Away from the annoyances of a crowded gym, a workout space at home is a sanctuary that can be tailored to your every whim and desire. You can give the soulless house music a miss, mute the mindless chatter, skip waiting lines and travel times and really focus on what matters – getting fitter.
Creating the ideal home gym depends on your goals, but there are some must-haves whatever pre-conceived designs you have.
If you try to increase muscle, strength, or conditioning, and you all you use is mainstream weightlifting using set routines day in and day out, you could be setting yourself up for failure in several ways! Do you find yourself scratching your head?
Here are three potential ways in which weightlifting can lead to failure:
I want to introduce you to traditional weightlifting’s cousins in just a moment. Before I introduce them, I will assure you they are all very viable means to fully developing muscle and also to help you to tone your body by accelerating fats loss as well as giving you a variety of choices to complement your weightlifting program. Without further ado, the cousins to weightlifting are kettlebells, resistance bands, the stability ball, and last but not least, homemade exercise equipment.
Incline workouts offer many benefits.
For starters, it’ll help you simulate hill running, thus burn off colossal amounts of calories without having to go outside and stomach the bad weather. In addition, incline workouts are great boredom busters, hence if you dread indoor cardio training, use the incline to your advantage and make your workout more challenging and fun.
As a result, if you’re not doing an incline workout—at least once per week—then you’re doing yourself a big disservice.
Here are a few practical tips that can help.
When it comes to toning the upper body without limits, no exercise works better than push ups. Unlike lifting weights and performing plyometric workouts, they don’t require expensive fitness equipment, can be performed almost anywhere, and the best part, they’re easy! Relatively speaking, of course.
Benefits of Performing Push-ups Regularly
– Increases muscle density
As you age, your muscle density reduces and alters how your body converts fat into energy. Push ups work well to increase and maintain the muscles of your upper body. This exercise tones your shoulders, chest, triceps, abs, and to a smaller extent the back, biceps, and legs.
– Enhances muscles stability and balance
Doing push ups every day improve the reaction time of your muscle fibers. During push ups, the fibers consistently react to keep your body balanced. This reaction enables these fibers to react faster when stimulated increasing your speed and balance. (more…)
When you finally decide that you’re fed up with making the trek to your local gym every day and dealing with hassles like waiting in line to use equipment or getting bumped in classes that are overly full, not to mention paying for the pricy monthly membership, you might be ready to set up your own home gym facility. And if you have an extra bedroom, an open basement, or other unused space, you’re already ahead of the game. With some good lighting and a couple of full-length mirrors in place you can start assembling the equipment you need to make a home fitness center that is suited to meet your particular needs. But don’t get ahead of yourself; fitness equipment is not cheap. Luckily, you don’t necessarily have to buy everything brand new. In order to spare expense you might want to consider buying some items used. You’ll simply have to put some thought into the pros and cons of new versus used gym equipment.
The major benefit of signing up for a gym membership is that you gain access to a facility that houses the many large and expensive pieces of fitness equipment that you want to use, from cardio machines like the treadmill and Stairmaster to weight-training options that let you work specific muscle groups without the onus of lifting free weights. And yet, there are also drawbacks to going to the gym.
For one thing, choosing a popular and well-appointed facility means that you may have to wait in line for machines, or else frequent the gym during oddball hours, like the middle of the night. And once you finally get your turn, the machines could be a mess of sweat and germs. Yuck. Of course, you also have to go through the time-wasting hassle of actually driving to the gym, yet another deterrent to your motivation.
Wouldn’t it be better if you had the equipment you needed at home? It might be pricy, but there are definitely bonuses to having a home gym, and there are all kinds of ways to save when you purchase the high-end equipment needed to help you get fit.
Just because your apartment is the size of a postage stamp doesn’t mean you are any less inclined to create a personal workout space that allows you to squeeze in some exercise at your leisure, rather than having to cram in a session at the gym during their daytime hours. Most of us hold down full-time jobs that result in long hours and high stress.
The hassle of having to schlep over to the gym before or after work can put the kibosh on even the best-laid plans where fitness is concerned (as can a minimal budget). When having the equipment in front of you, ready to go at a moment’s notice (not to mention staring at you accusingly every time you decide to skip your workout), you’re much more likely to stick to the game plan. So here are just a few ways to get the home gym you want even when you live in a tiny apartment.
But what about the clothing we wear and the accessories we utilize when working out?
Honestly, the answers to these questions depend entirely on you. But here are a few things you may want to consider before you run out and spend a fortune on apparel and accessories, or alternately, write them off altogether.
You might, at one time or another, have considered building your own home gym but gave up on the idea because you were somewhat unsure of how to go about it. Constructing your own home gym is actually simple once you concentrate on acquiring the basic essentials and developing from there.
Motivation. It’s the silent workout partner that every successful diet or muscle building program must have to succeed.
When you build a workout plan you probably spend a lot of time deciding what supplements to take and what routines will do you the most good. It is just as important to build a motivation plan to help you power through the plateaus and lulls that are part of reaching fitness goals.
 Daria Holcomb |
Some of you may remember the guest post by Daria Holcomb about her sweet lines of workout clothes for women. Daria was so happy with her guest post, that she done gone and provided a coupon code that y’all can use to save some dough when you order workout clothes from her site.
Go ahead and reread her post now:
3 Features Women Should Look For in Performance Athletic Wear
Then visit her website here: Fit Girl Gear and order some clothes for yourself, your wife, your daughter, or your girlfriend.
Christmas is fast approaching!
Use the following coupon code at checkout to save 20% off any order until the end of the year.
Coupon code: ProjectSwole
Visit Fit Girl Gear today!
 Benching with bands |
I recommend training with bands specifically in the Werewolf Training routines, but also in any routine you might currently be following.
Recent studies investigating the effects of training the bench press with added bands and chains, have confirmed that strength and power increased faster by using bands and chains than by using free weights alone.
In this 13 week study on the effects of training with elastic tension on the bench press, 11 men in their early 20s started with a 1 rep max (RM) baseline strength test.
I received a press release the other day and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
 Gyroscopic Core Trainer? |
A company called DynaFlex International has apparently used gyroscopes to create some grip training devices and now I guess they have a core training device.
After browsing to the company website and reading up on some of their products, I’m still not sure what to make of it. It appears to be a grip trainer of some sort, although now they have a core trainer too. Interesting.
Have any Project Swole readers tried this thing? If so, please leave a comment.
I don’t quite get it. If anyone from DynaFlex is reading this, send me a free sample so I can figure out exactly what the heck you are selling. I will review the product in a separate post if you do.
Anyway, let the press release begin:
 Female Jogger |
You are trying to lose fat and you want that adipose tissue to just melt off your body.
Option #1 is High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which uses both anaerobic training to build muscle and elevate the metabolism, and aerobic training to burn fat and increase cardiovascular endurance. This is the option I typically recommend. However, some people are either not able to, or not willing to, even attempt HIIT training.
This then leads us to option #2: cardiovascular endurance training. While I don’t recommend it, I know people will do it, so here’s how to do it right…
This is an old post. For more and better information, check out How to Calculate Your Target Heart Rate. You can also score a sweet Reebok Strapless Heart Rate Monitor on that page.
 Female Athlete |
Do you own a heart rate monitor? If not, then you are not alone. However, heart rate monitors are becoming increasingly popular, especially among athletes and those with certain health conditions.
In the days before heart rate monitors, people would have to stop and manually count a pulse by placing fingers over the carotid artery. Not only would this pressure on the artery distort the reading, but would cause some to get light headed by their pressing too hard in an attempt to find a pulse. Now, with a heart rate monitor, one doesn’t even need to stop to get an accurate reading.
The most important reason to buy a heart rate monitor is for safety.
Most fitness professionals will tell average clients to keep their target heart rate between 55% and 85% of their maximum heart rate. In order to calculate one’s maximum heart rate, simply subtract your age from the number 220. Next, you can then use this number and multiply it by 0.55 to get the lower end of the target zone and by 0.85 to find the cut off point.
Those with threatening conditions would be advised to exercise in the 55-60% range.
Still, let it be known that heart rate monitors are also a vital tool for the endurance athlete. Not only do heart rate monitors make readings simpler, they also make monitoring progress a lot simpler as well.
With a heart rate monitor, an athlete can better determine how to set the pace in an effort to optimize race performance. Without one, endurance athletes would run the risk of either over-training and exhausting the body or under-training and not pushing the body hard enough.
One thing is for certain though, heart rate monitors are useful tools that can simultaneously help and protect both the fittest of the fit and those at extreme risk.
Those trainees that regularly participate in cardiovascular activities can benefit by constantly gauging their heart rate, thus targeting their intensity to more effectively burn fat.
Again, this is an old post. For more and better information, check out How to Calculate Your Target Heart Rate. Get more info about the Reebok Strapless Heart Rate Monitor on that page too.
There’s nothing better than to be able to walk outside, or go down stairs, and lift some weights. Sometimes it is expensive to build a full home gym set up. This is why I am starting to build my arsenal of used exercise equipment for extra workouts around the house. Clearly I will need more, newer, and better equipment that I currently have, but this is a start.
To date I have the following equipment:
I shall take some pictures and post them shortly. It is only July, so Project Swole is still in effect for the next two months. This will be my first week of being 100% my own boss and I anticipate weight training to resume in a 3-workouts-per-week schedule.
