I want to give you 5 exercises that you can do at home, or very close to home.
We see so much info nowadays on the science behind everything health and fitness related and how this program is better than that, or eating this way is better than all others. And there seems to be a hundred different studies done to back up one or the other. Well today I am not entering into any of it. I am just going to give you five exercises that you can do at home or nearby to burn some fat and get you metabolism jacked up pretty well. You can throw a workout together with these five, wherever you are.
Now they aren’t cutting edge, they aren’t the most complex, state of the art type fad exercise on the latest midnight infomercial. Nope, they are just five of the oldest and most trusted exercises we know. Simple really.
- Squat. Yep the old fashioned squat, it is how we get down to the ground, and in certain parts of the world how we are expected to still go to the toilet. It is the movement we are naturally built to perform and something that should not hurt your knees. Keep your feet flat, and lower your butt towards the ground. Stay upright throughout. You will know if you have it right if you can wiggle your toes a bit anywhere through the range of motion, no toe wiggle, too much weight on the front of the foot. Shift it to the heel, and then stand by trying to push your feet through the floor.
- Push up. The military still do because they work.When done correctly, with awesome form they are more than just an arm and shoulder exercise. They work the core as well. If you are sagging like an old sofa or doing the harbour bridge you need to tighten up the core and make this a more rigid movement. Hands directly under shoulders, thumbs touch the chest at the bottom and hips stay off the ground. And make sure your chest hits the floor to get that full range.
- Lunge. Something we probably do everyday without realising it, getting down to wipe a spill from off the floor, that sort of thing. When people talk about building a booty, this exercise is indispensable. Reach a long way forward with your front leg, lower to the floor without allowing your front knee to travel further than your toes, push your weight into that front foot and stand up. Again stay upright in your posture and don’t allow your core to go all noodly.
- Burpee. The king of cardio movements, do five of these and feel your heart rate jump through the roof, do 20 and feel everything jump up, the heart rate, the breathing, the temperature, all of it!! Keep your feet wide, replace your feet on the floor with your hands and lower yourself to the floor quickly, but with control, throwing your feet back so that you end up lying on your stomach on the ground. Push your hands into the ground, bring the feet up to replace the hands and leap in the air with hands above head. And that is one!
- Run/Walk. Something most of us can do. Get outside and walk, walk briskly, walk slowly, whatever point you are at, do that. Now to up the ante you can start by walking, then you might jog between two predetermined points, for example on your walk you might identify the big old gum tree at the top of the hill. Run to it and then continue on your walk. Something I would do when I was starting out was I would jog from every second telegraph pole to the next, then walk to the next one. I would alternate like this for three to seven repeats and then walk home. And hey presto! It was an interval training workout.
So there you have it, five of the best exercises that you can do at home or really close to home. You can do them in a hotel, on the beach, anywhere. If you start doing a few of these within no time you will realise how much more you can do day after day. But don’t go out too hard, just because you could do 50 push ups, 100 squats and 25 burpees when you were 17 does not mean you should attempt that straight up if you are now 38 and haven’t done anything since the turn of the century. Even if you haven’t done it in the last five years I would recommend starting out with a few reps every couple of days and working up. Add in 1% everyday and in a month you will be 31% better.