Exercise

Getting Fit at Home: How to Workout at Home for Free

April 11, 2011
By Valeria Kogan

Yahoo Finance recently listed gym memberships as one of the greatest money wasters -we sign up for 12 or 18 month contracts with the best intentions of going on a weekly basis, but then life, stress and everything else gets in the way. Luckily for us, there are actually massive benefits to doing shorter workouts at home; you can do them more often, meaning that you get the benefits of a higher metabolic rate and endorphins more frequently, and it’s free. Once you have the basic components of a good workout sorted out, it’s easy to build varied and effective workouts that you can do at home.

You don’t need equipment Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need special machines to get a good workout – whether you want to do something that’s cardio based, or focused on lifting. There are a lot of ways to intensify exercises without actually using equipment. For example, if you find push ups easy, then press your elbows tight against your body when you lower yourself, or move your hands closer together. Then, you can try one-handed push ups, or bouncing yourself off the floor when you push up.

All you need is a timer (if you want to do interval training) and enough space to exercise in. It helps to have music on, but otherwise that’s all you need.

Decide on timing Interval training is a great way to burn fat and increase strength and stamina. Tabata training is a great way to time your workouts, and means that you can workout in a very short space of time (4 minutes, to be exact). If you don’t have, or want to use a timer, just decide the number of reps that you want to do on each exercise and how many times you want to repeat the entire cycle. Make sure that you’re pushing yourself, so once a certain number of reps becomes easy, make sure you increase the number or make the exercise more difficult.

Exercises Don’t be tempted to just work ‘problem areas’. You need to exercise your entire body if you want to see results. For your first exercise, it’s a good idea to do something that will get your heart-rate up to get you into your optimum fat-burning range. Try squat jogs, skipping, or punching jogs (where you jog on the spot, and throw a punch with every step).
For your second exercise, try to work your legs – these will work the largest muscle groups in your body, and will therefore burn more calories. Try squats or lunges for your second set of exercises.

For your third and fourth exercise, choose something you’d like to work on – whether that’s sit ups, push ups or anything else you’d like to try. Remember to vary your workouts to ensure that they’re effective – change the kinds of sit ups you do and the warm up exercises so that your body doesn’t get too used to the same thing day in, day out. It will stop you getting bored of it.

All of the exercises listed above can be done with no equipment, and use your own bodyweight for resistance. If you have trouble thinking of workouts to start with, try one of these 10 minute workouts.

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