You don’t need a whole load of gym equipment to do an effective workout, especially when exercising at home where it may be necessary to keep your paraphernalia to a minimum.
Choosing one key item that has lots of versatility can maximise your space and time, less kit is easier to store and often you can do a very comprehensive workout in as little as just 10 minutes!
You’ll need workout gear that creates a resistance to work against, so an obvious choice for this would be a kettlebell or dumbbell. Other items you could use are good old fashioned Medicine Balls and you can have great fun flinging a Slam Ball around!
Swiss Balls can also be an excellent piece of home kit though a little more tricky to store and then there’s the TRX suspension training strap if you’ve got a strong tree or beam to hang it from.
Choose any one of these excellent training options and you can do an entire full body workout with each one alone.
A ‘one piece workout’ must always be balanced, meaning you work both sides of the body equally, with the same amount of repetitions, constituting one ‘set’. The amount of ‘reps’ you do within the set will depend on how heavy the weight is and your fitness level, usually the heavier your weight the fewer reps you will be able to do per set. You’ll need to do several sets or rounds of each exercise to get a beneficial workout, so challenge yourself on how many you can do within a set time frame.
In the case of using a Swiss ball or TRX strap the same principles apply. The difference here is that you are using your own body weight to create the resistance. You can adjust your weight by the angle, depth or method of each individual exercise.
Most fitness equipment items will come with instructions and often an entire exercise chart, so all you have to do now is choose which one?!
– This article has been published in the September edition of Life Magazines – http://www.lifemagazines.co.uk