You Don’t Need to Join a Gym to Get Fit and Here’s Why
Getting in shape is one of the most infamous commitments we make to ourselves for a good reason. It’s one of the best ways to boost your confidence, increase your lifespan and your health span, have more energy, and improve your mental health. The only trouble is that it takes a lot of work and a lot of time, it can be confusing, intimidating, and expensive. All these barriers are exactly why so many people with the best of intentions fail at their goal of becoming fitter year after year.
The more obstacles you can remove between your current self and your potential future fitter self, the more likely you are to reach your goals. As the famous saying goes, “Done is better than perfect”, and this applies to fitness, too. Learning to get fit without gym access is a great way to remove the inconvenience and financial, and perhaps even personal, reasons for not going to the gym regularly. Though it may not be the ideal option in your mind, it could be the most realistic one, and that usually makes it the wisest one to pursue.
Defining The Different Aspects of Fitness
If you’re a complete beginner to fitness, your image of fitness could be pumping out dumbbell reps in front of a mirror with huge veiny arms. This isn’t actually a great representation of overall fitness because fitness isn’t so much about how you look; it’s about how well your body functions.
Let’s start with muscles. Muscle strength is often the focus, but it’s also important to take into account muscle endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness, and mobility. This means to be a well-rounded fit person, you should be able to move your body weight with high intensity for a duration of time (cardio), have a functional range of movement without pain (mobility), have power (strength), and be able to use your muscles continuously for a long period of time (muscular endurance).
Training for each of these parameters of fitness is what yields the best functional results for long lasting health. The main benefit the gym offers that most people can’t do at home is using heavy weights. Thankfully, this only actually contributes to 1 of the 4 main aspects of fitness (muscular strength), and even this can be replicated in other environments.
How To Get Fit Without The Gym
Bodyweight Exercises (Calisthenics)
One of the best types of exercise to try when working out from home is simply bodyweight exercises. This could include moves like squats, pushups, dips, jumping lunges, planks and much more. There are countless free workouts available online (or for a low price) with expert trainers teaching this method of working out. It can help build strength, muscular endurance, coordination, and it can quickly result in positive body composition changes.
Even though “bodyweight exercise” may sound like it would quickly become easy as your body adapts, this is far from the truth. There are many moves that have increasingly challenging progressions as you get more advanced. Additionally, you can always increase reps, increase sets, reduce breaks, or potentially add resistance in the form of high-quality elastic bands or dumbbells.
Cardio Workouts
It’s important to balance any sort of strength training with some cardiovascular training as well. While cardio won’t make you stronger, it can make you faster, improve your heart health, boost your mood, strengthen your immune system, and support weight loss goals.
The most straightforward type of cardio to do is running. All you need are some sneakers and access to the great outdoors. If you’re a beginner or even if you’re well advanced in your fitness routine, don’t underestimate the massive health benefits that come with walking. Taking regular brisk walks will help you maintain your overall body weight (and help burn fat!) and can be beneficial in preventing or managing high blood pressure, strengthening your bones, increasing your energy, improving your mood, memory, and sleep, improve your balance and coordination, and strengthen your immune system.
Other types of cardio that don’t require a gym are skipping, hiking, biking, swimming, bodyweight HIIT workouts, or climbing stairs.
Yoga or Mobility Training
In addition to cardiovascular training and strength training, it can be extremely beneficial to do some sort of stretching exercises to reduce incidences of injury, make day-to-day activities easier, and to maintain healthy joints as you age.
Mobility training is different from passive stretching because it involves exploring your end-of-range motion with active muscular engagement. This is what separates plain flexibility from its much more functional alternative: mobility.
Some of the best ways to improve mobility are yoga, Pilates, specific mobility bodyweight exercises, or even just dynamic warmups before strength or cardio sessions. It’s important to note that mobility training alone won’t result in massive bodily changes, but rather it supports long-term health and enhances the benefits of other types of exercise.
Home Equipment Workouts
A final strategy to get fit without access to a gym is to invest in some home exercise equipment. This doesn’t have to be expensive or take up much room. A few pieces of equipment can open up a huge range of exercise options with minimal investment.
Some of the best ones to start with for working on muscular strength would be dumbbells or kettlebells. They offer added resistance to strength training moves. It may also be worthwhile to purchase a pullup bar, resistance bands, or a TRX system (Total Resistance eXercise) to broaden your options even further. For improved cardiovascular fitness, a jump rope or a bicycle are smart investments and don’t take up a lot of space when they aren’t in use.
Final Tips
Overall, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to getting fit, with or without going to a gym. The most important thing is to be consistent with getting your body into a regular cycle of movement. It’s best to pick activities you enjoy since they will be the easiest to stick to, and over time they’ll likely evolve into habits that you look forward to doing because they make you feel and look your best.
While taking a well-rounded approach to fitness is best, setting realistic goals is essential to success. Remember, doing something is better than doing nothing. Any of the types of exercise discussed here have the potential to result in visible changes to your body and benefit your long-term health. Doing at least a few different forms of exercise is ideal, but even getting consistent with just one can have a life-changing impact.
If you’ve been putting off your fitness goals because you think the only way to get fit is by signing up for an expensive gym membership, think again! Working out is accessible to anyone, anywhere, and there are plenty of free activities to start with and online resources to help you along the way. With a little creativity and determination, your current fitness goals will quickly become checkpoints along your journey to becoming your healthiest self yet.
