If any of you readers have known Thomas or myself for any period of time, you’ll know that we are both a big fan of changing things up. Some call it muscle confusion or variety. Thomas and I like to call it Practical Fitness. Practical Fitness is simply this: Being of a level of physical conditioning that allows you to achieve whatever physical goal is necessary in life. For example, lifting a box and placing it on a shelf above your head: odds are you’re not going to pick it up by the flaps on top and just toss it up there.
Here’s betting the box is heavy. It’s full of books, let’s say. And when you bend down, with your knees, grab the bottom of the box, lift and stand up, then raise the box over your head to finally place the box on the shelf above, you are using, in order of appearance, your back, your quads, your glutes, your hamstrings, your biceps, your back, your pecs, your delts and possibly your calves. One motion using your entire body. To embody Practical Fitness is to say that you can do anything that might be required of your body – and that takes training in many (if not all) areas of fitness.
It should be noted that Practical Fitness isn’t necessarily easy to attain. One man may be able to lay on a bench and press 250lbs, but what about helping his buddy push his car down the street to help jump start it? Has he been working his lower back as well to prevent injury and help hold a bent over pushing position? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is this: maxing out your bench press is but one way to prepare your body for Practical Fitness.
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What’s In The Box?
In order to work in many areas of fitness, and in order to work many areas of the body, one must have the right tools. In this case, I’m being quite literal. Thomas and I have comprised a list of tools that will most effectively aid in your achieving Practical Fitness.
1. Dumbbells – The quintessential tool for strength/resistance training. Dumbbells provide you the ability to isolate muscles and build strength while giving you easy options for also developing lean muscle.
The one problem with dumbbells is storage. If you aren’t one of the lucky few who have invested in adjustable dumbbells, you are limited by either space to keep all the different weights or limited to fewer options of weight selection.
2. Pullup Bar – The single most effective workout one can do for a strong, healthy back is a pullup. Having a pullup bar in your home provides you a whole variety of options. We here at TheBalanced use the Iron Gym. It provides the option for Wide Pullups, Narrow Pullups, Chinups, Hammer Pullups, plus any number of core moves can be done while hanging on a pullup bar.
Having trouble even doing just one pullup? Take heart! If you also have resistance bands, you can take Jason Ferruggia’s advice (@jasonferruggia): you can do Assisted Chinups.
3. Pushup Bars (optional) – In my opinion, pushup bars are an optional tool. There is nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned pushup. You still have all the variety in the world for different types of pushups. So what’s so great about pushup bars? Well, for starters, if you have wrist trouble, regular pushups can feel daunting, and we can’t have that. Pushup bars keep your wrists straight, they hold the same position as if you were doing fist pushups.
Secondly, pushup bars provide a wider, deeper, range of motion. With pushup bars, you can go down deeper, giving a fuller range of motion and more effectively working the muscles involved.
4. Medicine Balls – These are a great tool, but aren’t necessarily required. If you have smaller weight dumbbells, those can work just as well sometimes. I like to use Medicine Balls to add that extra resistance to my leg workouts and definitely add some solid resistance to my ab routines. (P90X-ers, Mason Twists w/ a Medicine Ball is beautimus!) Medicine balls can add an extra challenge to your pushups too while greatly strengthening your stabilizer muscles – just put a ball under each hand (use different sized medicine balls for an even greater challenge)
5. Fitness Ball – I hesitated to put this one on the list, but it’s one of those tools that ends up being something you can craft an entire workout around. Like doing planks? Try planks with your feet on a fitness ball. Like doing Pike Presses? Try doing them with your feet on a fitness ball. Any move beautifully becomes synergistic (i.e. multiple muscles being activated to keep your form solid) when you incorporate a fitness ball.
6. Yoga Mat – A yoga mat is such a great tool, even if you don’t do yoga (which, if you’re not doing yoga, start. Now. Quit reading this blog and go learn about yoga.). A yoga mat offers a softer surface than that of hardwood floors or even poorly carpeted apartments and homes. It protects the joints and muscles that come in contact with the floor. It also helps to keep you where you are. Plenty of times, I’ve been doing pushups and found myself sliding backwards or forwards, which suggests either bad form or a slippery surface. A yoga mat will help fix all of that by making you aware of your surroundings without doing anything at all. The mat just lays there, underneath you, catching your sweat as your workout.
Finally, A yoga mat is great for when you actually do yoga. It provides a soft but durable surface that has traction to help you keep your position. Who wants to be slipping sliding all over the carpet or floor while trying to hold Warrior One? That’s a good way to rip or pull a muscle.
7. Yoga Block – This is an optional tool, but a beneficial one none the less. In yoga and stretching, one often comes to that glorious place where you can actually reach past your toes. As you continue to work on your hamstring stretches like that, a yoga block is a must to help keep your current progress and ensure further gains in the future. What is a yoga block, you ask? It’s a simple tool, really. It is a block of usually either cork or hard foam that, when placed under/just past your feet, it adds some additional distance between your feet and your hands.
Flexibility is key in fitness. Having limber joints and ligaments is a foundational part of success here. Being able to move and stretch in strength helps ensure fewer injuries while you pursue and live in Practical Fitness.
8. Resistance Bands – I love, love, love resistance bands. I use them all the time and I use them in a variety of ways. I mentioned earlier how they can be used in tandem with a pullup bar to assist in building enough strength to start doing unassisted pullups. As well, if you have a set of bands that came with a door anchor, you can do pulldowns from a seated or kneeling position.
Plus, you can use resistance bands to replicate any number of dumbbell tricep moves, shoulder moves, bicep moves, lunges and squats. The bands add an amazing addition to any move that dumbbells cannot. As the bands get tighter in a move, the resistance increases. It’s really quite genius!
9. Chair(s) – Thomas brought this one to my attention and I’m so glad he did. I use a chair on a regular basis in my workouts, but I never often think of it as a tool – but that’s exactly what it is. You can do Split Leg Squats, dips of all varieties, elevated pushups, incline pushups, and a few choice back/shoulder moves while seated in a chair that make it a tool that’s versatility is worth exploring. Let’s not forget how a chair is also a great tool to help in assisted pullups!
10. Jump Rope – Our final tool is….the jump rope. If you haven’t used a jump rope in an exercise capacity, your last memory of it may be from elementary school, skipping around the playground. Well, jump rope for big kids is a bit different. For starters, if you need to go buy one for exercise, be sure to get one with decent weight – They might even be labeled “Fitness Jump Rope” at the store. Don’t get a fabric jump rope or one of those old-school ones with the checkered plastic links, trust me. Jumping rope starts as a challenging coordination drill, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that it can get you drenched in sweat in no time while making you extremely light on your feet. Aside from the coordination and cardio, it gives your calves, shoulders and forearms a good burning endurance workout.
Honorable Mention: Heart Rate Monitor. When I was losing all my weight, having a HR monitor was an essential part of tracking how aggressively I was working out. Whether it was cardio, strength training, circuit training or even if I was simply trying to track how many calories I was actually burning in a workout, having a heart rate monitor made the difference. Now, I still us my HR monitor, especially when I’m doing plyometric workouts. If you’re not careful, you can get that heart rate of yours too high, and that’s not good.
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So there it is folks. Our recommended list of tools that can do nothing but aid you in embodying Practical Fitness. As a final thought, we should say that, in a technical sense, none of these tools are required. This is a can list, not a required list of tools. To become Practically Fit, all you truly need is your body. Bodyweight work is not just a foundation of being active, but it has been proven time and time again to be very effective in burning fat, building solid muscle and boosting your progress in your journey to Practical Fitness.
See ya next time!
-N
So, I’ve been seeing these commercials on TV lately that have really started to bother me. Not in that, “Oh, this guy’s voice is so irritating.” kind of way. But it’s more of a, “I hate to see how many people get duped into this.” sort of thing.
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