Working Out at Home

Given the choice, I'd work out at a gym rather than work out at home. However, our recent move has put us out a ways from town and finances are tight, so I've decided to try working out at home.

It's not that you can't get a prefectly good workout at home, you can, I just prefer to get out of the house, away from distractions, to a gym where the only thing you can do there is work out. Or socialize. But I don't know anyone around here anyway, so I'd definitely be working out.

Getting a good workout at home doesn't require a lot of expensive equipment either. A while back I had bought some things to workout at home when I couldn't get to the gym - some dumbells and a step and a few tapes. I really like the step - it's perfect for doing an aerobic workout in a small space and it doubles as workout bench. I have dumbells in a variety of sizes - 3, 4, 5. 7.5, 10, and 12 pounds. I also have a set of adjustable dumbells that can go higher if I need 15 or more pounds. I have also added a stablility ball to my list. That's it! Of course there are many, many other gadgets and gizmos out there, but I find that these few items give you all you need for the basics.

When we moved, the only TV hookups available were satellite TV, so we signed up with DirecTV. While browsing through all the channels, I stumbled on FitTV and found Cathe Friedrich. One thing I really like about satellite service is the DVR. With the DVR, I have recorded most of Cathe's shows and can pull them up any time I want. Having them stored on the DVR is convenient - it allows me to FF through the commercials, pause if I need to ajust or take a quick break and even rewind if I miss something. The DVR allows you to do many of these things while watching live TV too.

Although I like that I can try a lot of different workouts without having to buy any tapes, the one drawback is that you don't really get the entire workout. It's pretty easy to see that a lot of the workouts have parts missing - they've cut out part of the workout to make it fit the time slot.


Today I did Cathe's Upper Body Pyramid workout. It hits all the major upper body groups - chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps. It's a challenging workout, but like all of her workouts, you can easily work at your own level. In fact, whatever weight Cathe grabs, I usually grab one half the weight she's using. If you'd like to try Cathe, her workouts air on FitTV at 7:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 7:00 p.m. daily EST - often under the title "Cardio Blast".

Whew - it felt good to be doing a weight workout again, but I know I'm going to be really sore tomorrow!