As of writing this, the “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order is still in effect, although slowly business are re-opening and people are venturing back into society. There are a few businesses that may not reopen for some time. One that has been coming up as a topic of discussion with our patients is gyms. Guess what! You don’t need a gym to workout! Many people are die-hard exercisers; they live their life one workout at a time, and while their gym has been closed, it hasn’t slowed them down one bit as they’ve converted their garages into a personal sweat factory. Others use the gym as their excuse to get off the couch and force themselves to burn some calories. A few patients we’ve talked to are absolutely at a loss for ideas of what they can do at home for workouts while the gyms are closed for the foreseeable future. I would like to lay down some simple exercises that can be done at home, to get your body moving. Unfortunately, it does mean you will have to get off the couch and actually DO the exercises though!

The idea of needing equipment is a relatively newer concept in the world of fitness. For ages, our ancestors used nature as their “gym” and while the actual act of “working out” was not something that was done with regularity, most of the exercise that took place was in the daily life tasks that our ancestors had to accomplish just to live. Plowing the crops, tracking the game trail, cutting the timber for the barn, walking to town or the water well, churning the butter, milking the cow, etc. All these involved repetitive tasks that exhausted their energy supplies, broke down muscle tissue to rebuild stronger, and gave the body more endurance overall. Now before you run to the nearest cow pasture and chase down a cow for an arm workout, lets think critically here for a moment. These “workouts” required little to no equipment, and yet provided all the benefits of exercise that your traditional gym offers. Planet Fitness won’t tell you that you don’t need a treadmill to gain cardiovascular endurance, but the truth is you don’t need it!

I could sit here for days writing different workouts; laying the groundwork for a whole-body exercise regimen that will accomplish any of your goals, but truth be told, so can you. Look around your house, there’s an entire gym worth of “equipment” right in your own living space. For example, if you have stairs, do calf raises or go up and down the stairs to mimic stair climbers. Mow the lawn without the automatic drive turned on. While carrying the groceries in the house, do bicep curls or overhead presses. I guarantee if you do enough air squats or squat jumps, you will feel the burn. Heavy weight is not needed for a workout. Instead find a manageable weight and do high repetition till muscle failure. And for goodness sake, the treadmill or elliptical is not needed with the hundreds of miles of paved road, sidewalks, wide open fields, and trails that we are blessed with in our local communities. Get outside and walk, run, sprint, lunge walk, walk backwards, sidestep, hop, skip, bear crawl, handstand walk, crawl, whatever you can imagine! Turn your daily life into your own personal workout, and I guarantee you won’t be missing the gym anytime soon.

Looking for more ideas? Check out this home work out routine!

Still want more information? Read about our Health and Wellness Counselling at Moore Chiropractic!