Everyone has new year resolutions to start each year, but not everyone has the resolve to stick with them. One way to keep your commitments is to remove any barriers or excuses.
A lot of people put exercise as a priority for the new year. They sign up for a gym membership, they show up consistently for the first month (which drives the regulars crazy), then begins the excuses. They don’t see results fast enough. Something comes up that throws off their routine. It’s just not reasonable with their other commitments. The excuses are endless but quite ironically are inexcusable. Why? First, because you don’t need a gym membership to exercise. Second, you can create an environment that enables exercise regardless of the circumstances. How do you do this?
Choice architecture and Nudging Yourself.
Choice architecture is the design of different ways in which choices can be presented to people or decision makers. The goal is to present choices in a way that moves an individual to a more positive decision without removing freedom of choice. Nudging is a concept in behavioral science and behavioral economics which proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as ways to influence the behavior and decision making of groups or individual.
We can use choice architecture and nudging to create an environment that enables our health and exercising. One of the easiest ways to stick with a workout routine is to have a gym in your residence. By doing this, you eliminate any excuses based on limited time or inconvenience. Another easy way to stick with your goal is to put your home gym in a place where you will be around it a lot. Putting it in your bedroom, kitchen, or living room should do the trick. Why does this work? Since you will be spending time in those areas anyway, you are now presented with an additional choice of what to do when you are in those areas. You can quickly pump out 5 – 10 minute workouts throughout the day.
We know it sounds a little crazy. There’s no way you can afford a complete gym for your home and there is definitely no way you can fit it into your most frequented living spaces, right? Well, we have come up with just the solution to inexpensively and compactly provide you with what you need for a versatile home gym experience. Here are three inexpensive items that give you a wide array of exercises:
Pull Up Bar
Pull ups are one of the best complex movements for your upper body. Working out a wide array of muscles like: biceps, lats, forearms, upper back. The pull up bar we suggest is linked within the photo. We like it because of the additional grips that offer several different pull up positions as well as an extended circular area that helps incorporate resistance bands which really cranks up your exercise choices.
Resistance Bands
Resistance bands are a great tool to have for any workout enthusiast. They are small, portable, and provide a multitude of exercises (especially with a little creativity). They’re also great at working out stabilizer muscles that you might not trigger if you are only using machines. A lot of exercises can be done without any other equipment (squats, shoulder press, curls), but we can also thread our resistance bands through our pull up bar (through the extended circular area of the pull up bar we suggest) to add additional exercises like tricep pull downs, tricep extensions, rows, chest fly, etc. By combining the pull up bar and resistance bands, we drastically increase what we can do at home.
Swiss Ball
We like the Swiss ball mainly for core exercises. The core is one of the most important, if not most, muscle groups to work out and unfortunately also one of the most neglected. There are plenty of exercises that you do with a Swiss ball to workout the abdomen and lower back muscles. You can also use the Swiss ball to help with some trickier yoga positions.
There you have it. A versatile home gym that enables you to stick with your resolutions and fitness goals. All of the equipment is linked within their respective photo. We do advise you to read the instructions of each equipment piece to ensure proper set up and safety. Here’s to a better, healthier you!
System Tinker 