My Fun and Frugal Workout Sessions- Freestyle Dancing With My Kiddos

My awesome baby carrier, which I use for my
 workouts. I put Rose on my front, and I pull up
 the strap over the leg, until it reaches and supports
 Rose's back and head for while I exercise.

My calves are sore; my muscles all over my body are aching.
You know why?
Not because I've been to the gym recently...
In fact, I don't think I've ever been "to the gym".
But I have recently had a few amazing workouts, at home in my very tiny home, with all my kids at home with me, including a baby who was wide awake. I had such fun with my workouts!
I wanted to share with you what I did for my workouts... since it's a trend I would like to continue.

First off, for my workout I chose a time that my baby would want to be heading to sleep in the near future. My baby likes to go to sleep while I'm wearing her in my carrier, so I decided to make my workout more intense by "weight lifting" while exercising- I wore her in my baby carrier during my work out! For this, obviously you need a good, supportive baby carrier, and fortunately I have one...

My goal in my workout sessions is less to focus on specific muscles, less to muscle build, and more to get my heart pumping, get sweating, speed up my metabolism, and burn calories.
To do that, what you need to do is to get moving. Fast.


I have a music playlist on youtube that I like, and I find that certain songs just make me want to move my body to the beat. So I changed into workout clothes, put my baby in the carrier, put on that music at full volume and just started moving to the beat...

And my kids? Well, my boys play with Lego while I work out, and Anneliese dances with me, and we have a great time, with her giggling at my sillier looking moves.

First I chose a slow song and did a slow stretching, moving my body slowly, but then I switched to a faster beat, and started dancing, kind of a cross between ballet, jazz, and zumba...
I just danced to the music, doing whatever suited my fancy at that moment- I did a lot of grapevine steps and jazz square dance steps, but ended each of those steps with a hop, to make it more intense. I did a lot of cancan style dancing, as well as certain zumba moves and belly dancing moves. I even included ballet moves like frappes, balances, piques, etc... I also did a lot of squats, shallow squats as well as deep squats, lunges, etc...
Really, it didn't matter what specifically I was doing- my goal was to just move, move, and move some more...

Whenever I tried working out in the past, I got bored very quickly, but when I am dancing, I don't get bored, since dancing is something I love to do and rarely find the time to "indulge" myself, since "there are always more important things to be doing".

Since I start out my workout with my baby in my carrier, I do less intense things at first, and when I am doing any sort of jumps, I hold her (in addition to the carrier holding her) so she isn't being juggled around...
About 10 minutes or so into my workout, she falls asleep, by which point I am already feeling a little tired, so I take off the carrier, put her down to sleep in bed, and then go to the more intense moves, with higher jumps, higher kicks, this time with my arms free to move as well since I'm not holding down the babe...

I don't look at my watch this entire time. What I do do is say to myself that I will keep on moving until I finish x amounts of songs. I don't always have inspiration of what type of move to do, in which case I will just jump or lunge until the inspiration comes...

I also like doing the mountain climber move and leg lifts, which I wait for until after the baby is sleeping...

By the time I finish my workout, my face is bright red, I have sweat dripping down my face, and I know I definitely got my aerobic exercise in for the day...

And by how my muscles are feeling now, I know it was a good workout.

I know this type of workout wouldn't be feasible for some people, who just aren't dancers... but I? I've danced ballet and jazz since I was in elementary school, and have done other local types of dancing since then, so I get inspired to just move to the beat...

For those that don't have a natural dancing inspiration, there are always youtube workout videos. But I find I have the most fun with this freestyle dance workout.

My goal is to do this type of workout every 2 days, to give my muscles a chance to recover between workout sessions, at least until I get back into better shape.

Do you exercise at home? What type of exercise do you do? Are you a dancer, someone who likes moving to the beat of a song? Would this type of workout work for you?