Workouts you can do from home if you’ve already given up on the gym

After the initial January gym rush comes the inevitable slew of no shows. Research by Nutravita last year revealed that almost 50 per cent of new year gym joiners cancel their membership by February.  

Given how dreary so many affordable gyms are with their grey palettes and unflattering mirrors, is it surprising that their allure fades so quickly? Heading home when it’s dark outside is far more appealing than hitting the fluorescent lights of the leisure centre.

Lack of time was the major reason for quitting the gym, according to the study, with 39 per cent of people failing to fit their membership into their busy schedules. 

The biggest mistake celebrity trainer Luke Worthington sees people make in January is setting either unrealistic or unspecific goals. “If a goal is a general ‘get fit’, ‘‘be healthier’ it can be very difficult to quantify,” he says. 

Similarly if someone is totally sedentary and they set themselves a task of completing a marathon in six weeks, he says: “That is likely to be too great a task to achieve in that time, and therefore you’re setting yourself up for failure.”