Learn how to workout and get in shape without expensive equipment,
weights, or even a gym membership.
OK! People like stuff! When it comes to working out, women
like easy stuff and guys like macho stuff. Now, I’ve lost most of you.
The ones that are left, please forgive me and read on. You don’t need
all the stuff, the gym membership, the equipment…not even the
weights…just the will. In fact, a workout can be fun,
entertaining…even sexy, and still get you to the fitness you want.
Now, I’m not a licensed fitness expert or a doctor, so definitely see a
professional before you make any changes in your fitness program. I’m
just an average guy who, a little overweight, but getting stronger and more
fit day by day, using common sense and chores around the house. You
may have to be a bit more inventive, because we have 20 acres around the
house.
Strength Training Without Equipment:
It’s interesting to see all the weights and other strength training
equipment people believe they need to be fit. Don’t get me wrong!
If you’re into body-sculpting or competitive weight-lifting, this article
isn’t for you. You sure don’t need all that to be fit, though. I
do my strength training on my legs, just walking up and down the hill we
live on…of course, I’m usually carrying rocks, dirt or tree branches.
What can you do if you don’t find a hill? Stop using shopping carts,
start parking furthest from the store, ride a bicycle to work, take the
stairs instead of the elevator, do shallow knee bends and leg lifts during
commercials, use
resistance band exercise. You can see I’m into common sense and
saving money.
Along those same lines, upper-body workouts are just as sensible, using
resistance bands or other household items. Think you need a pair of 5#
dumbbells? Why not use 2 litre plastic bottles filled with water?
I know a little ingenuity and you can add handles. Want more
weight? How about 1 gal milk bottles? Here’s the point…pretty
much everything you would do with expensive weights, you can do with stuff
around the home. We’ll do more of that later.
Aerobic Training Without Equipment:
Here’s a multi-page report on a
very good book about aerobic walking. Aerobics requires no weight
for fitness. In fact, if you’re using weights other than your body,
you may not be getting everything you can get from aerobics. In fact,
here are a number of
aerobic exercises you can do around the home. So, an aerobic
workout is probably the easiest fitness activity to do without weights.
Here’s a whole body strength exercise combined with aerobics…replace your
gas, power-drive mower with a push-mower. Now, that’s a workout!
Stuff You Already Know:
Now, I’m gonna be a little mean by reminding you of stuff you already
know about working out without weights. Push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups,
jumping-jacks, running-in-place, toe-touches, leg-lifts, windmills, etc.
Remember all those boring exercises they made you do while in school?
You don’t need a gym teacher or a set of weights. You can do them
right now.
Just Like Eating, Exercising:
We can and do get into al kinds of detail about nutrition, but
In Defense Of Food is a book based on nutritional simplicity, “Eat food,
not too much, mostly plants.” The author, Michael Pollan, makes a
great case for a well-balanced diet from a variety of natural, fresh and
locally-grown foods, as the only way to be assured of getting everything we
need. As important as nutrition is to fitness, this is not about
nutrition, but working out. Just as we need a variety of foods to get
all of our nutrition, we need a variety of workouts to get our muscle
fitness.
Sadly, our workout routines are now a lot like what we hear about
nutrition…this one is good and that one is bad. Eat more fiber, less
fats…do your abs, then your pecks, etc. When we do a wide variety of
workouts, we’re far more fit, if less sculpted.
People think I’m crazy, but I made a 75′ exposed aggregate concrete
walkway by hand-mixing and finishing one 50# bag at a time, three a day.
I built a 100′, 2,000sf driveway by moving 20 tons of dirt and rock with a
shovel and compacting it with a 20# hand compactor. I’m 54 years old
and use these workouts as my daily exercise routines to fight diabetes,
asthma and hypertension. My current project is a 700sf concrete
basement floor…one bag at a time. I’m getting fit and saving
thousands of dollars at the same time.
If you’ll look around the house and use some common sense, you can find
everything you need to workout without weights. I’ll leave you to
figure out how to make workouts around the house “sexy.’ You’ll get in shape,
save money and turn chores into a fitness program. That’s what I call
total workout.
If you’re improve your fitness, you
probably want a more healthy life. You can renew your mind, body and spirit with God’s help. If you want His help, go to
Healing
From God.