While exercise motivation can wax and wane all year round, for many of us, fitness is way more doable when the weather is decent. You can wake up early to fit in a sunrise run; you’ve got hours after work for a mind-clearing walk or cycle; you’re not tempted to cancel a class because it’s teeming down with rain. During autumn and winter, however, it’s often cold, dark and wet. 

It’s no wonder that a new piece of research has found that 80% of Brits worry that during the winter, the fitness and wellness activities that make us feel good are too expensive to access. Commissioned by health and wellness app Kic, the 2,000-person-strong research found that 54% dislike going out on dark mornings and evenings, while 44% don’t feel safe running in the dark – a percentage that’s no doubt higher among women.  

If you don’t feel safe running in the dark, then the obvious solution is to hop on a treadmill –but that comes at a sizable cost. At-home treadmills start at about £200 (assuming you have the space), while the cheapest gym memberships hang around the £15.99 a month mark. That might be manageable, but getting to that gym requires schlepping through the pouring rain or leaving your warm home to work out, and if your motivation is already low, you might end up chucking good money after bad.

And then we have the impact that shorter days can have on our mental health. The Kic study found that the cold makes 40% of people feel sluggish, with reduced sunlight leaving 36% of us feeling like there’s less time in the day to exercise. If you’re already short on time, it’s one thing lacing up and heading out of your front door, and another to have to commute to exercise.

Now, we can’t solve all these issues but there are things you can do to make staying active a little easier. As someone who works out all year (it’s my job, after all), there are five tools I use for maintaining motivation – no matter how grim it gets outside. Best of all? They’re either free or reusable. 

Try short, free at-home YouTube workouts

The biggest barrier to motivation, in my experience, is not knowing where to start. If you have to think about which exercises to do, you’re more likely to just not do them. YouTube is brimming with free workouts that cater to all fitness tastes and experiences. All you have to decide is the length and type of exercise you want to do. 

Need a pre-work energy boost? Give this 10-minute sweaty endorphin ‘good mood’ dance workout a go. If you have more time, then check out Kayla Itsine’s 30-minute bodyweight strength workout – ideal for shaking off the day and getting strong from home. I have a gym membership, but I’ll often choose a YouTube workout over cycling for 30 minutes to lift weights.

Get a Lumie lamp

OK, this does involve an initial upfront cost (starting at about £40), but if you’re struggling to wake up early enough to actively commute or get a little movement in before work begins, then a SAD lamp could make a huge difference. I’ve been using a Lumie for about five years, and it’s made getting up at 5.30am on gym days a breeze. It emits light very gradually, so by the time your alarm goes off, you’re already wide awake – no snooze button necessary. Even if you want to exercise in the evening, it makes getting up during the winter months easier.  

Go outside as often as possible during the day

It sounds obvious but if you don’t feel comfortable moving around in the dark, then get outside during the day. Government guidelines recommend we do 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, which equates to 21 minutes a day. Break that up into chunks, and that might mean heading outdoors for two 10-minute brisk walks – one 10 minutes before you start work, and one at lunchtime. Going for a midday walk may well help you to feel more awake (even if it’s raining), alert and productive.

Save your cardio workouts for the weekend

There’s no easy solution to feeling safe while running in the dark. If you don’t have someone to run with, you might just decide that it’s not worth the risk – a totally valid decision. Rather than pushing through or berating yourself for not having the confidence to strap on a head torch, save those workouts for the weekend. You might not like the idea of ‘wasting’ your Sunday morning schlepping along a canal, but if you choose a bakery to run to or make a pub roast your final destination, then suddenly it becomes more of an occasion. I usually run to an outdoor market that offers a useful (and tasty) pit-stop at 7k into a 10k loop – well worth braving, even in the drizzle. 

Prioritise low-impact workouts

Kic co-founder and CEO Laura Henshaw says that during the winter, the app sees a spike in lower-impact workouts like pilates because “when you’re lacking motivation, it’s much easier to commit to slower, more nuturing exercises”. The most popular workouts, she says, are five-to-15-minutes long. 

I don’t do much yoga in the summer, but in the winter, there’s nothing like a really cosy yin session in the evenings. I’ve also started doing pilates on Monday afternoons, and it’s one class I actively make time for. I know I’ll feel good afterwards and it doesn’t require having a great gush of energy to get started. Again, there are plenty of yoga and pilates sessions on YouTube. Check out Yoga with Adriene for a yoga class to suit every emotion or goal, and Isa Welly is incredible for brilliant pilates sessions.

Images: Getty