Bodyweight Exercise You Can Do Without Weights and With Little Time
If you are exercising on a regular basis, sometimes you’ll find that for whatever reason you may end up with no equipment and with very little time. Do you just skip your workout? No. You shorten it and you improvise. But you don’t skip.
So what can you do if you have very little equipment and very little time? The answer is not as simple as it seems. Why? Because of individualization. Your level of fitness, your age, your goals and your time will all dictate what exercises you should do. Would it make any sense to give the same exercises to a 50-year-old complete beginner who wants to lose weight as it would for a 126-pound, 20 year old male who wants to gain muscle (you know who you are ;)?
No, of course not.
That’s why writing specific programs in a one-size fits-all program just isn’t right.
However, I won’t leave you hanging. I’ll give you some rough guidelines for what can be done when there is no equipment and very little time.
Isometrics are a long-forgotten form of exercise that was popular in the early and middle part of the 20th century. Isometrics are still used in gymnastics as a great way to build strength quickly.
What are isometrics? Isometrics are a form of exercise where your muscles contract, but you don’t move. Here is one example:
Imagine pushing into a wall. The wall won’t move, but your intention to move it will make your muscles contract.
There are 2 types of isometrics: overcoming isometrics and yielding isometrics. Overcoming isometrics are when you try to cause motion (this would be our example of pushing into a wall). Yielding isometrics are when you try to prevent motion. Here is an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZX7E-f1zKE
These are just two examples, but you can create isometric exercises for every different muscle.
What can you expect from using isometrics in your training? You can expect some great carryover to more dynamic exercises if you select the right exercises. Don’t expect many gains in muscle size, but you will gain strength without gaining size. Another great upside to isometrics is that once you stop using isometrics, the strength you’ve built with them deteriorates much slower than with dynamic exercises. In fact, you can take as much as a year off isometrics, and still retain 80-90% of the strength built with them.
How to exercise when there is no equipment and very little time is a very broad topic, and much could be written about it. Isometrics are just one option, but there are many others, like dynamic tension, more difficult body weight exercises, special gymnastic exercises (which can be adapted to any fitness level) and many others.
If you are in the situation where you habitually don’t have access to equipment or for whatever reason you don’t want to join a gym but still want great results, contact us, and we’ll be able to set up a program for you that gets you to your goals. You can either click “reply” or call 647-271-8672.
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Arthritis Misconceptions
2 weeks ago, I introduced you to Dr. Stephanie Bloye Turley, who is a chiropractor. This week, we talk about arthritis misconceptions. What happens to your bones and joints when you have arthritis? Can arthritis be prevented? Can arthritis be reversed? What can be done to ease the pain of arthritis? All these questions are answered in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi248eWp51I
Igor
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