Home Fitness On A Budget
Filed under Home Fitness
Busy schedules have prompted most people to do their fitness routines outside the confines of a commercial fitness center. But that is not the only reason why many do not enroll with a gym anymore. Budget has now become one of the main reasons why for some, it is most practical to exercise at home. Here are some of the things you can do to stay in shape without having to pay for a membership and spend time commuting to your gym.
Hiking
Contrary to what most people think, hiking is not a weekend activity. And not because you carry a backpack that can hold all your survival stuffs means that you have to stay overnight on the trail. Hiking can be a regular exercise routine, which can be done several hours a day on your free day, especially if live near hiking parks and trails. Hiking is free and can burn as much as 550 calories per hour.
Walking. Jogging. Running.
Putting on your rubber shoes and going around the neighborhood may not be as adventuresome as hiking in parks and trails, but you can still get almost the same health benefits and physical fitness. A good hour of walking can burn up to 380 calories. Jogging and running can burn much more than that.
However, the main disadvantage of walking around the neighborhood is you cannot do it all throughout the year. When the weather is bad or if the winter season has begun, you cannot simply go out and run around the neighborhood (this is the reason why treadmill is so popular). Still, it is still better to maximize the warm days by walking or jogging around the neighborhood than just sitting on your couch and do nothing. Plus, it is free.
Home DVDs
Over the past years, home videos have vastly improved creating quality and very useful training techniques that often require little or no equipment. From $10 to $30, you can get professionally made workout DVD regardless of your fitness level. Take note: do not be too concerned of the celebrities that endorse these products. What you should be looking out for is if the instructional video is created by a credible fitness professional.
Use your existing exercise machine.
It is estimated that 80% of exercise equipment bought in the United States is not used after the first year. This stunning figure only equates to one thing: if you are consider buying new exercise equipment, you are more likely to stop using it after some time. And if you have bought one before, you probably still have it somewhere in your house. That leaves us to the question, do your really need to buy a new one? If you already have existing equipment and if it is functioning well, use it again. There’s nothing wrong with using old exercise equipment. What is wrong is actually buying a new one knowing that you can still use something.
Buy the basics
Having a treadmill or an elliptical trainer at home is cool but that doesn’t mean that you must buy one. Remember that they only simulate activities you can do outdoors so you can always choose to forego buying any one of these if you cannot afford to buy one. Just buy the basics like weights, exercise mat and exercise ball. They all provide various workout techniques but do not cost as much.
Tips For Successful Home Fitness Workouts
Filed under Home Fitness
You hear constantly over the news about how so many people around the world are growing obese, whether it’s through a news report about the dangers of obesity or through commercials for diet books, diet pills, and exercise equipment. But except for perhaps the latter of those sources, there is a concentration on the obesity itself and not the lack of proper fitness that most people show.
Everyone seems to have a reason for not exercising, but the truth is, it’s not too hard to improve your health if you work up to a regimen of regular home fitness workouts. With a few tips, you’ll be enjoying a great exercise regimen that’s centered around your home fitness workouts.
The key to improvement in any exercise regimen is to gently push your body in order to make it grow stronger. A common mistake in home fitness workouts is pushing far too hard, which can lead to injury and burnout. Whether you’re overweight, underweight, or something in between, you need to ease into your home fitness workouts at first, find where your comfort zone is, and use it as a starting point for your new regimen.
A good way to find what pace is best for you is to pay attention to your breath; you should be exercising hard enough that you have enough breath to speak, but not to sing. By finding this gentle pace, you’ll ensure that you’re improving your health while not working your body painfully.
Exercise With Someone
Another important thing to do when planning home fitness workouts is to enlist the help of a friend or family member to exercise with you. By including someone else in on your home fitness workouts, what might be considered a chore turns into a social activity. An exercise partner becomes someone who can encourage you to push further, while the company they give keeps things fun.
An exercise partner is someone that you can compete with, someone who can give positive encouragement. And when you have someone expecting you to join them on their home fitness workouts, you’re less likely to skip out, since it becomes a responsibility, an appointment to make with your friend and family member, not just a chore. You’re much less likely to avoid the exercise then.
Avoid Buying Equipment
If you’re just beginning your home fitness workouts, it’s a bad idea to purchase expensive fitness equipment. Instead, start with the exercises you know from school, such as jumping jacks, push-ups, jogging, even stair climbing, and you’ll be able to improve your fitness without spending a lot of money. There are two good reasons for this: for a beginner, the more specialized equipment simply isn’t necessary to provide great health benefits, and in the event that your attempt to start a habit of home fitness workouts fails, you won’t have spent too much money.
Your best bet if you’re putting together some home fitness workouts is to get some comfortable shoes, a workout partner, and just ease into some light exercising until this new, good habit of exercising regularly takes.
