Fitness for Free (or almost)

In all the years that I have been involved in the fitness industry, I really cannot imagine how much money that I have invested in trying to keep up with all the new programs and equipment. For the most part, I might spend $10.00 every second month to purchase a DVD that interests me. I do have quite a collection so I have made a big investment during that last several years.

In the last few months, I have been investigating free fitness options. I have talked about some of the options before but it's always good to rehash old ideas.

If you think about it, children have the right idea on how to to keep fit for free. They like to play games like tag or hide and seek. They skip to school, at least I always did, which adds a little plyometrics to their programs. Sometimes they just run around the school yard or park, laughing and play. Kids like to hang upside down from the monkey bars and they climb up the steps to the slide and slide down. They also have impromptu baseball games or football games that keep them moving. We could learn a lot from our children.

The most inexpensive fitness equipment I can think of is the human body. Our legs and feet and probably the most useful when it comes to staying shape. We can walk, run, do plyometric moves, lunge, squat, kick, dance, bicycle, jump, skip or jump rope and march.

You can use your own body weight for strength and conditioning. The best example is the push up. You can very the positioning of your arms so that you can work your chest and shoulders with a wider stance, or isolate your triceps by bringing your arms closer together. You can also work your triceps by doing a triceps dip with a chair. If you have access to a pool or lake, swimming is an excellent full body workout offering resistance, endurance and cardio. And who needs a fancy abs machine when the best ab workout you can do is a simple crunch using nothing else but your abs.

Simply going out and moving our bodies is the best way to get in shape but sometimes we all need a little motivation and guidance from an outside source. I think that this is where most people get intimidated. Personal trainers, gyms, videos and books all cost money and in today's economy people are saving money where they can. Many people have decided to cut the cost of that gym membership from their budget which might leave some lost on how they can keep motivated to stay fit. If you have a computer and access to the internet, there are several websites that are offer totally free programs to help.

One of my favorite websites is SparkPeople. SparkPeople offers a total fitness tracker where you can track your activity and your nutrition. They have a huge fitness and food data base so that you track your caloric intake and output. SparkPeople also has a large data base of exercises, including video descriptions so that you see the moves that you want to do. They also offer short video workouts that can be done right from your computer. There are discussion forums available and you can have access to your own webpage. There is SparkPeople app for the iPhone and iTouch available.

Another site that I have found is ExerciseTV. If you have cable television, ExerciseTV has a cable channel that offers several video workouts on demand by celebrity trainers such as Cindy Whitmarsh and Kendall Hogan. If you do not have cable television, you can also have access to some of the same workouts on their website. There are several workouts that can be streamed to your computer for free at any time. They also offer different programs that you can download and follow the workouts on your computer according to the workout program. They have programs for almost any goal. There is the option to download the videos in the programs for a small fee but many of them can be streamed completely free.

Another free site that is available is GoodLife at Home. GoodLife Fitness is one of Canada's largest fitness clubs owned by David Patchell-Evans, or Patch as many call him. GoodLife launched a website called GoodLife at Home this year which is available to everyone. The website offers free, full length workouts that stream to your computer for free. Once you set up your free profile, there are video workouts that can match the goal you want to accomplish.

LiveStrong is another website that is valuable fitness resource. The most valuable resource is the DailyPlate which is total fitness and food tracker. It has a very large data base of foods and activities. It also has a large exercise data base to demonstrate various exercises through video. If you have an iPhone or iTouch, you can sync your LiveStrong tracker.

I can go on and on about free online fitness sites. ShapeFit offers FitTracker which has food and exercise databases as well as videos. Team BeachBody still offers WOWY, their online gym for free which is a great motivator. The Heart and Stroke Foundation and the American Heart Assocation both have online fitness resources available to all completely free.

If you have an iPhone or an iTouch, there are many free fitness apps that can be downloaded to your device. I already mentioned the LiveStrong and SparkPeople applications. iTrain is a free app with trackers and videos. Fitness Builder from Pump One has a free application with a huge data base of workouts and exercises. Another free fitness app is GymABC which offers exercise video demonstrations and workout programs.

The last free resource that I want to mention is your television. I mentioned earlier that ExerciseTV has workouts on demand if your cable company offers it. There is also FitTV available through cable that offers several fitness shows. Some of the shows that are available are Caribbean Workout, In Shape with Sharon Mann and Bodies in Motion with Gilad along with several others.

If you choose some of the free video options, there may some equipment used but you can probably get buy with a 2 sets of dumbbells or a resistance band which are not that expensive to purchase. Sometimes house hold items can be used such as water bottles filled with water but make sure that, if you use something from home, that it
is safe to use and that it will actually offer the resistance that you need. Other than that, have fun with your new free fitness venture.