Suggestions for excerise at home?

  • Hi! I'm looking for some suggestions from all of you awesome chicks. I'm happy with the amount of times per week I get to the gym (2-3), but my gym is a 30 minute walk away and it's not open 24 hrs per day. Lately I have really been looking for some simple exercises or calorie-burning activities I can without leaving my apartment. I am specifically looking for exercises that I can do inside, so although I appreciate the suggestions of "just go for a walk outside", that kind of suggestion really won't be helpful to me because I don't live in a great neighbourhood, it is almost dark by the time I get home from work, and I don't feel safe walking or running in my neighbourhood once it's dark. A couple of other caveats. I live in an apartment with hardwood floors and there are other apartments both above and below me, so I really need to keep thumping and noise to a minimum (ie. jumping jacks, running on the spot, etc are out). I do have a nice yoga mat and several yoga dvds, but I am hoping to find something that gets my heart rate higher than yoga does. I don't have a ton of money to spend on weights or fancy equipment, but I am open to suggestions for dvds or basic exercise aids. I have been considering buying a stability ball, if I can find one that is reasonably priced. Would a stability ball be fairly quite on hardwood floors? Any other suggestions?
  • Stability ball would be great, as well as some resistance bands or hand weights. I just got a set of bands on clearance at Target today for $13. It's not cardio and won't necessarily get your heart rate up, but weight training can help your metabolism. When I lived in an apartment, I used to wait for my downstairs neighbors to leave before doing any "louder" DVD's.
  • Thanks Juliana! I see a couple sets of resistance bands on amazon for under 20 bucks, so those will be great. The situation with the apartment below me is that there are multiple people living in it and they don't seem to all go out at the same time very often.. even if two of them go out, the other roommate is still home or vice versa. I try to be considerate but I'm not going to walk on eggshells or be super concerned about noise during the middle of the day, but I don't usually get home from work until 9pm. So by 9pm it's getting late to be making a lot of noise.. plus that's prime tv watching time so I'm sure they won't appreciate thumps while they're trying to watch their shows lol. The resistance bands would definitely be quiet though! Thanks for your help!
  • Quote: Hi! I'm looking for some suggestions from all of you awesome chicks. I'm happy with the amount of times per week I get to the gym (2-3), but my gym is a 30 minute walk away and it's not open 24 hrs per day. Lately I have really been looking for some simple exercises or calorie-burning activities I can without leaving my apartment. I am specifically looking for exercises that I can do inside, so although I appreciate the suggestions of "just go for a walk outside", that kind of suggestion really won't be helpful to me because I don't live in a great neighbourhood, it is almost dark by the time I get home from work, and I don't feel safe walking or running in my neighbourhood once it's dark. A couple of other caveats. I live in an apartment with hardwood floors and there are other apartments both above and below me, so I really need to keep thumping and noise to a minimum (ie. jumping jacks, running on the spot, etc are out). I do have a nice yoga mat and several yoga dvds, but I am hoping to find something that gets my heart rate higher than yoga does. I don't have a ton of money to spend on weights or fancy equipment, but I am open to suggestions for dvds or basic exercise aids. I have been considering buying a stability ball, if I can find one that is reasonably priced. Would a stability ball be fairly quite on hardwood floors? Any other suggestions?
    Hi Alecia,

    I'm doing the 100 pushup challenge(google it if you're interested). I'm in week 2, struggling but improving and it definitely increases my heartrate and I work up a sweat. I know you said you don't have much to spend on fancy equipment but I've been lookiing into sandbag training which if you check out some of the videos on youtube or elsewhere it looks like an incredible workout. It sounds like you have no vehicle (in itself a great way to stay in shape, plus its better for the environment) but if you can get a ride to a home depot or someplace bring home a 50 lb sandbag (or whatever you feel you can handle I assume they have other sizes). Burpees are also a killer workout but some components of them would probable be a problem with your wood floors. In a pinch I've also done some lifting with the water bottles (the kind that go on top of a cooler that dispences the water like you find in an office). They have some with handles now which really facilitates lifting. You can hold them at your side and do shrugs, or you can hold a bottle in front of you with two hands and curl it.
  • I absolutely love P4P on youtube. They have exercise routines or individual exercies you can watch and do along with. I like that they show the model doing the execises from different angles, show which muscles should be working and when to breath during the exercise.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/passion4profession, they have some playlists also so you can do several excercises per muscle group.

    I spend way too much time on the computer and at home I try to make sure to do 1-2 exercises for my abs and back every 15-30 minutes.

    You can make your own weights with what ever's around the house. Fill up a couple milk jugs with water, or rocks if you need heavier weights. Stability balls are really coming down in price. Do you have an Aldi grocery store near you? They had a special buy on excercise stuff a couple weeks ago. You could get a stablitly ball for ~$6. They may still have some.
  • Elichacon, thanks for your suggestions! Pushups will be a great idea. I tend to avoid pushups because I have horrible memories from high schools fitness tests of push ups, but I really need to get over that. The sandbag idea is very interesting too!

    Sarah, those youtube videos look great - thank you! I will definitely give some of those a try. I'm in Canada, so I've never heard of Aldi before, but there is actually a lot of reasonably priced exercise stuff on amazon, and the cool thing is that you can read the reviews to find out if other people thought it was a good-quality product. So after a bit of browsing, I think I should be able to get a set of resistance bands and a ball on amazon all for under 35 dollars - not bad!!
  • I own a schwinn upright exercise bike - it was about $350 but worth every penny. It's obviously a very quiet cardio machine, quieter than a treadmill or elliptical and a GREAT investment. I am not one of those "go to the gym" kind of people even though I have a free student membership, if I have to go all the way to the gym it takes way too much time. I also run outside but get living in a "bad neighborhood". As far as exercise videos go... quiet and neighbor courteous ones: Core Secrets video programs... they are balance ball based exercises and lots of fun, you can probably find used ones for pretty cheap. I also like Winsor Pilates, but can only find them on VHS used on amazon, at least the old ones from like 2004. I'm still waiting to convert them to DVD on my own. They are the BEST pilates videos I've ever done. Especially the abs one. I refuse to try anything else.
  • Oh it's from 2002... haha... just search "winsor pilates" in amazon
  • I do kettlebells at home-they can get pretty pricey though if you get up in weights-I think they're worth it though. I always feel strong as an ox when I am done with them,and boy do they burn the cals.
  • 1st suggestion: buy a good used treadmill off craiglist
    -or- in the event of not enough room
    2nd suggestion: Get a good workout video for cardio (i.e. zumba, something YOU find fun and that makes you sweat from head to toe) AND do the following FREE exercises:

    1. pushups or wall pushups (whatever you can do)
    2. wall squats
    3. tricep extensions using a chair (for triceps)
    4. core work (you can google it since I don't know the technical name)

    These are FREE and most EFFECTIVE.
  • Thanks for the additional suggestions everyone!! Yesterday on amazon I bought 85 dollars worth of stuff - a set of resistance bands, a stability ball, 5lb handweights and a bunch of dvds (one of them was a mari winsor pilates, but it's one of the newer ones). I don't have the money nor the space for a treadmill, elliptical, or a 350$ spin bike, even used, but I wish I did! It's definitely something for me to keep in mind for the future when I'm in a different living situation, but for right now the whole point of me spending money on a gym membership is that I can go to the gym for all the fancy machines, weights and use them there cheap, rather than spending a fortune on my own exercise equipment. I looked up kettlebell videos and I am very intrigued by it but I'm not sure if I'm at that point yet? I haven't done much lifting before. I think they actually have kettlebells at my gym though, so I wouldn't need to buy one myself. Thanks again! This thread has been full of extremely helpful suggestions!
  • perfect-body-toning.com these are home exercises though some you need equipment for like the captains chair workout. but this is what i do in addition to my jogging.
  • You can do kettlebells at any stage. You might not be able to do a turkish get up yet but you can certainly do a swing with an 8 or 12kg bell. Google "Lauren Brooks" on youtube and you'll see some great workouts.

    I have a 10 month old so on days I can't get to a gym, I can still work out. I never miss a workout thanks to my kettlebells. They are so versatile, I even did them until the day I had my baby (no I'm not crazy, had I known he was coming I would have taken that day off!)