With the summer season in full swing, many of us are looking for convenient ways to stay fit and active without committing to lengthy gym sessions or complicated workout routines. We want to be outside enjoying the weather as much as possible, so the idea of being cooped up in a sweaty gym for hours every week can deter us from exercising and before we know we’ve lost all motivation. 

Fortunately, you can achieve your fitness goals, stay in shape and maintain your motivation by incorporating a 20-minute full-body home workout into your weekly routine. In this blog, we will guide you through a practical and effective workout plan that you only need to do three times a week to see results. Plus, we'll explore how you can complement your workout routine with enjoyable outdoor activities to really make the most of the sunny season!

The 20-Minute Full-Body Workout

Our workout routine below is designed to target all major muscle groups while maximising calorie burn and boosting overall fitness. Here's a step-by-step breakdown of the exercises you can perform. 

Warm-Up (3 minutes)

Start with a short warm-up to prepare your body for the workout - this is extremely important to avoid injuries. Some of the best ways to warm up are to perform light cardio exercises such as jogging on the spot, jumping jacks, or high knees. This will increase your heart rate, improve blood circulation, and loosen up your muscles so you’re ready to step the intensity up a notch.

Circuit Training (14 minutes)

Circuit training is a form of exercise that involves performing a series of exercises in a sequence, with little to no rest in between. It is scientifically proven to be a fantastically effective way to improve cardiovascular fitness and build strength and muscle tone. The continuous movement and intensity also boosts your metabolism, promoting fat burn and weight loss. And, because you perform a variety of exercises, you are able to target different muscle groups, providing a full-body workout. 

Now let’s get to it.

You should perform each exercise in the circuit for 45 seconds, followed by a 15-second rest before moving on to the next exercise. Complete the circuit three times.

 1. Standing Row with Resistance Bands

Step on a resistance band with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hold the band with your arms extended in front of you and pull it towards your chest, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Try our latex resistance bands which are perfect for home workouts and can be taken with you wherever you go, so you never miss a workout. They can add resistance to this exercise as well as other exercises that work on the legs, arms, glutes or abs.

2. Push-Ups with Sliders

Assume a push-up position with sliders under your hands. Lower your body to the ground, maintaining a straight line from head to toe. Push back up and repeat. Using sliders adds an extra challenge by engaging your core and stabiliser muscles.

Wanting to make the exercise more difficult? Then place the sliders under your feet and perform a mountain climber in between push-ups. To do this, start in a high plank position, bring one knee towards your chest, resume high plank, then repeat with the opposite leg, all the time keeping your core engaged.

Our core sliders are ideal for this one, helping you develop whole-body coordination, balance and strength. They are compact, lightweight and easy to take on the go.

3. Squats with Resistance Bands

Place a resistance band just above your knees. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and toes slightly turned out. Lower your body into a squat position, keeping your knees aligned with your toes. Return to the starting position and repeat.

If you want resistance bands that don’t drop or roll as you move and can be adjusted to suit your individual size and shape, opt for our adjustable fabric resistance bands. These can be combined with our core sliders if you’re looking to up the intensity!

4. Plank with Wrist/Ankle Weights

Get into a plank position by assuming a push-up position with your forearms on the ground, engaging your core and maintaining a straight line from head to toe.  Aim to hold the position for 45 seconds, slowly working your way up to holding it for longer.  

For more advanced fitness enthusiasts, add individual leg and arm lifts whilst maintaining the plank position. To do this, lift one leg off the ground and extend it backwards, hold for a few seconds, and then repeat with the opposite leg; for arm lifts, lift one arm off the ground and extend it forward, hold for a few seconds, and then repeat with the other arm. As your fitness progresses, you can increase the intensity further by lifting two opposite legs and arms at a time. 

Try our 4lb wrist and ankle weights with this exercise to add just the right amount of resistance to your plank, helping tone and sculpt your muscles. These are simple, stylish and like our other fitness accessories, easily transportable, so that no matter where you are, you can bring your own personal gym with you.

Cool-Down (3 minutes)

Just like warming up, it’s also extremely important to cool down to avoid stiff and sore muscles. After completing the circuit, take a few minutes to stretch your muscles, particularly the major muscle groups, such as your hamstrings, quadriceps, chest, shoulders, and back.

Outdoor Activities to Complement Your Workout Routine

To make the most of the summer season and maintain a well-rounded fitness routine, incorporate enjoyable outdoor activities into your weekly schedule. This can help naturally increase your activity level and give you enjoyment and pleasure at the same time, helping keep your motivation and spirits high. Here are a few suggestions for outdoor activities you could try.

Take a walk

Walking is an excellent low-impact exercise that can be done almost anywhere and is a great way to stay fit and healthy. Take advantage of the pleasant weather (hopefully) and explore the countryside, local parks or wherever you like to walk, on foot. But don’t dawdle, as research has found brisk walking to be the most effective way to improve fitness and strength.

Go swimming

Head to the nearest swimming pool, lake, or beach for a refreshing swim. Swimming is a full-body workout that improves cardiovascular endurance, tones muscles, and reduces stress on joints. Whether it's a leisurely dip or an energetic swim, you'll be reaping the benefits.

Go on a bike ride

Hop on a bicycle and go for a scenic ride! Cycling is a fun way to burn calories, strengthen your lower body, and enjoy the great outdoors. Explore bike trails or ride to nearby destinations, turning your workout into an adventure.

Conclusion

Staying fit, healthy and in shape during the summer doesn't have to involve long intense training sessions. By dedicating just 20 minutes, three times per week, to a full-body home workout, you can still improve your cardiovascular fitness and tone and strengthen your muscles for a sculpted look - perfect for the summer bikini season! 

Plus, complementing your workout routine with outdoor activities like walks, swims, and bike rides will help you embrace the summer spirit while keeping fit and well. So grab your portable equipment, soak up the sunshine, and enjoy a summer of health and fitness.

We'd love to know how you get on! What other workouts would you like to see?

Summer is a wonderful time of year to take care of our ourselves, rest and spend time with family and friends. But it can also cause anxiety overdrive; trying to get 'beach body ready' or worrying about wearing summer dresses and shorts. To stop negative self talk restricting our enjoyment of this time of year, lets look at some ways to get your confidence back so you are excited and ready for summer!

Eat to Nourish Your Body

Eating a balanced diet is crucial for maintaining a healthy weight and feeling confident in your body. A healthy diet should be rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, and healthy fats. These foods provide the nutrients our bodies need to function properly and also ensure we look our best.

For example, protein helps support strong, toned muscles as it provides amino acids that are the building blocks of muscle tissue. Vitamins A and C help with collagen production to maintain skin elasticity and a youthful appearance by keeping wrinkles at bay. And omega-3 fatty acids, found in fatty fish like salmon, can help reduce inflammation in the body and improve skin and hair health.

Processed foods and sugary drinks, on the other hand, can lead to inflammation and bloating - not ideal when we’re about to hit the pool and bare all. A diet high in these types of foods can also increase the risk of weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health problems. So it’s best to try and limit these foods and leave them as a very occasional treat.

Alongside a heathy diet, don’t forget to stay hydrated! This is especially important during hot summer months. When we become dehydrated we are more likely to experience constipation and bloating, as well as fatigue. Not exactly confidence boosting feelings. Aim to drink at least 8-10 glasses of water per day, and consider adding some lemon or cucumber slices for a refreshing twist.

Get Moving

Physical activity is an important part of any healthy lifestyle, whether it's morning yoga practice, a gym session, home workout, or an evening run. But remember, exercise is not all about getting the perfect bikini body. It’s important for long term health and fitness which will in turn help you feel confident in your body and self.

Not only will exercise help you maintain a healthy weight and tone up, but it can also have a positive impact on mental health by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. This is because exercise releases feel-good endorphins and helps lower stress hormones and inflammation in the body, which is proven to contribute to depression. Studies have also shown that regular exercise can improve sleep quality, boost energy levels, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

To achieve a balanced and comprehensive workout that helps to improve overall fitness and health, try to incorporate both cardiovascular exercises such as running, swimming or cycling, with strength training such as lifting weights, squats and push-ups. Cardio can improve heart health, increase endurance, and burn calories. While strength training can help to build muscle, improve bone density, and increase metabolism.

AMP’s hot pink fitness bars are a great summery addition to your home strength workouts, providing that extra bit of resistance to help sculpt and tone your body. If you’re after something a little heavier, why not try the weighted triangle dumbbells instead?

Practice Mindfulness

Summer is a time to relax and enjoy life, but it can also be stressful at times if you’re not feeling body confident. Practicing mindfulness is a great tool for helping manage stress and anxiety and can improve your overall well-being and happiness. To put it simply, mindfulness is a mental state of awareness that involves paying attention to the present moment, acknowledging and accepting one's thoughts, emotions, and sensations without reacting to them or getting caught up in them.

Mindfulness can be practiced through various techniques, such as meditation, breathing exercises, and body scans. Yoga is a great way to incorporate mindfulness into your life as it involves deep controlled breathing patterns, focus on your bodily movements and can help bring you out of your head. Plus, it’s great for toning and body strength, helping you feel good inside and out.

Get Enough Sleep

Getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a night can contribute to better body confidence in a number of ways. Firstly, it helps us feel more refreshed and energised so we can attack our days with vigour and do all the activities that will help us achieve better confidence.

Secondly, a lack of sleep increases levels of stress hormones and anxiety, which can dampen our body confidence. Similarly, sleep is essential for regulating our mood and emotions and helps us feel positive and happy.

Additionally, sleep can also have a direct impact on our physical appearance. Getting enough sleep can help regulate metabolism and appetite, reducing the risk of weight gain. Sleep also supports good skin health because during sleep, the body produces collagen which reduces the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines to promote a healthy, glowing complexion.

Practice Self-Care

Taking care of yourself is essential for feeling confident and comfortable in your own skin as it

helps build a positive relationship with your body. Make time for self-care activities such as taking a relaxing bath, doing a pamper session with face masks and other lotions and potions, or practising a hobby you enjoy.

These activities can help reduce stress, help us feel love for ourselves and improve overall well-being. If you have an event coming up and you’re not feeling confident about your body, make sure to set aside some time to focus on doing the things that help you feel your best.

Summary

With the warm weather and sun shining, summer is a great time to focus on health and wellness. Maintaining a balanced diet, exercising regularly, practising mindfulness, getting enough sleep, and engaging in self-care activities are all essential for feeling comfortable and confident in our own skin.

Remember, our bodies are unique and beautiful in their own way, and these tips are simply to help us feel our best so we can enjoy all the fun summer activities with confidence and happiness. By making small changes and building healthy habits over time, we can achieve our goals and feel our best all year round.

Let us know your tips for body confidence!

Creating a home workout plan can be a great way to stay active and improve your overall fitness without needing a gym membership or expensive equipment. And what better time to get working on your health and fitness than the turn of the new year and heading into spring.

Often the most challenging thing is knowing where to start, especially if you’re new to working out. In this article, we'll provide a comprehensive guide on how to structure a home workout plan that includes both strength training and cardio exercises. But first, let’s find out a little more about these two types of exercises.

The benefits of strength training

Strength training, also known as resistance training, is a type of exercise that involves working against resistance to build muscle and improve overall strength. This can include using weights, resistance bands, or even your own body weight as resistance. Strength training is an important aspect of any workout plan, and there are many physical and mental benefits to incorporating it into your routine. Some of the benefits include:

• Increased muscle mass: Strength training increases muscle mass, which can lead to an increase in overall strength and power.
• Improved bone density: Strength training can help to improve bone density, which can reduce the risk of osteoporosis and other bone-related conditions.
• Increased metabolism: By increasing muscle mass, strength training can also help boost your metabolism which can lead to weight loss and improved overall health.
• Improved cardiovascular health: Strength training can improve cardiovascular health by increasing the strength and efficiency of the heart and lungs.
• Improved balance and coordination: Strength training can help to improve balance and coordination, which can reduce the risk of falls and injuries.
• Increased self-esteem: Strength training can help to increase self-esteem and body confidence by improving physical appearance and strength.
• Better mood: Strength training can also help to reduce stress and improve overall mental health.

The benefits of cardio

Cardiovascular exercise, also known as cardio, is a type of exercise that raises your heart rate and increases blood flow to the muscles and organs. The main goal of cardio is to improve cardiovascular fitness, which includes the health of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system.

Some examples of cardio exercises include:

• Running, jogging or sprinting
• Cycling
• Rowing
• Swimming
• Skipping rope
• Dancing
• High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Cardio is another important aspect of any workout plan and it offers many benefits to your overall health. Some of the benefits of cardio include:

• Improving cardiovascular health: Regular cardio exercise can help improve heart and lung function, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
• Burning calories: Cardio is an effective way to burn calories and lose weight.
• Improving mental health: Cardio has been shown to improve mood and reduce stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression.
• Improving endurance: Regular cardio can help improve endurance and overall fitness.
• Improving sleep: Cardio can also help improve sleep quality and insomnia.
• Increased energy levels: Cardio can help to increase energy levels, which can improve overall productivity and mood.
• Improved immune function: Cardio can help to improve immune function by increasing the number of immune cells in the body.

Overall, a well-rounded home workout routine includes both cardio and strength training, as they both provide different benefits and target different aspects of your health and fitness. Now you’ve learnt about the different benefits, it’s time to get planning your home workout routine! Here are our top tips on how to create an effective routine and maximise results.

1. Assess Your Fitness Level

The first step in creating a home workout plan is to assess your current fitness level. This will help you determine which exercises are appropriate for you and how much weight you should be lifting. Don’t feel bad about yourself if your fitness is very low, we all have to start somewhere. Just make sure to start with light weights and low-intensity cardio exercises, and gradually increase the weight and intensity of your workouts over time.

2. Set Specific Goals

Before you begin your home workout plan, it can help you achieve the best results if you set specific goals for yourself. This will help keep you motivated and on track. Common goals for strength training include increasing muscle mass, improving overall strength, and building endurance. For cardio, you might set goals such as increasing cardiovascular fitness, burning calories or losing weight. Whatever your goal, notice when you see some improvements and use that as motivation to keep going!

3. Create a Schedule

Once you've assessed your fitness level and set specific goals, it's time to create a schedule for your home workout plan. Exercising little and often is the best way to achieve long-term results - it's better to do a shorter workout 3-5 days a week than to do a long workout once or twice a week. This will help to keep your body active and promote muscle growth and strength gains. Often people work out too hard too soon or add too much cardio to their routines, which only leads to burnout. It's also important to schedule rest days to give your muscles time to recover.

4. Choose Your Exercises

When it comes to strength training, it's important to focus on exercises that target multiple muscle groups, such as squats, deadlifts, and push-ups. These exercises are known as compound exercises and are great for building overall strength and muscle mass. In addition to these exercises, you can also include isolation exercises, such as bicep curls, tricep extensions, and leg curls, to target specific muscle groups.

Add intensity to these exercises by incorporating equipment like dumbbells, kettlebells and barbells. AMP’s 2kg per weight strength bars are the perfect addition, helping increase resistance to tone, sculpt and shape your muscles.

For cardio, you can include exercises such as running, cycling, or jumping rope, as well as bodyweight exercises such as jumping jacks, burpees, or mountain climbers. These exercises are great for burning calories and improving cardiovascular fitness.

When adding cardio to your exercise routine, make sure to choose activities that you actually enjoy, otherwise, you might be put off entirely. Experts recommended aiming for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity cardio per week, or a combination of both, so try to work your way up to this.

Increase Intensity Over Time

As your body adapts to your workout routine, it's important to increase the intensity and weight of your exercises.

This is known as progressive overload and will help to ensure your muscles continue to grow and get stronger. However, you don't need heavier weights to do this, you can achieve progressive overload by increasing the number of reps, or the number of sets. But always start with a weight that is comfortable for you, otherwise, you risk injury - remember, you have nothing to prove!

As you become more advanced, you can also try incorporating more advanced exercises and techniques, such as supersets, dropsets, and pyramid training.

Mix it Up

As you progress with your home workout plan, you might want to mix up your routine to prevent boredom and keep your body challenged. This can include trying new exercises or incorporating different types of training, such as circuit training or high-intensity interval training. If you’re stuck for ideas, there are some great (free!) home workout videos you could watch online as well as online fitness programmes you can subscribe to. Let us know your favourites!

Recovery

Recovery is a crucial aspect of any workout routine. Make sure to give your muscles enough time to recover, and don't forget to stretch before and after your workout. You can also use foam rollers, massage balls, and stretching bands to help relax your muscles.

AMP’s release and stretch foam roller is a great tool to support muscle recovery. When used regularly after exercise, it can help increase your range of motion, flexibility and mobility while boosting circulation and lymphatic flow to relieve inflammation and soothe your muscles.

Be Consistent and Track Progress

The key to achieving the best results from your home workout plan is consistency. It's important to stick to your schedule and make exercise a regular part of your routine, but staying motivated can be extremely challenging. Keeping track of your progress is one of the best ways to stay motivated as it can help you see how far you've come and how close you are to reaching your goals. You can track progress by taking measurements, such as body weight, body fat percentage, or muscle measurements, or by taking progress photos.

But remember, life happens and sometimes things don't go as planned. Be flexible and adaptable, and don't get discouraged if you miss a workout or two. Just get back on track and keep going!

Get Enough Sleep and Nutrition

Exercise is only one aspect of overall fitness. Without proper sleep and nutrition, all your hard work will be futile and you are likely to find exercising much more tiring and demotivating. To support your body and all the hard work it is doing, aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep each night and eat a balanced diet that includes plenty of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy. Protein is especially vital, as it provides the building blocks to support new muscle growth and muscle repair.

Summary

In conclusion, creating a home workout plan that includes both strength training and cardio exercises is a great way to stay active and improve your overall fitness and health. By assessing your fitness level, setting specific goals, creating a schedule, and increasing the intensity and weight of your exercises over time, you can achieve the best results. Remember to be consistent, stay motivated and adaptable, and don't forget the importance of recovery, sleep, and nutrition in achieving your fitness goals. With a little bit of effort and dedication, you can create a home workout plan that works for you and helps you achieve your fitness goals. Good luck!