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Motivating with Post Vacation Summer Workouts

By Mandi Mellen

Posted on July 1, 2015

Summer is all about vacations. You’ve worked hard the first half of the year and earned a break. You’ve endured snow, rain, and the cold, and can finally enjoy the outside! But what happens after you’ve taken your vacation? How do you embrace exercise and healthy habits? It’s wonderful to let go on vacation. You drink more, eat more, workout less, and even indulge in different foods. Afterwards it’s time to motivate with some awesome post vacation summer workouts.

Having just gotten back from vacation myself, I feel much stronger in my workouts. SCORE. Therein lies the motivation. My body is ready to push it to the next level, which means it’s time to step up my workouts even more. I’m continuing to run daily, a five-mile loop with hills, but now I’m adding longer runs into my routine. My goal is to run a 7-mile loop twice a week. While running I’m also being conscious of my pace. It’s easy to rest of those laurels when you run daily, but after a nice vacation I’m stronger and pushing up my pace! Get motivated by that strength and push yourself to go harder and faster.

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With that strength comes the ability to add in extra workouts and new types of exercise. Be adventurous! Since its summer, spending extra time in the gym is less than ideal. Get outside with your extra workouts. My first suggestion is a personal favorite of mine: running stairs. You can do this ANYWHERE. It’s a killer workout and very impressive. Start by doing a few sets after your current workout. Depending on how steep the stairs, regulate how many times you run up and down. Pick outdoor stairs for a view, or indoor ones for privacy. The steps I run are three flights, so I start by doing them ten times! Running three flights of stairs at least ten times will burn an extra 100 calories or more. Add this bad boy in a minimum of twice a week and you’ll notice some killer benefits to your body.

Another great type of new workouts are HIIT workouts, high intensity intervals. My favorite HIIT workouts are just 15-30 minutes long. That’s it kids! I love doing 20 second intervals, and one of my favorite circuits alternates between 20 seconds jumping jacks, 20 seconds high knees, and 20 seconds cross climbers. If you’re in a hurry, just set your interval timer for 15 times and bang out a fifteen minute circuit. If you’re new to HIIT, set your interval timer for 30 times and rest in between sets. With or without the rest you’re going to SWEAT like CRAZY! You’re also going to feel amazing after adding this in. I recommend doing it 2-3 times a week and loving the results.

Cross Climbers

The final part of my post vacation summer workout plan is adding weight training. I found this really cool HIIT weight training workout that is killer. Killer kids! It’s a dumbbell only HIIT workout and you set your interval timer (gymboss timer) for 30 seconds with 10 seconds rest, and 5 reps. The first exercise is plank row to burpee; second exercise is woodchops; third is thrusters; fourth is crazy Russian twists, and the final exercise is a sumo squat with rows. I found the circuit on Pinterest. Check it out here! You can totally add reps to this, but TRUST me when I say five reps to start is amazing! Add this bad boy in 2-3 times a week and love the results. Swap out exercises and make any of your favorite weight lifting exercises into a HIIT workout.

It’s amazing to enjoy your vacation, but don’t fall into a summer slump afterwards. Come back from your vacation rejuvenated and ready to step up your workouts. Make sure you have a plan for your exercise. Get motivated and enjoy these post vacation summer workouts!

Next Post: Bringing your Garden to Life: The Joy of Gardening!

Mandi Mellen is Lead Editor, Staff Writer, and Featured Vlogger at BuzzChomp. She’s an actress, writer, and producer. Get lost in her youtube comedy channel PillowTalk TV. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or Instagram