Why not try the home or outdoor gym?

Outdoor training
Training outdoors
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Does the following sound familiar “I cannot afford to go to the gym” or “I do not have enough time to go to the gym”? My aim is to provide you with ideas and strategies to help you overcome these ‘obstacles’ and achieve your health and fitness goals.

As a personal trainer, I firmly believe that you do not need expensive gym memberships or even gym equipment to achieve your health and fitness goals. Many of my clients have been surprised just how successful you can be in achieving your goals by simply training at home and/or outdoors.  This has resulted in them cancelling their gym memberships and using their ‘home’ or ‘outdoor’ gym. Rather than paying a gym to use their ‘equipment’ why not use the ‘equipment’ that you always have at your disposal; yourself, your property and/or the great outdoors.

Look around your house and you will see endless ways to use household ‘equipment’ to get a fantastic workout, for instance the stairs for doing walking/running, kitchen chairs for doing steps ups and tricep dips and the carpet for doing press ups on. The ways in which you can devise a targeted and effective programme to achieve your health and fitness goals at home is almost endless.

Best of all, training at home or outdoors will save you time, for instance driving to and from the gym and waiting at the water machine for the person in front to stop reading their text message, and money, for instance gym membership and car fuel. If you feel you will miss the social aspect, why not team up with a friend, neighbour or family member and do the sessions at each other’s house or outside in a park

Too often people have an expensive membership at a gym and are not getting value for their money, either through not training efficiently or not utilising their membership. In addition, people often assume (wrongly) that they have to go to a gym to get fit. If you have the desire and the motivation and think ‘outside of the box’ then you can improve your fitness and achieve your goals by training in a non-gym environment. As a starter, try the following workout at home (or outdoors):

  • 1-2 minutes of stair work (mixture of running and walking)
  • 20-30 seconds of jumping jacks
  • 10-20 seconds of press ups
  • 20-30 seconds of lunges
  • 10-20 seconds of Tricep dips on a step
  • 20-30 seconds of Squats

All you need is yourself, a bottle of water and a small amount of space (e.g. garage, patio, bedroom, living room etc). If you do not have access to any stairs you can substitute this with running, walking and jumping on the spot. The exercises you can do are endless and the above just indicates the ease of training at home/outside.

Do the circuit 2-3 times and only rest for 30-60 seconds at the end of each circuit. Warm up correctly by doing mobility exercises e.g. walking up and down the stairs, doing 8-12 lunges, 8-10 arm circles and side twists. Cool down correctly at the end by doing a whole body stretching session. You can progress the circuit by increasing the time that you perform each exercise and/or reducing the rest after each circuit. If you do the circuit 2-4 times per week you will soon start to notice a difference.

Should you require any help, advice or information please do not hesitate to contact me. I would be delighted to discuss with you the tried and tested methods and lifestyle changes that I have developed.

Matt

“Together, we’ll achieve your goals”

"He is cheerful, charismatic, enthusiastic, easy to get along with and takes an interest in your life. He will text you several times a week to check on your progress which keeps you motivated."