Every training can be pimped with every-day items!
Each exercise can be varied in many ways and made easier or harder with additional workout equipment. However, not everyone has all these tools at home and can’t or doesn’t want to spend money on them. Every purchase costs money and as we all know, especially the first child means buying lots of new things, which can get very pricey.
That’s why I am going to introduce alternatives today, which mums can use instead of commercial workout equipment. These can perfectly be used in all the exercises in the MumMeFit-App.
Bathtubs, chairs or park benches
These objects can easily be used for triceps dips in all variations. For an outdoor-workout, park benches and semi-high concrete blocks are especially suited.
Balls and balloons
For every exercise with a Redondo-ball (small, extremely soft gymnastics ball), you can easily use other balls. Simply remove some of the air that’s inside the ball, so that you can squeeze it. Or maybe there is some balloons left from the last party. But be careful: Don’t inflate them fully. Besides, the latter is suited rather for easy (strain- and pressure-) exercises. Otherwise there’s the risk of the balloon bursting, which startles you and surely your little ones even more.
Bobbycar
Many of our kids probably have a „Bobbycar” at home. The probability surely increases with older siblings. Placing both legs on the Bobbycar and hands firmly on the ground, you can do many plank and push-up exercises. The level of difficulty can be increased by several levels because of the instability of a moving object.
Books
Since most information these days are supplied through the internet and smartphones, many of the books you’ve purchased years ago are probably getting dusty in bookshelves. However, they can easily be used as extra weights in for example squat exercises or in an arm workout.
Shopping bags
This surely affects many mums: Carrying up the grocery bag several floors, without an elevator. This can be used as an opportunity to train shoulders and neck, by holding bags with similar weights in each hand and alternating between lifting and dropping shoulders.
Additionally, both grocery bags can be used for biceps training or for lifting the arms sideways to shoulder height. This can therefore replace the Thera-band in some exercises.
Semi-high cupboards, tables or tree trunks
These different heights can be used to do all kinds of push-up or plank exercises. They can also be adapted to different levels of difficulty according to the goal: The lower the object, the more difficult the exercise.
Towels, baby-cloths
Depending on the size, light towels or bigger baby-cloths can easily replace Thera-bands in exercises. Ideally, roll up the cloths diagonally, to generate more length. However, these objects are limited in their flexibility. That’s why they’re especially suited for exercises which train arms and shoulders and in which the cloths can be fixated on stomach level with the other hand.
Fruit and vegetables
All year round, different produce can first be used as workout equipment and be eaten later on. This also puts the question aside, what to do with all the equipment laying around…
In spring: red and white cabbage, a bag of pears
In summer: (water-)melons
In autumn: pumpkins
In winter: a bag of apples or potatoes, red cabbage
Socks instead of a blackroll duoball
For an optimal fascia training, duoballs can be replaced by a sock filled with two tennis balls (or similar ones). Of course this can’t be compared to a real duoball, but it a real good alternative to buying one. Use an old sock and knot it together firmly, otherwise the balls will be moving too much inside the sock.
Water bottles
Instead of two small weights, you can perfectly use two water bottles with more or less 0,5 liters. They lay well in your hand and you already have something to drink at hand once the workout is over.
Depending on the intensity of your training, you always have the option to bring more weight into the exercise by using bigger bottles. If the bottles aren’t filled up completely, you’re also training the smaller muscles, since the water is moving inside the bottle, which your body has to counterbalance in each move.
Have fun trying it out!