You’ve been hitting the gym for months, maybe years, and have always been able to get your treadmill time without any interruptions or waiting in line. Until January.
You know what happens. The New Years resolutions start and everyone descends upon the gym with their #fitspo goals.
We’re all about encouraging a love for fitness — the more full the SoulCycle class, the better the experience! — but having to wait in line to use the bike (cough, not the elliptical, cough) really takes the fun out of the workout, we’ll admit.
Luckily, Marc Santa Maria, national group fitness director at Crunch, recently told Health the exactly perfect time you should head to the gym to be guaranteed a spot, and it makes absolute perfect sense.
“As much as folks want to start the New Year off right and work out early, most people still come after work and hit the snooze button,” he tells Health. That means setting that early alarm (and actually getting up when it goes off) is really your prime time to hit the gym with a smaller crowd.
Alternatively, using your lunch hour to hit the gym might also be a good bet. Plus, weekends (when most would rather sleep in or take a “day off”) are an ultimate time to make it to a workout.
But above all, experts say, it’s how you use your gym time, not necessarily how long you spend there.
Running for an hour may seem beneficial and like a great use of your time, but maybe all you need is 20 minutes in the free weights section to really get the workout you need. Adding performance-enhancing headphones to your workout might even help make those precious moments all the more effective. Hey, whatever we can to get the most out of the limited time we have!
Alternatively, there are plenty of ways to get your fitness on without a gym. As one Sporteluxe editor will tell you, it’s possible to quit your membership and still stay in shape!
Taking your workout outdoors, hitting the running and bike trails, is always an option. Heading to the pool (where New Year’s resolutioners are less likely to be) means you’re almost guaranteed to get a lane. You can always create your very own at-home mini-gym if you’d rather skip the entire building, and go solo. The gym is not your only workout option. And once the resolutioners fall apart come February (not yours, though!), you can get your favorite machine back, no problem.