Easy Exercise for Busy Students
University can either be a blessing or a curse for your personal fitness. On one hand, being surrounded by new people in a new environment makes it the perfect time to reinvent yourself and create positive new habits.
On the other hand, between classes and social events, you may struggle to find the time or motivation to dedicate yourself to an intense gym routine. Since there’s no point becoming a lonely fitness hermit at the expense of all else, you may decide just to give up completely and live off fast food and beer.
Here are a few ways of making your fitness goals simple, fun, social and attainable while at university:
Buddy up at the gym
Traditional gym workouts don’t need to be done in solitude. After all, the more something feels like a chore, the more difficult you’ll find it is to stick with it.
If you dedicate a significant chunk of your free time to going to gym solo, it’s easy to begin feeling isolated, bored and burned out after a while. Since one of the greatest tips for fitness success is consistency, and one of the greatest tips for personal happiness is human interaction, this poses a problem.
If you decide to commit to being a regular gym goer, avoid the habit of training in perfect isolation and then heading back home straight after for a lonely post-workout meal. Instead, try to interact with some of the regulars you meet at the gym and build up a rapport (without disturbing them mid-workout, obviously).
You should also keep an eye out for any potential fitness pals at parties, in societies or on your course and invite them to train with you. This way you can spot each other in the weights room, time and race each other on the treadmill, and turn your post-workout meal into a mini social event. Suddenly your gym time will seem less like work and more like fun with friends.
Join a sports society
One of the best ways to balance your social, academic and fitness lives is to join a sports society. Typically, you’ll find that there are a large range of groups active on campus who meet regularly to work up a sweat, ranging from fencing, rowing and football to rugby and martial arts.
If you get involved with a society you really enjoy, you’ll soon forget you’re even doing any exercise at all. Instead, you’ll be killing two birds with one stone and using your free time away from class to work up a sweat, have fun, and share some laughs with new friends who have similar interests to you
Walk or Cycle to Get Around
Depending on how spread out your university campus is and depending on whether you live nearby, you might find yourself barely needing to walk five minutes at a time to get from place to place. If the distances are greater, however, you might find yourself becoming very well acquainted with the local bus routes.
Wherever possible, opt to take the more physical option when getting around. If you do have a longer way to travel but are still within walking distance, then walk! Even if you live on campus and barely need to move to get from your room to your classes, see whether you can find opportunities to walk or cycle further afield.
If that local club where everyone’s meeting up is a twenty-minute walk away, then walk. Before you know it your fitness will have improved, and once you get into the habit, you’ll barely miss the bus at all (no pun intended).
If you're short on time in the gym, why not try our free HIIT workouts to blast fat and tone your body in under 30 minutes at puregym.com/free-workouts
Find out the benefits of circuit training and pick up a few tips and ideas by clicking the video below.
