We are in the heat of the summer season, and if you’re feeling like it’s been harder than ever to stay on track with your fitness routine, or your last consciously thought about goals in the gym, your coaches at CrossFit Des Plaines have a few tips on how you can stay the course.

1) Try a different workout time. For many parents, school is out for the summer, which means a different schedule for the whole family. Try scheduling yourself a different workout time if you’re finding that you’re consistently missing the time you usually have for yourself to get a sweat on.

2) Get active outdoors! There’s so many ways you can take your physical activity for the day outdoors. From individual activities like running, biking or swimming, to incorporating physical activity with your social circles in games like volleyball, spikeball or ultimate frisbee. Do what you enjoy in the outdoors, and don’t forget your SPF!

3) Challenge others to keep you accountable. The possibilities are endless. You might want to challenge your co-workers to a 3x/week workout schedule. Maybe you will challenge yourself to trying a new physical activity each week, even if just once.

4) Re-visit and re-write your goals down. Sometimes having them stuck in our heads, or so far behind us, it’s refreshing and motivating to re-write our goals down on paper where we are reminded of them and can see them on a consistent basis.

5) Search the Facebook Marketplace for simple equipment such as a couple pairs of dumbbells and/or kettlebells. There’s plenty that you can do with minimal equipment in a short period of time when at home, or crunched for time to get to the gym.

6) BYO: Bring your own dishes and/or drinks. It helps to have a dish or drink that you prepared and brought to a social gathering where you know there may not be as many healthy choices available for you. If it’s not possible to “BYO” like at a restaurant, then you can also opt to have a small meal prior to the event, and so you won’t feel famished by the time it’s time to eat at your gathering, and ending up indulging.

Even with these tips, just know that a month or two slightly off of your usual routine is not unusual. This will happen throughout the course of your lifetime, not just as the seasons change, but as life throws its different curveballs our way.

It’s up to us to be able to put some of these small little strategies in place to keep us moving forward until we are able to settle back into a good, solid routine for another few months or years at a time.