Home fitness recommendations

For the vast majority of ordinary people, the most worthwhile home fitness program is never the "7-day vest line package" or "14-day weight loss plan" put together by Internet celebrities, but a low-burden option that fully fits your daily routine, does not require high additional costs, and can last for more than 3 months - whether it is bare hands or using small equipment, the best is the one that can last.

Don't believe it, I have been doing home fitness for almost 5 years, and I have stepped into half a box. This conclusion is made with real money. In the beginning, I always felt that home fitness had to have a "ceremonial feel". I laid out a yoga mat, changed into tight-fitting fitness clothes, and set up a sports water bottle and a Bluetooth speaker. I was about to start training after ten minutes of work, but I was already so tired that I wanted to collapse on the sofa. In the end, I bought an adjustable dumbbell worth more than 2,000 yuan and used it as a doorstop for half a year. The pile of clothes on the yoga mat was more than the clothes in my closet. It wasn’t until last year when the lockdown was imposed that I had no choice but to do 15 minutes of wall squats + bare-handed rowing while standing in the living room wearing velvet pajamas. Only then did I realize that the previous thresholds were all set by myself.

One of the most controversial points on the Internet about home fitness right now is whether or not to buy equipment. Most of the people who practice standing freehand are veterans who have been doing fitness for many years. They feel that the weight of the human body is enough to cover more than 80% of the training needs. Push-ups alone can be divided into more than ten ways of incline, decline, wide stance, and narrow stance. The core, upper limbs, and lower limbs can be fully trained. There is no need to spend extra money. I have a programmer friend who doesn't even use a yoga mat. He can do 100 silent squats every day after get off work and leans against the wall of the rental house. Before going to bed, he does 20 pull-ups on the horizontal bar on the door frame - oh yes, he has installed that horizontal bar for almost two years and it has never fallen off. However, if you rent a house, you must first ask the landlord if he agrees to drill holes. If not, choose a model with sufficient load-bearing capacity that does not require drilling holes. Don't force it. He has been practicing like this for more than a year. The severe rounded shoulders and hump that he had before are all gone. He can climb 10 floors without panting. His body fat rate is better than that of many people who have given tens of thousands of yuan in personal training courses.

Most of the people who use small standing equipment are enthusiasts who need to shape their body, especially those who train their buttocks and back. The upper limit of weight-bearing with bare hands is indeed not enough. I practiced freehand glute bridge for three months, but my butt didn’t change at all. Then I spent more than 100 to buy an adjustable-weight kettlebell covered with soft rubber. Every time the glute bridge was pressed on my crotch, within two months, the baggy jeans I wore before actually got stuck in my crotch. Oh, it’s really important to choose soft rubber. Last time, I slipped and dropped the kettlebell on the floor. If it had been strong, it would probably have made a hole in the tiles, and my mother would have chased me three streets. Current public sports medicine research can also prove that for the same training duration, the muscle gain efficiency of adding appropriate weights is 27%-35% higher than pure bare hands. However, the premise is that the movements must be standard, otherwise it will easily injure the waist and knees. There is no need to load weights to get hard quickly.

There is another point that many people struggle with: Do I have to spend 30 minutes each time exercising to be effective? This is indeed what the older generation’s views on fitness say, but a recent study in the Journal of Sports Medicine also mentioned that as long as it is moderate-intensity exercise (probably the level where you are breathless but can still communicate normally), even if it is fragmented accumulation of 10 minutes each time, if you make up 150 minutes a week, the effect is similar to that of concentrated training for an hour each time. After my colleague gave birth to a baby last year, he couldn't spare any time at all, so he did 10 minutes of abdominal breathing and Kegel exercises every day while the baby was taking a nap. He also squatted on the ground and did a few sets of lunges while playing with the baby building blocks. After six months of physical examination, his previously excessive body fat rate actually dropped back to the normal range, which is much more useful than the five times a year that I had applied for before.

Of course, you have to mention the mistakes you have made. Don’t blindly follow popular videos of internet celebrities. Last year, I followed a blogger with millions of fans to practice the so-called "3-day slimming thighs". It was all high-impact movements such as squats, jumps and twists. After practicing for two days, my knees hurt and I had to struggle to walk down the stairs. I went to the hospital and took a X-ray. Fortunately, it was just a soft tissue contusion. The doctor said that I had an old knee injury and was not suitable for doing so many high-load knee bending movements. If you are not sure what is suitable for you, give priority to content marked with "low impact", "knee friendly" and "large base friendly". Before practicing, search for the taboos of this movement, which is 10,000 times better than practicing blindly.

In fact, to put it bluntly, the most comfortable part of home fitness is "freedom". You don't have to rush to the gym's business hours, you don't have to fight with people in the locker room for lockers, and you don't have to worry about whether your movements are standard or not. You can practice by wearing an old white washed T-shirt and slippers, and you don't have to pursue a waistcoat line and peach butt. After practicing, your shoulders and neck will no longer be stiff, you won't be out of breath when you go upstairs, and you will be more energetic when you go to work the next day. This is already worth the price.