How to start Yoga and Fitness at home – Invest in yourself with yoga, exercise and workout. (AD)

Witnessing the healthy endeavours of those paddle boarding in Norwich this week, I was determined to get a grip on this and start to make some headway into regaining a fitter lifestyle, we decided to begin transforming the extension on the side of our home into a simple, cost-effective place for yoga and fitness at home. Our friends at Core Balance sent over some superb home fitness products to get us going and we used these alongside a good lick of paint and a DIY Peleton exercise bike to get started on bettering our fitness habits.

We have a room that’s perfect to begin yoga and fitness at home, but it needed TLC. We freshened up the paintwork with light, airy colours. These colours were cheaper “copy-cat” clones of more expensive Farrow and Ball paints, similar to those we used in the recent redecoration of our living space. We also replaced the lights in all rooms, including this yoga and fitness room, with LEDs in order to be more efficient and reduce the heat being emitted in the room. This meant no more halogen lights kicking out heat in an already warm exercise session.

Once a light paint scheme was ready, we added a few motivation-boosting and environment-oxygenating plants to lift the feel of the room further – ideal for easing into a new fitness regime. We added in a DIY Peloton-style exercise bike from Amazon and a low-cost Chromebox and HP Monitor setup for yoga videos, spinning classes and motivational Spotify playlists. Finally, we considered adding a wax melt brittle to the room before being ready to start relaxing, exercising, working out and enjoying a DIY home fitness room of our own.

Yoga always featured highly in the calendar pre-COVID so using the beautiful grey Mandala Mat from Core Balance was an absolute treat. It’s beautifully padded – a treat on the wrists after so long off the mat – and the mandala placements mean you have great guidelines to keep you centred in trickier poses. The Mandala Mat comes in three gorgeous colours and at only £12.99 is a real steal.

To help build in a little resistance work to the yoga practice, Core Balance Fitness sent over a set of their Resistance Bands to try as well. For engaging in more pilates-style exercises, these are brilliant, coming in a range of resistance that allows you to alter the challenge you set yourself. As an alternative to free weights, the resistance bands provide endless options to work on strength training of the upper and lower body – check out YouTube for a myriad of tutorial videos to guide you through if you’re a beginner.

Being tight for space, energetic cardio exercises are not always viable at home, so it’s a bonus that resistance training also features in the Core Balance Balance Trainer that we have been lucky enough to be trialling. This provided the biggest laugh at home, first of all! Who knew that even standing on the inflatable surface would be so challenging?! It was a real ice-breaker when getting the family back into the habit of working out. Once the giggles were out of the way, resistance exercises with the included bands were made all the more challenging by the instability provided by the inflatable cushion – you can definitely feel it in the core the next day, I assure you!

Incidentally, if looking for amazing youtube channels for yoga, DIY peloton style sessions and more, check out Yoga with Adrienne, Cosmic Kids Yoga and

Quite possibly the most revolutionary device we found from Core Balance Fitness was admittedly not necessarily aimed at us exercising. Instead, it was more for targeting our aches, pains and stiffness both from our new exercise regime also to combat the effects of the past 18 months. The rechargeable Percussion Massage Gun is an incredible bit of kit.

Six interchangeable massage heads are designed to target every muscle group in the body, with five different speeds available to alter the intensity of the massage. I admit, I was sceptical about this, being a huge fan of a sports massage to sort out my usual dodgy back, but this piece of kit really hit the spot. Knots in my back were loosened incredibly quickly and I felt that the massage head really dug deep into muscle tissues, giving that wonderful feeling of relief. Now granted, this does not replace the hands of a skilled professional, but my goodness did it make a difference having been through 18 months without any treatment at all and the beauty of having it to hand at home means that I can target areas of discomfort quickly and effectively without leaving issues to fester.

Working with Core Balance has been a real pleasure over the past few months. Their customer service is impeccable and they truly are advocates for helping people stay in shape and feel their best even when they have the busiest of schedules. It’s reassuring that the company designs all of the equipment it sells themselves, prices it at a reasonable and highly competitive price point and delivers it directly to your door free of charge.  Check them out and get yourself moving again!