Home fitness tips

Don't make up for the time, don't create a sense of ritual, embed training into your daily routine. You don't need to set aside an hour. Just scrape together 20 minutes of moderate-intensity exercises every day. In the long run, the results will be as good as a gym membership.

When I followed the trend of doing home fitness in the past two years, I spent less than 2,000 a month on equipment in the first month. I had a complete set of adjustable dumbbells, thickened yoga mats, and elastic bands. I also specially set up a corner of the balcony as a fitness area. As a result, in the third month, I used the dumbbells to cover flower pots, and the yoga mat was piled with clothes to be folded. My colleague was even more ruthless. He saved up three months’ salary to buy a rowing machine worth nearly RMB 10,000. Now it is piled under the clothes drying rack on the balcony, specially used to hang winter coats. The utilization rate is much higher than for fitness. Looking back now, the starting threshold is too high. Every time I want to practice, I have to clean up the place, change fitness clothes, and do a 10-minute warm-up. The little motivation I just saved has long been exhausted.

There have always been two completely different opinions in the fitness circle about whether to build a dedicated fitness space. Hard-core enthusiasts insist on creating an exclusive area with a sense of atmosphere. Posting training posters, installing mirrors, and even equipped with special speakers can indeed improve the training motivation of some people. However, for ordinary people who are not so enthusiastic about sports, it is not as practical as "training wherever you go". I don’t deliberately make time now. I stand on one leg to practice balance while brushing my teeth in the morning, do 15 push-ups against the wall for 2 minutes while waiting for the coffee to brew, do a few sets of anal lifts while standing and checking my phone after lunch, and sit on the sofa after work to watch TV dramas. My hands are not idle, and I hold two mineral water bottles filled with water to raise my arms and do shoulder exercises. These actions add up to more than 20 minutes a day. My body fat rate was 2 points lower than last year when I took a physical test last week.

By the way, there are still many people who are confused about whether to wear professional fitness clothes and sneakers. They say that wearing home clothes to practice is ineffective and it is really unnecessary. I asked my rehabilitation therapist before that as long as the movements are standard, the difference in effect between practicing barefoot on the floor and wearing professional training shoes is less than 5%. On the contrary, if you have to change to a full set of equipment before starting, the threshold for starting is several times higher, making it harder to persist.

Many friends who want to build muscle always complain that home training is ineffective. There is no way to gradually load without dumbbells or gantry. There are actually two schools of thought here. The training logic of traditional bodybuilding does require gradually increasing the load. If you have enough budget, buying a pair of adjustable dumbbells or resistance bands of different pounds is enough. If you don’t want to spend money, the idea of ​​​​street fitness can be copied. When the lockdown last year, I didn’t even have enough mineral water bottles, so I stuffed five thick dictionaries into my backpack, and I did squats and lunges while carrying them, and put my feet on the edge of the dining table to do dips and extensions. In three months, my arm circumference increased by 1cm. I’m not just bragging. As long as it can give enough stimulation to the target muscles, it doesn’t matter what the weight is.

There was a time before that I squatted on time every day for a fitness live broadcast, and I danced for an hour and a half before I dared to stop. As a result, my knees hurt after half a month of dancing. I went to the rehabilitation department. The doctor said that my core strength was too weak. I had to keep up with the rhythm of the live broadcast, and I had to use my waist and knees to compensate for many movements. Let me be honest here. Live broadcasts can indeed solve the problem of "not knowing what to practice", and the atmosphere is not easy to paddle. However, many live broadcasts now have short movement intervals and fast speeds in order to cater to most people's sense of rhythm. They are not suitable for everyone, especially friends who have no sports foundation. There is really no need to follow the entire process. I have now cut a few short clips from the videos of several bloggers I often follow, including 8 minutes of shoulder opening, 10 minutes of core stretching, and 7 minutes of lower body stretching. I can take it out and practice a section whenever I want. There is no need to wait for the live broadcast, and there is no need to force the time. It is not burdensome.

I have seen a 2023 research report from the American College of Sports Medicine, saying that as long as the total duration of fragmented moderate-intensity exercise is 30 minutes per day, there is almost no difference in the effect of improving cardiopulmonary function and reducing body fat compared with 30 minutes of continuous training. The previous statement that "you must exercise continuously for more than 30 minutes to burn fat" has long been overturned. You really don’t have to force yourself to make up for the time. It’s effective to sit on a chair and do a few sets of leg raises during your breaks at work, or to do two more laps when you go downstairs to pick up a package.

In fact, I think home fitness is meant to "reduce the burden" for ordinary people. You don't have to prepare equipment, rush for time, or even care about other people's opinions like going to the gym. Just do it as convenient as possible. Don't end up not persisting in exercising and having a pile of useless equipment at home, which becomes a new burden, right?