Changes in home fitness in three months

The first echelon is those whose body fat rate has dropped by 3-8 points, muscle mass has increased by 1-3kg, and the physical condition is visibly tighter to the naked eye.； The second tier is those whose weight fluctuates little but whose sub-health problems such as sleep, energy, and shoulder and neck pain have improved significantly. ； The third echelon has almost no changes. They even injured their knees and waist due to irregular movements, which only added new problems.

It's a coincidence that during the three months of the lockdown last year, I just completed the three-month training cycle at home. The body fat and girth data before and after are still stored in the memo on my phone. At that time, I formed a small group of 7 people to check in. In the end, I happened to step into these three echelons, and even the number of people was almost evenly divided.

My best friend belongs to the typical first-tier team. She has been training in the gym for half a year. Before the lockdown, she specially stocked up on a pair of 10kg dumbbells and a full set of elastic bands. She does 5 exercises a week, 40 minutes of strength training each time and 20 minutes of Pamela aerobics. Her diet is to replace the milk tea she drank every day with sugar-free beans. I replaced my late-night barbecue with steamed corn, and I didn’t deliberately go hungry. In three months, my body fat dropped from 27% to 21%, and the fat on my waist tightened into a shallow waistcoat line. The jeans that I wore before were stuck in the crotch, and now I can fit two fingers into my waist. I wore a navel-baring top to the party last month, and we didn’t dare to recognize it at first glance. To be fair here, there has always been a school of thought in the fitness circle that "you can't build muscle mass at home". They think that without heavy barbells and Smith racks, muscle fibers cannot be stimulated at all. This is actually not true - if you are an advanced trainer who aims to compete, the upper limit of equipment at home is indeed not enough, but for ordinary people Most fitness enthusiasts can still achieve muscle hypertrophy by using water bottles and rice bags as weights and performing each set of movements to standard failure. My best friend relied on the pair of 10kg dumbbells. Her arm circumference increased by 1.5cm in three months. The muscles that were dangling before can now be seen clearly. The lines of the triceps brachii.

As for those who don’t pursue waistcoat lines and abdominal muscles so much, but just want to move and feel comfortable, most of them fall into the second echelon. For example, my male colleague in the same department used to slump on the sofa and check his mobile phone every day when he got home from get off work. His shoulders and necks were so painful that he had to go for massage every week. During the lockdown period, he did not do any high-intensity exercises. He just danced with Liu Genghong for half an hour after dinner every day, practiced two sets of shoulder and neck stretches while fishing in the afternoon, and occasionally followed the video twice on weekends. , he lost 2 pounds in three months. Even he said, "The number on the scale looks the same, but the physical sensation is so different." Before, my neck was so stiff that I couldn't move when I got up every day. Now I don't feel much pain after sitting in front of the computer for a whole day. I used to toss and turn and watch short videos at two or three in the morning and couldn't fall asleep. Now I can snore in ten minutes while lying in bed. Nowadays, many people on the Internet look down on low-intensity home exercise, thinking that it is a waste of time if you don’t sweat. This is true in terms of fat burning efficiency, but from the perspective of health gain, low-intensity regular exercise can improve sub-healthy people. In fact, it is much more reliable than doing a few high-intensity training in a sudden attack, and it is easier to persist for a long time.

Of course, not everyone can get positive results. There are two friends in our group. Not only have they not changed after three months, but they have also developed minor problems. One had an old knee injury. He started practicing high-intensity exercises that were all about running and jumping without any warm-up. After half a month of training, he was in so much pain that he couldn’t go downstairs. He lay flat for the remaining two months and gained three pounds. ； Another one followed the video to practice abdominal curls, relying on cracking his neck to exert strength throughout the process. After practicing for a week, his neck hurt so much that he could not turn his head, and finally gave up. Many people think that home fitness is cost-effective and they just practice blindly. In fact, no matter where they practice, the standard of movement is always the first priority. Don't just follow the movements on the Internet because they look simple. If you don't use the strength correctly, it will hurt your own body. If you are really unsure, spend more than ten yuan to find an online trainer to adjust the movements for you twice. It is much more cost-effective than spending thousands of yuan to treat waist and leg pain later.

To be honest, I went through some pitfalls in the first month of home fitness. I followed the trend and bought a lot of useless equipment. Abdominal wheels, sliding plates, and fat-removing machines were all piled up in a corner. Later I discovered that the most useful ones were a pair of dumbbells and a yoga mat. The rest were all IQ taxes. Don’t set yourself any dead goal of “improving your vest line within three months.” If you can cure your shoulder and neck pain and get a good night’s sleep every day, you’ve already made money.

In the final analysis, fitness has always been about hard work and reward. Whether you go to the gym at home or not is not the point. Have you taken every move and every meal seriously? After three months, when you stand in front of the mirror and take off your shirt, you will be more accurate than anyone else.