Fitness isn’t easy, but it is cheap
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Commissioning a luxury home is a bit outside your means, you say? Sorry, that doesn’t earn you a pass straight to the Barcalounger. Designing fitness into your nest isn’t an idea limited to the rich, say exercise experts. With a bit of ingenuity, you can make your home a fitness site on practically a pauper’s budget. Here are some ideas:
Challenge yourself vertically. Integrating fitness into your house or apartment means, first, taking advantage of features that already exist, according to Jeffrey Potteiger, professor of physical education, health and sport studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. “Remember that a StairMaster is just going up and down stairs,” he said. The challenge: Finding incentives to make you use those steps more often, such as vowing to answer every call on the upstairs phone. Cost: Nothing.
Stretch your notion of equipment. With the help of resistance bands, a sturdy door can become a strength-training center, said Neal Pire, chairman of the personal training certification committee for the American College of Sports Medicine. Over-the-door gyms sold by Altus and Everlast use a pulley system of bungee bands enabling seated rows, triceps pull-downs and more. Cost: $30 and up.
Start stepping. Pedometers that count your every step have been shown effective in spurring exercise among those trying to walk their way to fitness. Gregory Florez, spokesman for the American Council on Exercise, suggests wearing a pedometer in the house. Playing with kids and pets will get you moving with a purpose. So, of course — lucky you — will sweeping, mopping and vacuuming. Cost: Pedometers cost about $10 to $35.
Reach beyond your grasp. If you have a basement or garage with exposed beams, said James Anastasion, director of the Rockville (Md.) Sport Rock indoor climbing gym, you’ve got the essentials of a climbing wall. To learn how to install a wall and climbing holds, check out “Home Climbing Gyms: How to Build and Use,” a book by Randy Leavitt and John McMullen, or Web sites such as http://www.edgewalls.com/homewall.htm and http://www.tradgirl.com/climbing_faq/home_walls.htm#homewall. Cost: Anastasion says you can expect to spend about $250.
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