Getting fit without slimming your wallet
If you balk at putting together a home gym because of the high price of workout equipment, think about this: Fitness may be just a rubber band away.
“You really don’t need to spend the money, and you don’t need lots of fancy equipment,” says Bethanne Weiss, a personal trainer who specializes in in-home training with minimal equipment.
Her clients’ home gyms include simple equipment just like the things she has toted to group workouts – a gym bag full of rubber tubing, a large air-filled stability ball, two 6-pound medicine balls and thick rubber pilates mats.
She hands out short green ankle tubes first. The women attach them to their ankles, then pair off and start throwing the medicine balls between them. They scoot sideways, stretching the tubing between catches.
When they finish the exercise, Robin Lerner, a 45-year-old stay-at-home mother, is breathing deeply and sweating.
“I feel like I’ve worked my whole body,” she says about training with Weiss and her equipment.
Rubber bands and tubing, dumbbells, balls and other simple tools have been staples of physical therapists for years. This easy-to-use equipment’s affordability and increasing availability make it ideal for home use.
Such low-tech items also lend purity to a workout, Weiss says.
During exercises, “you have to rely on your own body and not the structure of a machine.”
The investment can easily cost less than $100, says trainer Tad Campbell. Dumbbells, for instance, cost about 50 to 60 cents per pound.
Beginners can start off with pairs of weights of 3 to 5 pounds, then advance to heavier weights as their fitness level increases, he says.
Stability balls, from about $16, can be used to improve core strength or to add challenge to such things as push-ups and sit-ups. Medicine balls, between $10 and $20, depending on weight, enhance cardio moves.
Using resistance tubing with handles, costing from about $5, exercisers can perform numerous movements for each muscle group.
Look for equipment at sporting-goods stores or online at such sites as www.power-systems.com or www.fitbuy.com. Or simply look around the house, says exercise physiologist Cedric Bryant of the American Council on Exercise, who has filmed several workout videos on training without weights.
He has used such things as a backpack full of books while doing squats, or cans of soup for doing bicep curls.
The three women at Weiss’ training session have tubing and other simple equipment at home. Linnette Padron, 47, even takes her rubber tubing when she’s traveling for business.
“I don’t want to go down to a hotel gym at the end of a long day,” she says.
Before this hourlong session is over, Weiss’ clients will have used most of the gadgets she has brought, including a flexible-though-stiff “pilates ring” that they squeeze between their thighs – a la Suzanne Somers and the ThighMaster.
“This is like a combination of everything you need in your fitness workout anyway – cardio, strengthening, yoga and pilates,” Weiss says of the moves she puts the women through.