Fitness After Fifty: If You Don't Want to Join a Gym

Everyone is talking about fitness these days.  Some are avid exercisers and others avoid exercise like the plague.  The one thing they have in common is that they feel guilty about something.  You want to be healthy, and toning up is a real bonus, but you just can’t bring yourself to join a gym.  .

The cost of gym memberships is not expensive as many places charge only $20 a month, and it is not unheard of for insurance plans to cover the cost for older adults.  Still, if time is a problem you are certainly within your rights to want to avoid the inconvenience of going somewhere else to work-out.

From a fitness standpoint, exercising at home can be just as beneficial as going to a health club.  In fact, studies show that home exercisers are more likely to stick with their program than those who go to the gym.

Advantages of working out at home:

• Flexibility:  It doesn’t matter if you are a morning person or a night owl.  You can exercise whenever you want to and at your own pace (no waiting for your favorite machines).
• Cost effectiveness:  Working out at home costs less, remember to factor in gas money as well as the time you lose getting to an outside facility.  You can set up a home gym for less, and there will be no month dues.
• The part I like the best about working out at home is not listening to loud music that someone else selects.  I’ve mentioned to gym staff that classical or semi classical tunes a few hours a day would be nice but hard rock wins every time.  
• You aren’t competing with anyone else and you don’t have to worry about how you look.

Still, it’s not all that easy.  Because you exercise at home you are doing it alone.  Boredom, staleness and lack of drive can be a problem.  You must be self motivated, learn how to vary your routines and change things up a little.  If you need a personal trainer to weight you, nag at you, and encourage you, it’s not going to happen at home. You will need to set your own goals, figure out what you want to accomplish, and choose the most appropriate equipment.  Don’t forget about exercise DVD’s to help you shake things up and vary your routines.

There are so many home fitness products on the market that it can be hard to know where to start.  I liked the advice from Kelly Turner (www.KellyTurnerFitness.com) that I read in the Seattle Times (Sunday, April 22, 2012).  She recommends the simple route.  We all know people who use their treadmill and elliptical machines for cloth hangers, so hard not to laugh and agree with her.  Instead of buying a treadmill or an elliptical that you aren’t going to use, she suggests buying a jump rope or going for a walk/run. A DVD can cue you in strength training techniques.    Dumbbells from a garage sale, a resistance band, or using your own body weight can give you an unbelievably good workout.  Everyone needs help with exercise routines.  I love DVDs, the workouts found in fitness magazines, and programs found on the Internet or on cable TV.

 You can outfit your home gym with as much or as little as you like.  The motivation part is going to have to be up to you.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Kelly Turner Fitness]

I'm a pretty big cheap skate. I had a treadmill for a while and everytime I used it, I thought to myself "I could be doing this outside, for free." I sold it, lol.

[red bull hats]

Thanks for sharing the news about such a wonderful organization.Keep up the great work! Love your blog!

[Pay per head services]

I think that exercise is always important at an age and at 50 it's even more important and my dad runs every day for 30 minutes or so and he is healthy :D

[Pilates Class]

“Boredom, staleness and lack of drive can be a problem.” – I agree! When boredom strikes, you’ve got to fight it hard. It could be tough at times, making you wish you had a personal trainer, but it is all part of the process. That’s why I live with this mantra: “If you’ve got no discipline, then you’ve got nothing.”

[Teuvo Ridanpää]

Exercising at home is really had a lot of advantage,in Finland country many of old man and women are still going to some gym and most of them are doing some aerobics for some old women which is really good to health of them.