The Home Gym To Bounce-Kick The Quarantine Blues

The simple yet versatile toolkit to create your at-home gym

We go to the gym for multiple reasons—to get out of the house, have access to a vast variety of machines, and take classes with friends. With many of us on stay-at-home orders for an extended period of time, I wanted to share a quick, easy way to create your own home gym with basic tools that suit your exercise needs. A quick list for those who want to get right to the punchline includes weights, mat, resistance bands, and a fitness trampoline.

For most of us, creating a gym at home means asking the question, what fitness accessories can I acquire that are versatile, small, and easy to set up and put away? Compact equipment is a must when living in apartments or houses where every corner is already filled with piles of papers, toys, books, crafts, or our winter gear that still needs to go into storage.

Let's forget about WHERE your gym will go at the moment, and instead focus on the tools to create our own exercise ecstasy. The first tool is the fitness trampoline. This bundle of fun is all the rage right now because it offers a wide range of fitness activities and is easy to stow away when not in use. For example, I pull out my folding fitness trampoline, (a.k.a., “home gym”) from the closet each morning, pop it open in the living room, bedroom, or even garage and tune into my favorite streaming site. My top video picks to bounce to include full body cardio, HIIT, and strength training workouts on JumpSport’s Fitness TV streaming site. It offers a great variety of professional instructors that know how to work every inch of your body—and have fun, while you’re at it—with just this one tool.

If I’m looking for more, I’ll add resistance bands or weights to the daily bounce. Some videos include a ball (having a teenage son means we have soccer balls or basketballs that work), or use a couch pillow to add the extra challenge of an inner thigh burn while testing my barre balance. If you don’t have bands, a towel can typically be an option. If dumbbells are still on a 2-month backorder, then cans of soup or water bottles filled with water can substitute as homemade weights.

Finally, being a yoga instructor, I always have my yoga mat for the days I want to experience a calm flow state. Although I can do many yoga moves on the trampoline, the mat is my tool of choice for sun salutations.

Once you have your toolkit, it’s time to kick the quarantine blues, put on your gym shoes, and get your bounce on. I guarantee that this will lift your spirits, raise your heart rate, and remind you that a fantastic workout is at your fingertips on any day—quarantine or not!

Written by Meredith Bless, a photo producer, writer, and yoga instructor.