Best Way to Do Home Exercise

Many of us now choose to work out at home rather than at a gym, usually because it saves both time and money. And it is possible to get -and stay – in great shape with home exercise if you approach it as seriously as if you were paying membership fees to a gym. Schedule times for your workouts each week (aim for three to four for best results), put them in your diary and stick to them as you would to other appointments. You may find that exercising in the morning works best because there is less danger of something coming up that causes you to put it off.

One thing that you do miss out on when you work out at home is the professional advice that you get from a good gym. Understanding more about fitness will help you to exercise better, for example, finding out how the muscles in your bottom work will tell you which exercises to do to target them. A good starting point is reading a book, like Fitness and Health by Brian J. Sharkey (Human Kinetics, 1996) or Karen Voight’s Precision Training (Boxtree, 1997). Another option is to invest in a set of personal-training sessions; a good trainer will tailor a programme for you according to how much you can afford.

When it comes to equipment, you don’t need to splash out on a stationary cycle or treadmill -unless you know that this is your favourite way of working out and that you will use it regularly. Otherwise, all you need to invest in are a few basics, as follows.

• A good, supportive pair of training shoes to prevent exercise injuries.
• A couple of good exercise videos; interchange them so that you don’t get bored and your body doesn’t get used to them. Try Karen Voight’s ‘Streamline Fitness’, which includes an aerobic warm-up and exercises for the upper body, legs and bottom, as well as a yogic relaxation session for strength and flexibility, or Marcia Heaner’s ‘Perfect Curves Workout’, a combination of both high- and low-impact aerobics and body-sculpting moves with weights.

• A set of weights to make resistance exercises more effective. Buy a set of both 3lb and 5lb dumbbells (available from department stores and good sports shops). Don’t go for ankle weights – if you’re doing a leg lift an ankle weight will strain your knee. Instead, hold the dumbbell on your thigh, above your knee.