66°
UMass Boston's independent, student-run newspaper

The Mass Media

The Mass Media

The Mass Media

Just Keep Spinning, Just Keep Spinning

It’s at that point in the semester where, if you’re not graduating, you’re already done with everything anyway. Gym? No, thanks. Bed? Yes. Sleep? That’s all I’d rather do anymore.

I figured out a way to fit the gym into my semester schedule late enough in the semester to actually feel obligated to do it. I follow MyFitnessPal’s blog and from time to time, some great workouts like this list brought to you by Kevin Gray, make you actually want to go out and find a gym that has at least one of these. Maybe it will be enough to get you remember what motivation feels like in time to ace those finals. Here’s nine ways to go to the gym without actually going to the gym. Well, at least the parts of the gym that make you stay away from the gym.

1. Hula Hooping

Burns 200-250 Calories

If you’re as done as you are with everything else, you won’t care about the odd looks if you’re not doing this at home anyway. And if you have enough of a waist to pull this off to have more fun than frustration, all the more fun for it. Though just to be safe, you may want to give yourself enough room if you are at home trying this. God forbid you bring on death via hula hoop.

2. Underwater Spinning

Burns 400 Calories

Want to feel really old doing something that was started mostly for those in rehab thanks to its low-impact foundation? Charge your phone and put it on to a few episodes of “Grace & Frankie.” Just kidding. Spinning, even out of water, was the first thing I could do after a long year and then some having not gone to the gym. It grants enough of a distraction, at least for me, that, once you get in the zone, you can easily forget you’re on it until you’re done.

3. Trapeze

Burns 225 Calories

You don’t have to be interning for Cirque du Soleil to try this. Flying on these things tests your strength, flexibility, and mental fortitude.

4. Bike Polo

Burns 250-300 Calories

Polo is a sport done on horses with a wooden mallet and a ball or puck or something of the like. Bike polo is exactly that but done on a bicycle rather than a horse.

5. Aerial Yoga

Burns 200 Calories

Need a reason to get out and update your slowly dying Instagram feed? Here you go. This yoga exercise requires participants to move between a series of poses while suspended from the ceiling by a fabric hammock. While giving you the hopeful fun that traditional yoga classes probably take away from you via falling asleep halfway through any given horizontal pose, this promotes core strength and flexibility.

6. Trampoline

Burns 150 Calories

Though not as cheap as hula hoops, it’s a fun enough way to burn all that end-of-year frustration. It’s better than driving into the nearest field and running around screaming, right? Jump hard enough and you’ll forget about that too. After all, it’s hard enough to talk and exercise. Jumping and screaming isn’t any easier, either.

7. Parkour

Burns 250-350

You don’t have to be Schmidt from “New Girl” in all his awkward glory to try some of this. Jump, roll, swing, and climb on natural or man-made obstacles like you’re your own Ninja Warrior.

8. Ultimate Frisbee

Burns 250 Calories

A fun way to get in more of that cardio you need to get in anyway. Find some friends looking to procrastinate and a frisbee you won’t miss if you lose it in a tree halfway in.

9. Mud Runs

Burns 500 Calories

Who doesn’t like getting dirty? Go over, under, and through obstacles across a varying stretch of distances in length.