As a trainer, I’ve heard more than my fair share of excuses to miss a workout.
"My wife’s sick, so I have to stay home with the kids."
"I have three jobs and don’t have time to get to the gym between them.”
"It’s just so darn expensive."
Knock it off. I’m tired of it and so are all of the trainers in the country who are worth their job title.
As cliché as it sounds (and is), where there’s a will to lose weight and get in shape, there’s a way. There are many ways. For starters, who said the gym is the only place you can have an effective workout? And who said effective workouts have to be an hour long? And, seriously people, the only fitness professionals who will tell you that working out needs to be expensive just want your bank account info for automatic monthly gym membership withdrawals.
Lucky for you, people like Dr. Izumi Tabata at Japan’s National Institute of Fitness and Sports and Ross Enamait, one of America’s leading trainers and fitness authors, have come up with some butt-busting workouts you can do at home. Each workout takes only a few minutes and won’t cost you a dime.
Tabata Squats
Dr. Tabata developed his workouts with the Japanese speed skating team in mind. The speed skaters were unique because not only did they need to improve their anaerobic power for the short sprints, but many of them also competed in longer races and needed to improve their aerobic capacities as well. His solution: Tabata squats. The short bursts of movement involved in this exercise are great for power development and the active rest intervals keep your heart, lungs and calories burning.
You don’t need any equipment for Tabata squats, but if you want to add a little weight without going out to buy dumbbells, fill up a couple of milk jugs and hold one in each hand. With your feet about (or slightly more than) shoulder width apart, do as many squats as you can for 20 seconds. I mean go for it. It’ll hurt, but who cares? It’s only 20 seconds. The human body can withstand almost anything for 20 measly seconds. If you want to, add some upper body work as well by doing a front arm raise as you go down for a squat.
After 20 seconds of squatting, you get to rest for 10 seconds, but here’s the kicker: you have to do your resting in the bottom of the squat. No standing up to let your quads relax. Continue going 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off for four minutes and then try to tell me you can’t get in a good, free workout at home in under five minutes. Liar.
Deck of Cards Workout
Ross Enamait has literally written the book on fitness. OK, he’s written several of them and I highly recommend them all. Enamait’s strength athlete-meets-Cross-Fit philosophy means he understands the importance of whole body functional movements to any successful sport-specific training program and he hates doing the same workout twice. So, mix it up. Why not? After all, nothing kills the desire to get in shape faster than boredom.
One of Enamait’s favorite workouts involves a standard deck of playing cards and you. That’s it. Shuffle the deck, and assign an exercise to each color (ex: red = push-ups, black = thrusters). The number on the card is the number of reps you do (7 of Hearts = 7 push-ups). The value of face cards and jokers can be up to you. Aces are 11. Go through the entire 52-card deck, performing the exercise and reps indicated on each card. Make this workout even more intense by trying to beat a workout buddy through the deck. Record your time, so you have a goal to beat the next time around.
Feel free to be creative with the Tabata Squats and the Deck of Cards workouts. The point is to get yourself moving and keep things exciting enough so that you look forward to the next workout. Instead of Tabata Squats, try Tabata Thrusters and you can assign almost any exercise you want to the cards in the deck: sit ups, push ups, one arm push ups, thrusters, squats, shorts sprints, box jumps, etc.
After a few weeks, be proud of the stronger, leaner you and be even prouder that you were successful even without paying a dime in gym or trainer fees.
Jessica Gereau has a BS in Kinesiology from San Francisco St. University. Before becoming a certified personal trainer she achieved a personal weight loss of 60+ lbs. and this has motivated her to help others obtain similar goals. She founded Gym Class Fitness Studio in the Bay Area as a place where people can learn what she learned along the way - that cookies are a part of life, and the hard way is the only way. Jessica currently carries certifications for ACSM and NASM.