It’s the holiday season, which means it’s time for your favorite aerial fitness studio to close for a week. As much as we all dread the prospect of a week without Lotus, this blog has your back for ideas to keep from backsliding during your break. If you missed last year’s entry (https://lotusfitnessstudio.com/the-studio-is-closed-what-now/), check it out for a basic run-down of how to organize a home training session, and for some initial inspiration on ways to mix up your home workout.

If you have an apparatus at home, now is the time to use it! Like we discussed last time, make sure you do a good, thorough warm-up.

• Start by just moving your body. Think circles and waves. Head circles, arm circles, chest and hip circles, even getting on all fours and rotating one knee in a circle (think dog at a fire hydrant) to loosen up the joints, followed by body waves, waving the fingers and hands, etc. Start slow and work your way through all the sections of the body.
• Get your heart rate up. Squats, lunges, leg lifts, think of movements that will fire up the muscles you will be working. Don’t forget your shoulders and wrists!
• Light stretching. Your warm-up is not the time for gaining flexibility. In fact, if you overstretch during a warm-up, you actually make your muscles temporarily weaker during your workout! Deep stretching makes it tough to do strength moves, and may actually lead to injury. This is the time just to check in with your range of motion and work out the everyday stiffness. Hit the major muscle groups with lunges, hamstring stretches, maybe a backbend or two. Again, don’t forget hands, wrists, and shoulders!

After you are good and warm, get in a couple of freestyles. I like my first freestyle to be floor only, and then work my way to a very basic freestyle on my apparatus, and get more intense on the third one, maybe throwing in a few easy tricks. Once the apparatus is warmed up and my body remembers what the heck we’re doing, I recommend starting on conditioning exercises. Check out this previous entry on training your veggies for some inspiration: https://lotusfitnessstudio.com/train-your-veggies-why-conditioning-is-essential/

Major areas to hit with conditioning are: core, legs, shoulders and arms. Climbs, leg lifts and tucks, inverts, and hangs should all make up a healthy conditioning diet. Aim for perfect form and set a goal that is ambitious but still achievable. Stop if your form starts to suffer.

Working on a favorite trick or two usually comes next for me. I get a lot of inspiration off of Instagram, or from my own videos from classes at Lotus! I love to go back and rehash old combos and try to really nail the moves since I may not get it perfect in class. Touch base with some basics you may be forgetting, or maybe try something new. The key here is to be super safe. Use a mat and/or a spotter if at all possible. If you’re not one hundred percent comfortable with a move, do not do it on your own. If you have to, save it for when the studio opens back up.

Cool down. Personally, I love a gooey cool-down freestyle at the end of a workout. Then, if you feel up for it, you could lead into a good stretching session. You may have to re-warm some of the deeper muscles around your joints before going for deeper stretching, so don’t just jump into your splits! Listen to your body here. Gentle stretching may be called for. Ease your heart rate down and make sure your body feels good before closing it out. The end of a home workout is a great moment for some meditation and quiet centering. …unless you have kids. In which case, good luck getting any of this done.

Keep an eye on the blog for part two, coming soon, where I’ll run down a few ideas for home workouts without an apparatus. We will all miss Lotus over the holiday, but the studio will open again soon and we will see you in the air!