One of the most frequently asked questions a personal trainer hears is “What can I do at home?”. Many people have exercise equipment at home but don’t have the faintest idea what to do with it.
Treadmills become clothes racks. Ellipticals have all sorts of household items hanging from them. Assorted resistance bands get kicked to the corner in a messy pile or become toys for curious children (or weapons for the mischievous ones!). But weights and dumbbells take the cake; they end up as simple clutter taking up space on the floor before eventually being placed on FB marketplace.
Sound like someone you know? Sound like you?
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we leave hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in exercise equipment alone in the corner collecting dust?
One word: EXCITEMENT!
We’re excited to start a new health & wellness journey every new year. We get excited while scrolling through Instagram and seeing photos of people who’ve changed their lives through exercise. We’re excited when the commercial comes on for “The last home device you’ll ever need” showcasing paid fitness models using their product.
The purchase is made and that’s the exact moment the excitement dies down. How do I use this? How do I know if I’m using this correctly? Where am I going to find the time? And the kicker, what if it doesn’t work?
That’s where commitment, amongst many other things, kicks in. Do you really know what commitment means? It means doing the thing you said you were going to do LONG AFTER the mood in which you said you were going to do it has gone. (Read that again if you must.)
You’ve got to stay COMMITTED to the promise to yourself and your family (if it applies). That’s the first step.
First things first, you don’t need all that equipment. If you’re new to the exercise world, you don’t need to spend an entire paycheck buying all new stuff. Just start moving! Go for a walk, a jog, a run, a hike... whatever. Use your body as its own resistance in exercises.
NFL great & Hall of Famer, Herschel Walker, is what some may consider to be a “human specimen” and he’s built his physique off of calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, & pull-ups. When I had my first, and then second, son, I had my longest gym-vacation ever! Fed up with how I looked and felt, I reverted back to doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, & burpees and quickly added 5-7 pounds of muscle within weeks!
Calisthenics may be the best form of exercise you can perform. It allows you to become more in tune with your body because it’s You-vs-You. Improve & enhance your mind-body connection.
When you do a body-weight squat, you can feel and correct any imbalances in your legs or feet. Doing push-ups, you’ll learn to take the weight from your shoulders to your chest.
Abs! Everybody wants abs. Well, as Oprah would say:
You’ve got abs! You’ve got abs! And yes, even YOU got abs! YOU ALL GOT ABS!
But I’m not lying. YOU ALL DO have abs. We’re born with them; it’s a part of our anatomy. Now, how many layers of skin and fat are covering your abs is a different story. Most people think the cure is a thousand crunches a day. WRONG! Sit-ups, crunches, flutter kicks, and performing static exercises with imbalanced weights will cause your abdominals to activate & stabilize in ways you haven’t felt before.
Of course, diet plays a major part, but that’s for another conversation. Let’s get back to those dumbbells, bands, and anything else you’ve got just lying around. PICK THEM UP!
You know how to do a bicep curl. Curl it! You know how to press it over your head. Press it! You can hold it at chest height and squat. Squat it!
Those are just some basics. Want to know what else you can do with them?
In the same way you Google why your child is coughing for 4 days straight, or how to fold a fitted bed sheet, or “Is Michael Jackson really dead?”, you can search for exercises to do with your equipment.
In today’s mobile device-driven world, there’s an app for that as well! There is an abundance of resources right in the palm of your hand. The thing we must do is drop the excuses, or distractions, and do what we need to do.
Marco Iglesia is a personal trainer and owns InfyNite Fitness. In addition to personal sessions, he also offers virtual instruction. See him on Instagram at InfyNiteFitness, or his studio at 1069 Ringwood Avenue in Haskell.
We’re excited to start a new health & wellness journey every new year. Stay committed!
