You’d love to stay fit at uni. But between lectures, last-minute essays, and the occasional (cough) big night out, who’s got the time? Or the money? Gym memberships cost more than your weekly food shop, and let’s be honest, the idea of waking up at 6am for a run is never going to happen.
Good news: you don’t need fancy equipment, hours of free time, or an influencer-level meal plan to stay active. Here are 10 actually useful ways to keep moving at uni – without sacrificing your social life or your student loan.
1. Walk Like You Mean It
You probably already do more exercise than you realise: walking to lectures, running for the bus, panic-sprinting to the kitchen when you smell someone’s just ordered pizza. But if you want to sneak in extra movement without it feeling like effort, start treating walking like a sport.
Take the long route to class. Speed-walk like you’re on a mission (or trying to avoid someone handing out flyers). Got a lift? Ignore it. Stairs exist for a reason, and that reason is free cardio. Bonus points if you throw on a backpack loaded with books – instant leg day.
2. Build a Home Gym for Less Than a Takeaway
Gyms are great, but so is not paying £30 a month to awkwardly wait for the bench press. Instead, grab a few cheap essentials, and you’ve got a home gym that fits under your bed.
A set of resistance bands costs less than a round at the pub and works your whole body. A jump rope is basically a treadmill, except it doesn’t require a whole room or a fear of tripping in front of strangers. If you’ve got space, a yoga mat makes everything comfier (and stops you face-planting on your hard floor mid-plank).
3. Turn Your Room into a Gym (Kind Of)
Look, sometimes you just don’t want to leave your room. That’s fair. But you can still sneak in a workout between binge-watching Netflix and pretending to study.
Squats while brushing your teeth? Easy. Calf raises while waiting for your noodles to cook? Absolutely. Planks during the ad break? If it means avoiding the ‘Skip Intro’ button, why not? Even stretching while scrolling through your phone makes a difference; just try not to get stuck in a rabbit hole of watching people do workouts you’ll never actually try.
4. The 5-Minute Rule
The hardest part of working out? Actually starting. So don’t commit to an hour. Tell yourself you’ll do just five minutes. Five minutes of bodyweight exercises, five minutes of skipping, five minutes of pretending you’re in a music video while dancing in your room.
Nine times out of ten, once you start, you’ll keep going. And if you don’t? Congrats, you still moved more than you would have sitting on your bed scrolling TikTok.
5. Make Your Commute Work for You
If your uni or student job is within cycling or walking distance, congrats – you’ve accidentally joined the ‘active transport’ club. If not, try getting off the bus a stop early or power-walking between classes instead of meandering like a lost extra from a student film.
Not only does it burn calories, but it also saves money (which you can then spend on snacks, obviously).
6. Trick Yourself Into Cardio
Nobody likes cardio. Okay, some people do, but they also probably wake up at 5am voluntarily, and we don’t talk about them. The trick is to make cardio feel like something else.
Play football or basketball with mates. Join a dance society (because flailing around at pres doesn’t count as proper exercise). Or, if you’re flying solo, try an app like Zombies, Run! – nothing gets your legs moving like the sound of imaginary zombies breathing down your neck.
7. Do a ‘Study Workout’
Long study sessions are a necessary evil, but that doesn’t mean you have to sit completely still for hours. Every time you finish a section, do 10 squats. Every time you highlight something, stretch your arms. Every time you catch yourself staring blankly at your screen, do a quick lap of your room.
It won’t just help your fitness, it’ll also stop you from zoning out and rereading the same sentence 12 times.
8. Get a Fitness Buddy (or Just Trick Yourself into Accountability)
Working out alone is fine. But working out with a friend is way harder to bail on. Even if you’re both terrible at motivating each other, at least you’ll be terrible together.
No willing friends? No problem. Just announce your fitness goal to literally anyone. Once you’ve told people you’re “going to start running,” there’s a good chance your pride won’t let you back out. And if that fails, join a casual sports club – uni is full of them, and they’re usually free (or at least cheaper than a gym).
9. The ‘Everyday Objects’ Workout
You don’t need fancy weights when your student house is full of perfectly functional fitness equipment. A full water bottle? That’s a dumbbell. A backpack stuffed with books? That’s resistance training. A chair? That’s a step-up machine (or a great way to test your balance).
It’s basically CrossFit, but without the membership fees or terrifying trainers shouting at you.
10. Sleep Like Your Life Depends on It (Because It Kind of Does)
You could do every workout on this list, but if you’re running on three hours of sleep and instant noodles, your body’s not going to thank you. Sleep is when your muscles recover, your energy resets, and your brain stops feeling like it’s been replaced with mashed potatoes.
Getting enough rest is probably the most underrated part of staying fit at uni. Aim for at least seven hours a night. If that sounds impossible, start by ditching screens an hour before bed, avoiding caffeine late in the day, and not waiting until 2am to start an assignment. Future you will be very grateful.
Do What You Can, When You Can
You don’t have to be the fittest person on campus, you just have to move. Walk more. Stretch occasionally. Do squats while the kettle boils. Pick one or two tips that actually sound doable, and forget the rest. Staying fit at uni isn’t about perfection – it’s about making small choices that stop you from feeling like a sack of potatoes every time you walk up a flight of stairs.
Now, go forth and be fit, on your own terms. Or at least get some extra steps in on the way to the fridge. That counts too.
