Equipment-free exercise

There are a million fitness gadgets, machines and pieces of equipment out there. Some are in gyms and fitness centers. Some in the sports equipment store for home use. Some are on late-night tv, enticing us with fitness models and logical-sounding claims.

Sometimes, you need to just step back and return to the basics. Machines, dumbbells, kettlebells, stability balls, BOSU trainers, treadmills, rowing machines, etc. are great tools for helping us forge the fit, toned bodies we want. But they are tools. We don't NEED any of them.

Equipment free exercises are great for traveling, but they're also a good staple for our regular workout routines. If you start your day with a few equipment free strength training exercises, you're ahead of the game, and if you're worried about not having time to get to the gym, you can certainly do without! I prefer some body weight exercises over their machine counterparts because they work more muscles at once and provide a greater challenge!

Here are some excellent exercises you can do with nothing but your own body.

Cardio:

Walk
Run
March in place (bring your knees up high and swing your arms)
Jump: straight up, or side to side, or any variation you like

Leg strength:

Squats
Lunges (stay tuned for posts on how to do these spot-on)
Calf raises
Standing leg extensions
Duck walks & bear walks

Upper body strength:

Pushups (see previous post for tips)
Dips (for the triceps - use a chair or the floor and push yourself up with your elbows behind you)
Crab walks

Core strength:

Crunches
Planks & side planks
Bicycle crunches
and a million variations....

There is a nearly endless variety of things you can do without equipment - the above are just a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

ZombieFit

This is my friend Rose, in her zombie costume.

A friend sent me this link this morning. ZombieFit. These guys have it EXACTLY right.

They take principles from Crossfit and Parjour, and add ZOMBIES.

Crossfit is a system of exercise that belives in major "muscle confusion". Do something different, interesting, and difficult each day, and you'll build an awesome body with very few weaknesses.

Parkour is a sport developed in France and spreading over the world. It is a system of movement that states there are no barriers, only obstacles, all of which can be overcome. People jump, flip, roll and mount objects like rails, stairs, walls, etc, making the urban environment a playground and an amazing training ground for the "flight" part of "fight or flight."

ZombieFit takes these concepts and combines them into a system that promises optimum fitness for when the zombie apocolypse comes and we need to run, jump, fight and survive in a world of flesh-eating animated corpses. I haven't attended a class, but I imagine there's a huge amount of crazy fun involved. In the area of extreme fitness, it's a great new concept, and I can't wait to experiment with it!