171–179 of 179 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1 kettlebell. 1 jump rope. Thank me later. ;-)
Pull up bar too, or Olympic rings. Between those and body weight exercises you can have a complete workout regimen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Woah there cowboy. I've been on waiting lists for any serious at home gym equipment since April. Not a peep, but I refuse to pay Marketplace/Craigslist scalpers. I was lucky to get resistance bands and those have been working well at least. Having a long ass commute and a dog to attend to meant my life was pretty much office and home. I was always too exhausted to consider a serious workout routine. However, since sh…
I've been on waiting lists for any serious at home gym equipment since April. Not a peep, but I refuse to pay Marketplace/Craigslist scalpers. If you're just interested in general fitness, no equipment needed, there are any number of online workouts to follow that will give you a great whole body + cardio workout using nothing more than your body weight. (though I bought both a spinning bike and a set of dumbbells at…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other side of the fitness coin is diet , and the two hours a day returned to me have been instrumental in improving that. People may come out of quarantine simultaneously less fit and less fat. Fitness-wise, there's only so much you can do with a 4-8-month-old in a third-floor apartment, but jogging a couple miles with a stroller is kind of nice at any rate.
I mean, the average person doesn't really need much equipment if the goal is to lose weight (in contrast with the niche hobbyist market of building muscle). There's a ton of bodyweight exercises[1] you can use that require no gym or even weights. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyweight_exercise
The only people I know who seem to feel really good about their COVID fitness levels are those who prioritized it before the pandemic and are so committed that they were willing and able to figure out alternatives. People who didn't prioritize it or struggled to get into sustainable schedules are doing poorly. Even some of my friends who had really good routines fell into pretty serious depressions at the start of it…
One tip that helped me a ton – if you're WFH, turn your former commute (or some % of your former commute), and force yourself to work out during this time. I started that at the beginning of COVID and without exaggeration it's been life-changing. I put 0 pressure on myself to hit goals, I just run / do pushups / walk briskly, but I make sure to use the commute time on that rather than working more or browsing the int…
I didn't start off this way though. At the beginning I was paralyzed, staring at my phone and laptop screen. I was tragically distracted and just... stuck. Doomscrolling is the new word that I can totally relate to. I was swirling in emotion.
But I just decided I'd had enough one day. It was actually a goofy book that some rando twitter handle sent me one day that gave a step by step "leveling up" process. It was one of those right place, right time things so I just went with it.
I started meditating with the "Waking Up" app, drinking water, working out, and kicked my side project back off. It's been a real journey now that I've decided to use this extra time for good rather than just emoting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been on waiting lists for any serious at home gym equipment since April. Not a peep, but I refuse to pay Marketplace/Craigslist scalpers. If you're just interested in general fitness, no equipment needed, there are any number of online workouts to follow that will give you a great whole body + cardio workout using nothing more than your body weight. (though I bought both a spinning bike and a set of dumbbells at…
My quarantine routine was yoga mat + YouTube yoga session every morning before work. It’s been pretty great tbh. (Btw, yoga with adriene is a very good YouTube yoga channel)
I've been thinking about writing an app to let me turn some of these follow alongs into an interval timer where I could just say the name of the pose (so I could do other things while doing the yoga). Then I could always click on the pose to go back to the video. Does that sound of interest?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, the average person doesn't really need much equipment if the goal is to lose weight (in contrast with the niche hobbyist market of building muscle). There's a ton of bodyweight exercises[1] you can use that require no gym or even weights. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyweight_exercise
A decent body weight program is going to require a pull-up bar and if you rent that's a tough ask
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it depends on what you mean by strength. For body building/size, yeah for sure you need weights. You can do a ton with some rings and p-bars along with your own body weight though (and maybe a kettlebell or two). I personally don’t care about size or external looks, that’s not what I practice for, but you certainly can get strong without weights. I’m sure a lot of people that can lift heavy can’t do a planche…
Strength is force production. Your muscles twitch and produce force to moves your bones which moves an external mass. Your body adapts to this external resistance by "over-compensating". This time you lift 100lbs, next time you can lift 105lbs because your muscles adapted (provided you slept, ate and rested well enough). Now, if you are not used to strength training, push ups are strength training exercises (your bod…
Calisthenics are definitely hard to program, but you can build a huge amount of body strength without weights. “Overcoming Gravity” is a great book if you’re ever looking to program body weight movements. This isn’t a knock on lifting weights, weight training is great and everyone should do it. It’s just that strength is in relation to something else, and that something else is what dictates what sort of practice you should be programming. Building an extreme amount of strength doesn’t need to include a weight if you’re clever about it.
Just want to add that I had bought an eBike right when the pandemic hit in late March. It was so nice that I went ahead and bought a second eBike for mountain biking. I live in Phoenix and normally we have to stop biking in the summer. With the eBikes I find that I can ride in much hotter temperatures than I'm used to. It has allowed me to continue biking this summer.
Just want to add that I had bought an eBike right when the pandemic hit in late March. It was so nice that I went ahead and bought a second eBike for mountain biking. I live in Phoenix and normally we have to stop biking in the summer. With the eBikes I find that I can ride in much hotter temperatures than I'm used to. It has allowed me to continue biking this summer.
I thought stationary bikes were way, way more overheating to ride, as you don't have the 15mph wind blowing over you for cooling.