Snowy workouts to give your whole body a boost

Now this is normally the time of year that we’d be starting to get out and about, losing those winter love handles but with the Beast from the East throwing itself all over Britain some of you may be thinking that the exercise routine needs to be put on hold.

So here at Gemini we have found 6 ways to use the snow to give your workouts a boost and the best thing is, you get to have fun in the snow with your kids at the same time.

1. Get the kids together for a kick about. Playing football in the now is one of the best cardiovascular workouts you can do and the great thing is if anyone does fall over the powdery snow is a much softer surface to fall on than turf or AstroTurf!
2. Build a snowman in the garden. When you build a snowman you give your back and leg muscles a great workout. The best snowmen are HUGE and so that’s a lot of bending down and stretching up, not to mention pushing a big ball of snow around.
3. Don’t stop running because it’s snowing. While you need to keep an eye out for icy patches, running on snow takes 25% more effort but is actually lower impact than road running, because it’s a much softer surface. And it’s a great fat burning exercise.
4. Take the kids tobogganing. Think of tobogganing as resistance training – pop your kids on the toboggan and pull them up the hill a few times and you will have built muscle and boosted your metabolism and had a great time doing it.
5. If you want a good stretch and to really work on flexibility why not go outside and do some footprint tagging. It works particularly well if you have a tall teenage son as you’ll really get some deep lunges and stretches trying to reach their footprints. And if you really want to get a bit more intensity going pop in a squat at each footprint.
6. Our final tip is to get shovelling snow to raise your heart rate. Think about it for a moment – as you push the snow, lift the snow and get around the snow you are squatting, lunging, deadlifting and, if you do your shovelling properly, you’ll be twisting in the right way to give your obliques a great workout.

So get out there in the snow and get your heart pumping. And when you come back in, cold and hungry, we at Gemini have a solution. A steaming mug of hot chocolate made with our own Just Chocolate. Just heat milk (coconut milk is awesome if you’re dairy free) and melt the chocolate, stirring rapidly until everything is combined. A real food hack is that our hot chocolate works just as well if you put it in the microwave so we can even help you cut down on your washing up.

When the weather clears up we’ll be sharing more tips for exercising outside and a special recipe that will keep you going in the open air.