Campus Rec wants to support your health & wellness by providing various resources. We encourage you to use this page whether you are currently home, away from campus, or just need guidance in your overall wellness routine.
Campus Rec wants to support your health & wellness by providing various resources. We encourage you to use this page whether you are currently home, away from campus, or just need guidance in your overall wellness routine.
Access previously recorded virtual fitness classes or mindfulness sessions through Princeton University Media Central. You can view the videos at any time, but require a current PU NetID login.
*Set/Rep Quantities in the following workouts are suggestions based on fitness resources from the American Council on Exercise (ACE). Please adjust your sets and reps accordingly to your experience with exercising. If you would like more insight about how many reps you should be doing, please see the link below.
How Many Reps Should You Be Doing?
Exercise |
Sets* |
Reps* |
Resistance/ Weight |
---|---|---|---|
3 |
10 |
bodyweight |
|
3 |
10 |
bodyweight |
|
3 |
10 |
any resistance |
|
3 |
10 |
any resistance |
|
3 |
10 |
any resistance |
To download - click link above, sign-in with your Princeton G-Suite account, click "File" > "Make A Copy" or "Download > Word Doc"
To modify HIIT, use training methods that keep clients active and heart rate up, and focus on specific muscle groups at one time instead of focusing solely on the intensity or effort of exercise.
Exercising and engaging in physical activity has plenty of benefits mentally and physically. But it is also important to focus on stretching and recovery of your muscles. Matt Bryzcki, Assistant Director of Campus Recreation, Fitness is the author of A Practical Approach to Strength and Conditioning (5th edition).
Below are various areas of recovery to focus on that Matt has elaborated on.
Flexibility is best defined as the range of motion throughout which your joints can move. The best way to maintain - or improve - the range of motion of your joints is to perform specific stretches to elongate the surrounding muscles.
For many years, it had been thought that pre-activity stretching reduces the risk of injury. The belief wasn’t based on any research but it seemed reasonable to assume such. As it turns out, there’s scant research on the effects of pre-activity stretching on the risk of injury.
Another long time assumption had been that pre-activity stretching improves performance. Again, this belief has been based more on a “gut feeling” than on scientific research. To date, in fact, no study has shown that pre-activity stretching improves performance.
The research regarding the need for a warm-up is inconclusive. Some studies have shown that performances with a warm-up are better than those without a warm-up; other studies have shown that performances with a warm-up are worse or no different than those without a warm-up. Nonetheless, a warm-up has both physiological and psychological importance.
Although your [Range of Motion] ROM may be limited by the factors that were mentioned previously, it can be improved through flexibility training. Like all other forms of physical training, flexibility training has certain components that must be incorporated to make it safe and productive. These components can be crafted into strategies that will permit you to improve your range of motion with a lower risk of injury. Ten strategies on stretching (.pdf).
Post-exercise nutrition tips from Campus Recreation.
Videos have a series of exercises with up to 3 options per exercise to follow at your own discretion.
Episode 1: Instagram | Facebook
Episode 2: Instagram | Facebook
Episode 3: Instagram
Outdoor Space on Campus
Go to the following locations to get active while you can on Campus:
Poe Field
Finney & Campbell Fields
Outdoor Running Track
Princeton Routes & Trails
Looking for places to adventure around Princeton? Take a walk, jog, run, bike ride on Princeton Running Club's routes. Download the Strava app on your phone and it will help you navigate around town.
Whether you’re feeling stress/over-stimulated or disengaged/shut down, within a minute or 2 into your meditation practice where you are breath focused, your nervous system will be met where it’s at and gently persuaded into a more harmonious homeostatic neutral territory. This will consequently help with blood pressure, circulation, hormone regulation, impulse control and vagal nerve toning.
A daily meditation practice stimulates the brain in ways that “exercises” its ability to adapt and adopt new behavior patterns...in essence, meditation makes neural pathways more malleable for intentional change and growth (makes it easier to create new habits, and replace maladaptive behaviors/bad habits).
A consistent daily meditation practice is essentially attention training for your brain, which changes grey matter volume to reduced activity in the “me” centers of the brain to enhanced connectivity between brain regions. Consequently, “exercising” the brain in more fully functional operating systems of pattern.
*This is not at all to say the need for medication is obsolete. Any and all decisions regarding medication should be discussed with your prescribing doctor.
The ability to redirect your reactive moments creates an empowered sense of agency for ones life. Meditation teaches us to prioritize the pause. Prioritization of taking that pause creates space. Space creates perspective. Perspective creates objectivity. Objectivity breeds a more balanced inner environment where we are less likely identify with and/or feel isolated by circumstances. The shift that meditation trains the brain towards is the difference between feeling you are on stage with the everyday drama of your life, and replaces it with feeling you are in the audience watching the drama play out with director abilities to discern.
A daily meditation practice teaches us to compassionately observe our thoughts, feelings and physiological experiences. The alternative (as humans) is a default modality of avoidance behaviors, projection and displacement of our frustrations, disappointments and fears. The power of the pause that is learned in meditation builds the courageousness required to stand in the truth of each moment as it arises, without needing to flee from it or requiring it to be different - and that creates resilience and a nurtured sense of Self that will positively affect and direct your entire life.
The National Park Service offers a park finder on their website. To find a park or hiking trails near you, check out their website.
Some trails close to Princeton’s campus include the Billie Johnson Mountain Lakes Preservation and the Delaware Raritan Canal Trail aka the Towpath.
To find other trails in the Princeton area, you can use Outdoor Action’s website.
To view the responses go to Ask the Experts: Virtual Fitness Q&A