As with many others, my feelings towards personal fitness can be described as a love-hate relationship. I went through so much fitness training in high school that I just wanted to break away from that for a while. With the exception of playing a couple softball seasons and having a membership to LA fitness which was sparsely used, I did just that.
Currently I do not have a gym membership to my name, because I am trying to exercise at my house using equipment that I have bought over time. This equipment includes a workout bench with incline ability, a pair of dumbbells, jump-rope, a bicycle and an ab wheel. I do have a few more items that I would like to buy but without the proper space it will have to wait.
I will admit that the one thing that I missed about the workouts from high school was the coaching that we received and the workout plan that we followed. During my time at LA fitness I did find it to be an annoyance to create workouts for myself. These workout plans often lacked variety in the type of exercises that I performed. I did a bit of research one day and I found the FitBod app thanks to a health podcast called 20 minute fitness.
The FitBod app is unlike any app that I’ve used before. Its claim to fame is that it will curate a program of exercises based on your fitness level and experience, availability of equipment, and fitness goals. Once the app has this information it uses machine learning to provide you with exercises that target certain muscle groups based on previous exercises or fresh muscle groups. This app allows you to try 3 workouts for free, and a subscription plan only costs $60 a year.
Another app that I use that is able to link to FitBod is one called Strava. While FitBod focuses more on weight training, Strava is geared more towards cardio exercises such as bicycling or running. The app does a great job of tracking runs and notifying you of your personal bests whenever you run the same route more than once. It also has a social aspect that lets you see user generated courses and monthly challenges with leaderboards.
Apart from strength training and cardio, I also try to incorporate yoga exercises into my exercise rotation. I had never done yoga until I met my fiancé but I have turned into an advocate myself. How I get my yoga fix is through YouTube with a channel called Yoga with Adriene. The instructor has many different videos that focus on different parts of the body or different techniques featuring videos under 20 minutes or as long as an hour.
I find that this combination of exercise and technology helps me stay in shape with the equipment and time I have available to me. Hopefully this helps out those looking for some extra ideas!