Some simple tips for fitting in fitness:

• Wake up a little earlier — start by setting your alarm clock just five minutes earlier. Do stretches and star jumps before getting in the shower, or follow a short on-demand exercise online.
  

• Get fit with a friend — exercising with a friend is more fun and a good motivator. Ask a work colleague, a friend or neighbor if they'd like to join you for a walk, or see if any fancy joining a local exercise class when they're taking new class members. You're more likely to stick to plans if you know someone is depending on you.
  

• Change into exercise clothes before leaving work — you'll be ready for a brisk walk or bike ride as soon as you get home, or feel more motivated to stop at the gym if you are already dressed for it.
  

• Schedule your fitness activities — if you book exercise into your diary like other appointments, you're more likely to do it.
  

• Acknowledge your successes — keep a record of all the times you make a healthy choice to be more active. E.g. taking the stairs instead of the lift. At the end of each month, look back at your achievements and reward yourself with a new pair of trainers or a water bottle etc.
  

• Create a home (or desk) gym — if you have equipment handy, it will be easy to use when you have a spare 10 minutes. A skipping rope, stability ball, exercise bands, and dumbbells don't cost much or take up too much room.
  

• Move while you watch TV — don't sit idly — or worse, eat mindlessly — during the adverts. Do sit-ups or jog on the spot instead.
  

• Play games with your kids — next time you see your children playing outside, join in the fun. Play tag, football or catch. If your kids love video games, choose some that require you to move around. Look for ones like dancing, boxing, tennis, golf, or bowling and get family members to compete and keep it fun.
  

• Exercise while you work — raise your activity level and productivity with neck rolls or arm raises. Push your hands out to the side and then up toward the ceiling. Go for a brisk walk on your lunch break or during your daily routine and take the stairs instead of the lift.
  

• Enjoy yourself — if you don't like the activities you choose, you'll find excuses to put off doing them. So choose things you enjoy. There's such a wide array of activities you can do to keep fit, so you should be able to find the perfect activity for you.

When you're pressed for time, or just eager to start your workout, it can be tempting to skip a warm-up. But warming up before you exercise, especially before engaging in strenuous activity, has very real physiological, and often psychological, benefits. Here's what to know to get the most out of your warm-up.


Benefits of a Proper Warm-Up
Warming up prepares your heart, lungs, and muscles for the more strenuous phase, the main focus of your workout.


By activating the heat-dissipation mechanisms in the body, your body can cool efficiently and help prevent overheating early on, which is especially important during a demanding aerobic activity, such as running or bicycling in a race.
Here are the specifics of what happens to your body during a warm-up:

• Blood temperature rises: The temperature of blood increases as it travels through the muscles. As blood temperature goes up, the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin weakens so oxygen is more readily available to working muscles, which may improve endurance.
• Blood vessels dilate: This increases blood flow and puts less stress on the heart.1
• Hormonal changes occur: Your body increases its production of various hormones, including cortisol and epinephrine, which are responsible for regulating energy production. During a warm-up, this balance of hormones makes more carbohydrates and fatty acids available for energy production.
• Muscle temperature increases: Warm muscles both contract more forcefully and relax more quickly, reducing the risk of overstretching a muscle and causing injury.1 Your overall body temperature also increases, which improves muscle elasticity; this can enhance speed and strength.
• Range of motion increases: This allows your large joints (such as your shoulders and knees) to reach their maximum movement potential.
• You mentally prepare: The warm-up is also a good time to mentally prepare for an event by clearing the mind, increasing focus, and reviewing skills and strategy. Positive imagery can also relax you and build concentration for a competition.

Workouts vary in terms of intensity and length, according to the type of exercise you do. It is recommended warming up for 5 to 10 minutes depending on the intensity of your exercise activity.

The simplest way to work out at home is to use your own body. There are a variety of effective body weight exercises that can help you build strength, endurance and burn calories. And by circuit training (going from one exercise to the next, without little or no rest), you keep your heart rate up, burn more calories and get the most out of your exercise time.

How to:

1. Choose your workout — Cardio, strength training or a mixture of both
2. Choose 10 different exercises — For cardio, focus on exercises with different levels of intensity. For example, you might alternate a high-intensity exercise (such as jumping jacks or burpees) with an easier move (such as marching in place). For strength training, choose pushes, pulls, front-of-leg, back-of-leg, and core movements, such as squats, lunges, pushups, and dips. Exercise ideas: Step by Step Cardio Exercises, Step by Step Bodyweight Exercises
3. Choose the length of each exercise — Beginners might start with 10-30 seconds or 8-16 reps, while intermediate or advanced exercisers might go for 60-90 seconds or 20 or more reps
4. Get Ready — Set up a timer or use a stopwatch, turn on some music or your favorite TV show and start with a warm-up
5. The Workout — Do 1 circuit if you're a beginner or short on time. Do 2-5 circuits for a more intense workout
   

Sample Cardio Circuit Workout (No Equipment)

• 1 min: March in place — Lift the knees high and swing the arms
• 1 min: Jog in place, pushing the arms overhead
• 1 min: High knees
• 1 min: Slow, controlled Plyo-jacks
• 1 min: Regular jumping jacks
• 1 min: March in place
• 1 min: Skaters
• 1 min: Mountain climbers
• 1 min: High knees
• 1 min: March in place

Sample Strength Circuit Training (No equipment)

• 1 min: March in place to warm up
• Squats — 20 reps
• Reverse lunges — 12 reps on each leg
• Pushups (on the knees or toes) — 10-12 reps
  
• Dips — 10-12 reps
• Walking lunge with arms overhead — 10-12 reps
• Lateral leg lifts
• Planks
• Glute bridge
• Back extensions

As a session in their own right or as a warm up to any of the above sessions, running drills are a good idea to introduce into any running training programme all year round, as they improve running efficiency and form, training the brain to adapt to good running technique so that this becomes automatic and you can get the most speed out of the minimum effort. If you look up running drills you will find lots of different ones to try and learn. The ideal is to pick ones that can be progressive and I personally prefer ones that mimic the running action as closely as possible. My own preferred set of drills is as follows:

• Balance - balancing on one leg for 30 seconds. Progress to doing this in the running position (running arms and legs), then to turning your head from side to side, then to reciting days of the week/timetables at the same time.
• Foot rolls - whilst walking across an area anywhere from 3m to 10m take small steps focusing on landing mid foot and rolling through to push off with your toes, avoid heal striking. Progress to doing this fast and faster.
  
• Marching men/Stick Men - this is the perfect running action in slow motion, raising each knee to 90 degrees as you step forward slowly and carefully - focus on good angles for your feel and bent leg (90 degrees), straight back, neutral head position, looking forward with running arms.
  
• Marching men/Stick Men + Heal raise - as above but after raising the knee, lift your heal off the floor as if you were about to push off with your toes; focus on engaging your glutes as you raise your heals. You can progress this to a skip once you have perfected the technique.
  
• Jumps - feet hip width apart jump on the spot focusing on landing mid foot, dropping the heal (but not heal striking) to stretch the calves and rolling through the feet to push off with your toes for each jump.
  
• Hops - as above, but try on one leg.
  
  

If you have a good, safe flight of stairs that you can run up and down this can be a great (if somewhat boring) exercise that mimics the action of running up and down hill. You can do some great sessions on the stairs as follows:

• Jog slowly up focusing on good running form then run relaxed down
  
• Jog slowly up focusing on good form then run relaxed down, but only touching every other step.
• Run hard up the stairs focusing on driving the arms and jog relaxed down. You could try doing this ten times or 3 sets of 5, 6, 7 or 8.
  
• Run hard up the stairs then hop and stick going down (ie pause on one leg on each step for a second).