Wednesday 2/10

Rest Day


Today's rest day topic is guerrilla exercise; how to exercise on a budget by using common objects and building stuff on the cheap.

1. Stuff you can find in your local park/school.  If you live in America or any other part of the world that has been raped/improved (matter of opinion) by white, western civilization, you probably live near either a park or a school featuring a park.  Most parks feature open areas with grass, concrete, asphalt or sand; sometimes all of them.  This is the most basic form of recreational space.  You can use this for running, jumping, etc.  Moving on from mere open spaces, many parks feature semipermanent improvements to the land such as picnic tables.  Tables or as I call them, "Multi-level Jumping Boxes" are great for doing box jumps on, elevated push-ups, scaled push-ups, back extensions and any other exercise in which you need some form of elevated platform.  The next level up from a picnic table is a play structure or, more often than not, a dedicated circuit of exercise equipment.  This is actually more common than you'd think.  Many parks have a series of pull-up bars, slanted sit-up things and other community exercises relics left over from idealistic city planners of the 70's.  These are fantastic for doing all kinds of body weight exercises on.  Many parks also feature organic pull-up structures also known as "trees".  Climb them, it puts the fun in functional.

2.  Cheap things that are heavy.  Despite what many exercise equipment companies would like you to know, the world is full of cheap and free things that are heavy.  A good example of a heavy free thing is a rock.  If you pick up a rock that weighs 50 lbs, you will get as good if not a better workout than picking up a 50 lb dumbbell.  You will also look way tougher.  Other heavy free things include; logs, tires, bricks, potted plants (make sure they're really free), books, your girlfriend, anything made of cast iron, old furniture, etc. the list goes on.  Basically, if you think it might be hard to pick up, try it.  If it is, great!  Now, try putting the old brain to work and make some free heavy things.  If you have access to plastic bags, duct tape and sand you can make sand bags or really ghetto medicine balls.  This is getting a bit more sophisticated which brings us to...

3. Stuff you can make for cheap.  a) Medicine balls can be made by filling up old balls (basketballs, rugby balls, footballs, soccer balls, you get the picture) with sand.  Just make a hole in the old ball, use a funnel to fill it with sand and then use shoe goo to seal the hole.  There you have it, sport specific medicine balls for about the same price as a six pack. b) Parallettes.  Parallettes can be used for all kinds of gymnastic movements and can easily be made from PVC pipe.  Do a google search to find instructions on DIY plans. c) Rings, these are a great strength builder and can be made from PVC pipe and webbing, again, use the google. d) Woven rope, this stuff can be used for gym class style rope climbing, two handed rope drills, tug of war, etc.  Make these using an 8 strand weave of 5/8" nylon rope. e) Fancy sandbags, using a trash bag, your old gym style duffel bag and sand you can make a pretty nice sandbag that will last.
These are just a few commonly made items, use you noggins or search the internet, people post plans for tons of stuff they figured out how to make.

4. Find other uses for equipment you already have.  Be inventive, if this was a lame management seminar I would be telling you to proactively think outside the box while being proactive.  A great example of getting more use out of an item than was intended is the plate sled.  Just pushing a 45lb steel plate on the ground is about as good an exercise as buying a $400 predator sled from EFS (although I really want one of their sleds!).