, just jump faster, and widen your jump slightly.

Burpees : If done correctly, Burpees can improve your strength, endurance, general fitness, and boost your weight loss because it cranks up your heart rate and metabolism. 30 seconds of burpees is an efficient way to challenge your body and improve your fitness.

High Knees : The High Knees exercise will engage multiple muscle groups including your core, hip flexors, and leg muscles, working your calves, quads, and hamstrings. High-knee running is useful for burning calories in just 30 seconds.

Squat Jumps : This targets the muscles of the calves, quadriceps, buttocks and hips. It also targets the bones in the spine. 30 seconds of Squat Jumps increases your heart rate for a significant calorie burn.

Push-ups (Traditional or on your knees) : There is no limit to how many push-ups one can do in a day. Done properly, it will tone your upper body. Doing pushups every day for just 30 seconds can be effective if you’re looking for a consistent exercise routine to follow. You will likely notice gains in upper body strength if you do pushups regularly.

Once you complete one round of all five exercises, rest for 60 seconds. Then start over and do the circuit one more time to complete a total of 10 minutes. By adding fewer workouts everyday, you will feel stronger, leaner and more energized.

Looking out for a bonus? Plank – for as long as you can hold it! If you like, you can swap one set of push-ups with 1 minute plank. This exercise is designed to be tough, so even 30 seconds is really good going! It surely gives your back and core muscles a workout.

Make sure you drink plenty of water and do some stretches post the workout. Workout may leave your muscles sore, some stretching will give your whole body a little extra love and closure it needs after a workout. Fun Fact: Stretching will help you burn calories at a faster rate than you usually would and it will allow your entire body to lose weight better.

The global Digital Fitness market was valued at USD 8037.7 million in 2019 and it is expected to reach USD 26550 million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of 18.5 during 2021-2026; where in, in 2020 itself, the market size was valued at USD 4.4 billion. Among other countries, India saw the highest increase in downloads of fitness apps – rising by 156%. What happens in 2021 depends on the vaccine rollout, however, exciting new ideas and technology have emerged making sure digital fitness stays intact.

The situation in India is driving a massive surge in the demand for virtual classes for yoga and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) cardio workouts such as Zumba, Aerobics, and Pilates. Not only gym workouts, but Indians try to stay fit by combining household chores with virtual classes and DIY home workout routines.

Working out at home could be boring but some applications made it quite interesting to workout during tough times. Shivjeet Ghatge, co-founder and CEO of the StepSetGo app said, “The problemis not how to count your steps. The problem is how to keep up your motivation”. StepSetGo, a winner in the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge, found a way out to maintain social engagement while physically distant. Apart from offering fitness motivation, it makes every step count, and every workout fun and rewarding. Every 1000 indoor steps you take is rewarded with 1 SSG Coin. These SSG Coins can be collected over time to claim products & discounts in the in-app ‘Bazaar’. Over 5 million users are enjoying the app today, and certainly, it’s a winner.

You have a chance to become a Hero in Another World with the Zombies, Run! App. All you have to do is walk, jog or run anywhere in the world. Hear your mission and music through your headphones. If you’re chased by zombies, you’ll have to speed up! You’ll automatically collect supplies to build up your base. You get to create your own missions and have fun at any speed. Over 1 Million users did not run out of motivation, would you? Try it out!

Sarvesh Shashi, founder of Sarva that focusses on yoga-based wellness, says the platform recorded 1,440 hours of yoga and meditation videos over the last year. Apart from curated yoga workouts, Sarva offers mediations & sleep stories as well and is now a family of 500,000+ users.

When it comes to online training, SOHFIT aims to change people’s perspective on fitness. They have been successful in putting out the fun in the 40 day challenges as well as virtual bootcamps. SohFit reached a greater reach altogether during the pandemic having trained celebrity clients including Alia Bhatt, Mira Kapoor, Kiara Advani and Parvin Dabas. “To me, fitness is not purely about muscle gain or even weight loss for that matter. It is the ability and the confidence to do things you never thought your body could do. It is a state of mind. Don’t train for a special occasion, train for life”, says Sohrab Khushrushahi, the Founder of SohFit.

Similarly, Tridev Pandey, the Founder of Nice&Easy Fitness Studio offers online classes and has trained a number of celebrity clients like Sanya Malhotra, Sunny Singh and for boxing Parvin Dabas for strength, conditioning and in sports.

We live in a digital world. When you could order a crate of eggs on your fingertips, then why not order a bit of health! Everyone has the access to a healthy lifestyle, and so do you.

Even after the pandemic is finally under control, seamless experiences for members will be an important aspect. Gyms will open up at some point and we are pretty sure many of you want to go back to them, but do you think you’d feel safe enough in the current situation?

The effect of Covid-19 varies from person to person. Some might feel mild symptoms or not feel any symptoms at all, while for some the disease may be fatal. “If symptoms are mild and limited to the upper respiratory tract (cough, runny nose), then light to moderate exercise might be beneficial. More intense exercise should be avoided during covid infection, even if symptoms are mild, as higher-intensity exercise can temporarily reduce immune function, which would not help one combat the virus,” explains Alexander J. Koch, professor and program coordinator for Exercise Science at Lenoir-Rhyne University, North Carolina, US.

Once you have recovered from Covid-19, you can plan working out again. As much as it is important to exercise and continue being fit once you’ve tested negative, you need to remember and follow certain health rules. The first and foremost is not exerting yourself beyond what your body permits. Remember that even if the symptoms were mild or none at all, you have just regained the energy and you need to be cautious about your muscles as well. Secondly, it is best to consult your physician and take into consideration the level of workouts recommended by them.

According to Namita Piparaiya, a yoga and Ayurveda lifestyle specialist, and the founder of Yoganama, yoga is an excellent aid during the recovery process, because it helps to boost energy. Even attempting half the moves will make you more mobile, which is always good after long periods spent lying in a bed.

To begin with working out again, here are a few asanas that you can follow:
– Preparatory asanas (5-10 minutes)
– Cleansing breathing kriyas (2-3 minutes)
– Pranayama (5-15 minutes)
– Meditation (10-20 minutes)

Post-COVID period is not for training hard, rather it is time to train smart. If you get down from 40 push-ups to 4, it’s okay. Your body needs time to gain back the strength and you need to respect that. Once your body is adjusted to the yoga routine, you can switch to low intensity aerobic exercises. Begin with stretches following jumping jacks, kneeling reverse leg lifts, lunges, side step squats, side leg raises, single leg runner, warrior jacks and bird dog for 40 seconds each. You can also do a plank for 30 seconds if your body allows. Make sure you cool down with light stretches post this work out. Along with that, notice your heartbeat and make sure it doesn’t shoot up. If it does, rest more in between exercises.

After this phase of about 7 days and when fatigue level is normal, you can return to your regular exercise pattern. People have returned to more strenuous exercises after recovering from Covid-19, but remember to be patient as your body gets back to normal after fighting the infection. This is not to say you cannot return to your old lifting and strength training exercises, but take your time with this and be grateful to your body for the fight it puts up and focus on convalescing.

It is important that you seek medical advice in case of any abnormal shortness of breath for a given activity level, or return of symptoms including temperature, lethargy or chest pain. Monitor your mood. If you feel more anxious, down or low, speak to someone, and stay as healthy as possible.