Skip to main content

Low-cost, Highly Effective Exercise

Want to exercise without spending a lot of money? If you're self-motivated and don't have health problems like a touchy back or a heart condition, consider working out at home. I've worked out at home for years and prefer it to going to a gym. When you work out at home, there are no dues, no commute, no public shower, and no pressure to buy expensive workout clothes and puffy, high-tech shoes. I exercise barefoot in the summer and in basic canvas tennis shoes in the winter. I work out on my own schedule to my own music or enjoy the quiet. There's no pressure to keep up with others.

I use Fred Hahn’s Slow Burn method of weightlifting (see Exercise without Joint Pain). All I need are four sets of free weights, a yoga mat, a fan, a timer and a metronome. The last two items are free online (links are in the Exercise without Joint Pain post). I do this workout twice a week.

Keep safety in mind, especially if you work out alone. Get familiar with any machines you use so you don’t, for instance, do a face plant on your treadmill. My dog loves the treadmill, and accidentally got on from the front once. If she hadn’t been quick enough to jump off, she’d have been conveyed smack into the door. Weightlifting can be hazardous, too. When I was in an engineering design class, one group designed a device to lift a bench press barbell so that the weightlifter wouldn’t need a spotter. The discussion moved to the on-off switch, and a wiseguy in the class suggested the Clapper. Kidding aside, an acquaintance believes that she ruined her knee doing aerobics (which included pivoting on her foot) on a carpeted floor, which twisted her knee. If your workout involves pivoting on your foot, I suggest using a hard, smooth floor and dance shoes, ballet slippers or sueded tennis shoes. Your knee isn’t meant to be torqued. And if you're bouncing around, trust a dancer on this: you need padded shoes AND good landing technique, although even that might not be enough to prevent injuries.

Cardio exercise is fine if you enjoy it, but I haven't observed it to be a good means of weight loss. A recent study bears this out. I've taken cardio classes, and I've been a swing dancer for eight years. I can't think of one person in either scene who slimmed down; I can think of a few who gained weight. (See my posts on weight loss if that's what you're interested in.)

Common sense suggests starting out moderately to learn what your limits are, then building in intensity. Think about progress, not perfection.


Comments

First aid kits said…
It is important that make your own schedule for fitness
it is no meter that you are doing exercise at home or any fitness center you have to grow your willpower.
Lori Miller said…
This reminds me of a character (Mikami) on the TV show Death Note. The investigators noted that he worked out every Monday and Thursday, he'd lived in the same place for four years, and he was a total whack job (for other reasons). I work out every Monday and Thursday and I've lived in the same place a lot longer than four years. I like to think I'm not a whack job, though.

Kidding aside, when I don't want to work out even though I'm not ill and haven't just given blood, I remind myself that my knee and neck are free of pain because of those workouts. And doing brief workouts at home makes it even easier to stay on track.

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fasting blood sugar & insulin have crept up!

It's pretty bad when even conventional medicine thinks your blood sugar is high. I had lab tests done last week, as I do every year, and saw things were going in the wrong direction. Photo from Pixabay . Uh-oh.  Ideal blood sugar is about 70-90. Your blood sugar can be high because you're stressed or ill, but I felt OK. I can't blame it on cortisol, which was smack in the middle of the normal range. And my A1c, which reflects blood sugar over the past few months, shows that whatever is going on has been happening for a while. My insulin is more than double what it should be. Oddly, my triglycerides, which typically indicate carb consumption, were good.  I don't have an explanation for the triglycerides. I should have suspected something was wrong, though. I've felt very tired and a little sad for the past few months. Unlike many people with higher than ideal blood sugar and insulin, I had only gained about three pounds.  Regardless of my good weight and triglyceride...

Interview: The Microbiome's Effect on Almost Everything

Mark L. Cannon, DDS, MS joins Bret Weinstein of the Darkhorse Podcast for a discussion about the oral microbiome and its downstream effects on everything from acne to Alzheimer’s. Dr. Cannon is a pediatric dentist and professor of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine). It's an hour and 44 minutes, but well worth your time. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkOgCXiMeE

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...