Want to see in the weekend properly, but you don't have any equipment? Whether you're waiting for the best adjustable dumbbells on order or the best treadmill to arrive, this trio of workouts you can do with ordinary household objects will get you moving after a busy week.
Weekend workout to tone up
This set of exercises from the brilliant team at Karve is big on core fitness and all-over muscle tone. Using sliders, specialist pads designed to get your arms and feet sliding across a smooth floor, you can also replicate this workout with a cloth, slippery socks or a couple of old t-shirts.
Karve trainer Yulia Pashevkina says: "Sliders are the most universal and lightweight fitness accessories that strengthen the body and hardly occupy any space... Combining body weight with slow movements, they’re a brilliant piece of equipment that creates resistance to target slow-twitch muscle fibres, leading to increased endurance and faster metabolism."
Holding a position using your core strength, while gravity is coaxing your feet to slide further out, will definitely have you feeling the pinch. The graceful, fluid movements and isometric holds of this workout will get you fit and toned.
Weekend workout for weight loss
It's officially Spring, so why not get outside and put a Spring in your step with this dynamic basketball workout from OurParks and Lucozade Sport ambassador Born Barikor?
Combining burpees, lateral jumps, squats and other dynamic moves, just as the toning workout uses sliders, this HIIT workout opts for another unconventional piece of fitness kit: basketballs. Using basketballs as medicine balls for exercises like Russian twists and sit ups, Barikor also uses the balls to keep pace, throwing them up and performing a move in time to catch them as they land.
Get outside with a basketball or two and try this fast-paced HIIT circuit for a full-body calorie burn. You'll be gasping by the end, as if you had to tail Michael Jordan around the court!
Weekend workout to destress: Yoga flow
Niki Perry's energising yoga flow is perfect for beginners, and anyone looking to destress for the weekend ahead. Yoga is the ideal exercise to destress, full of heavy breathing exercises and long, languid, stress-busting isometric holds.
According to one study published in the scientific journal Sports Medicine, yoga is the perfect way to exercise if you're trying to bust the stress of a busy week. The research found muscle contractions held for long periods correlated with improved heart rate regulation, reduced blood pressure and lower oxidative stress levels.
Combined with yoga's meditative practices, the end result is a chilled-out, re-energising yoga flow. All you need is one of our best yoga mats to get you started.
