I used to be a total gym junkie for about 6 years and then all of a sudden I stopped. Why? Because I had a succession of jobs that for different reasons came with free gym memberships. When I left those jobs and had to start paying to go to the gym I was like ‘$1000 per year? Do you have ANY idea how many pairs of shoes I could buy for that amount of money?‘ and I promptly stopped renewing my memberships. Of course I needed to keep my fitness up somehow so I needed to adapt and quickly. Here are a few tight arse fitness solutions for those of us who don’t want to drop lots of dosh on fancy gym memberships.
5 Cost Effective Workouts For Total Tight Arses
Get Your Shape on Xbox Kinect
Confession: Mr Smaggle owns several different gaming consoles but I have no idea what any of them are called and I actually had to Google the name of this game. It is however the best at-home exercise game that I’ve ever used. I tried the Wii Fit. It was fun but not really hard-core enough. I couldn’t get my heart rate up at all (except for the hula hooping game, strangely enough) and I’d work out for 90 mins and burn something silly like 120 calories. Needless to say, I was delighted when I stumbled on Your Shape for Kinect. It actually senses whether or not you’re doing each activity correctly and gives you a score for your form. There’s strength, cardio, yoga, dance, agility… I’ve never done the same activity twice which means I’ve never been bored. Unfortunately my disc went missing when we moved last year and I haven’t had a chance to replace it but if you have an X-box and Kinect, I cannot recommend Your Shape highly enough.
Hit the Pool
If I want to go to my local gym for a one-off class or session it will set me back around $18. If I want to go to the pool, it costs me $6. Bargain. Grab your togs and goggles and jump in for at least 20 laps at a decent pace. Try doing 2 laps freestyle, 2 laps breast stroke and 2 laps kicking with a kickboard and repeat. Perfect for strength and toning and much cheaper than a gym class.
Try The 7 Minute Work Out iPhone App
I only just discovered this app recently but it’s one of the best fitness apps I’ve used. It consists of 7 different exercises that you can repeat to customise the length of your workout. You don’t need any equipment so it’s perfect for home or travel workouts. The best part is that if you’ve only got 20 minutes you only do three reps. Easy. You can also tweet your workout when you’re finished to piss off all those people who hate fitstagrammers. Win.
Look Up Outdoor Fitness Stations In Your Area
There was an amazing school that I used to teach at that had outdoor ‘gym’ machines that used your own body weight as resistance. So you’d sit on a platform and use a tricep press motion to lift your own weight up and down and on weekends people used to go to the school to train. There are also lots of parks that have chin up bars, tricep dip stations and steps for lunges and squats. Meet a friend on a Saturday morning and have a great work out in the sunshine… and then spend the cash you saved from not going to a gym class on a delicious cafe breakfast.
Make An At Home Gym
All you need is a spare area of floor, some tin cans for weights, a chair for dips, some music and some water. Check YouTube fitness channels for some awesome at home workouts or go old school style with fitness DVDs like Tracey Anderson or even Cindy Crawford’s collection. They’re not only hilarious but also effective. Give it a whirl. Butt floss optional.
