Free, cheap, and homemade exercise equipment!
Here I just have a few simple hacks. Every day household items you can use to exercise with, cheap substitutes for the real equipment, or ways to make your own make shift equipment! So simple you'll want to smack yourself for not thinking of it earlier!
Things you probably already have at home, and what to do with them.
Stairs!
Even a lot of one story home have a basement or stairs leading up to their house! In one hour a 130 pound person burns 472 calories just walking up stairs, someone who weighs 155 pounds will burn 563 calories, and someone at 190 will burn 690 calories. At 130 pounds a person would burn 885 calories running upstairs for an hour, the 155 pound person would burn 1,056 calories, and the 190 person would burn 1,294. Now remember, when you are going upstairs you will also have to come back down the stairs so your calories burnt will fluctuate on this factor. But this is just food for thought.A chair
There are so many exercises you can do with a simple chair I don't even know where to start. Because I haven't actually done very many (or any at all) exercises on my chair, so I'm only going to suggest a few and really urge any readers to go onto pinterest for this one. One simple thing you can do is to step onto the chair with, say, your left foot, pull your right foot up and then place your right foot on the back of the chair, then back to the seat, and then get down. Repeat. You could use the chair for elevated push ups or as a guide to your squats. Squat and hover just over the chair for 30 seconds, gradually increase the time.
A broom
Apparently jumping over brooms isn't just a wedding tradition, it's not a exercise either. This particular exercise could be done over just about anything really. You could also place a broom behind your neck and across your shoulders, hold the broom in place, keeping your feet flat on the ground do some trunk twists. If you want to get super technical, housework burns calories too, make sure you thank your kids for the mess they make tonight.
A wall.
I have yet to come across a house without walls, so I don't want any excuses with this one. Wall sits. You either love them or you hate them, but either way it's a great work out for your thighs. You don't have to limit yourself to just the plain jane boring wall sit, for a bigger challenge stick one leg straight out in front of you when you do them. For a core work out as well grab some weights or a medicine ball and with your back still against the wall and the weights/ball held out in front of you do some rotations. Wall sits are a great exercise for the quads, strong healthy quads are less likely to be injured when running. Add a wall sit to your daily run to prevent injuries. I like to use the wall when I do certain stretches as well. Like putting my foot on the wall and squating as low as I can
A mess!
Seriously, who doesn't have this problem, especially if you have kids! When picking up things on the floor instead of bending over do squats to reach them. Same with if you have to clean something lower, like say, you're wiping off your windows, use both hands and more pressure as you wipe and when you get to the lower part of the window squat instead of bending. Give yourself a time limit to clean your house, see how fast you can get yourself moving!
Replace that, with this;
Replace that:
The first picture is a glider and I have seen go for as low as $70 and as high as $400. I kid you not. The second picture is a Fit & Trim ab slider and they usually retail anywhere between $18-25. The third is a Roll-N-Flex ab roller and retails for around $30. They actually do make gliding discs which are essentially the same as gliders but charge closer to $20.
With this:
My personal favorite is furniture sliders. But paper plates and plastic bags both work well too. I like the furniture sliders personally because if I decide to put my knees on the sliders and keep my hands still I have a nice little cushion. The price varies, as does the size and count per package, you can find prices as low as $4 or as high as $20 per pack. If you don't have any laying around the house I suggest you get some, they come in handy tremendously with moving big furniture, especially if you're like my family and get bored with the same set up. If you don't have, or want furniture gliders that's fine too! Paper plates work just as well and packs of the small (typically cake serving) plates can be found for a dollar or less. Plastic bags, yep, the thing you get free with your groceries. I have a bag full of plastic bags in my house! If you have hard wood floors a simple towel or rag will suffice.
Replace that:
Dumbells!
With this:
Canned foods. A gallon of water makes a decent weight, but the weight isn't usually evenly distributed. Water bottles filled with sand or even rocks make a great hand held alternative.
Replace that:
A medicine ball.
With this:
Get a backetball and fill it with sand.
Replace that:
Resistance bands.
With this:
This I think is actually a pretty easy one to replace. A bungee cord or pair of spandex has all of the give and take you're looking for in a resistance band.
Replace that:
Tires.
With this:
Maybe you've seen the movies or watched professionals run through an obstacle course and part of the course was going through a bunch of tires. Looks intense doesn't it? Unfortunately you don't happen to have a ton of tires just laying around, and when you finally do get a flat, one tire seems hardly worth it. If you happen to have a dollar tree in your area (if you don't I sincerely pity you) you'll know that everything is only $1. Thus the name. So you could buy, say, 10 innertubes for ten dollars. Congratulations, you now have your own partial obstacle course. I'd definitely suggest filling the tubes with water or sand or tape them together so you don't kick them into the air when you're trying to go through it. Remember, this is something you will have to either buy in the summer time or online! Don't wait around on this one.
Now here is just a fun idea I happened to have stumbled upon. If you aren't the kind of person who likes to follow the same routine everyday you'll probably get a kick out of this one. Get some popsicle sticks, on each stick write a different exercise on them, then draw a few and you have your exercises! If you still want to get a full body work out get several different containers and label each accordingly (Core, quads, arms, etc) then draw one from each container and you'll have an exercise for each part of your body. They can be as specific, vague, easy, difficult, creative as you want.
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