Saturday 22 September 2012

Training equipment... a lot of it!

I've always been an advocate of minimalism when it comes to fitness equipment.
I have never owned those overpriced pieces of iron that normally people use to build muscles and going bodyweight or using cheap and selfmade pieces of equipment has always been my route.

When I'm not out of town for work, I mostly workout in my garage.
Yesterday I wanted to make some housecleaning in the garage too, and I realized that my equipment is not that minimalistic anymore. In years of underground fitness I've been accumulating an unbelievable quantity of stuff: I have tanks of various shapes and weights, sandbags, tires, homemade swinging maces, a pull-up bar, elastic bands, an ab wheel, big and heavy chains to use to add weight to the body... not to mention two mountain bikes (one is converted for road commuting), a bmx, a footbike, a heavy bag, a double end ball, two powerkites.
Actually I am very happy with every piece of equipment that I have because I use it all (I just don't keep things that I don't use) and I know that everything was very inexpensive when not free (except the bikes and the powerkites obviously), but I never realized before how much equipment I have accumulated in the years!
I'm still advocating bodyweight and no-equipment-at-all for everyone to keep in good health, as cardio can be done for free (just fast walking or running, add a cheap bike and you'll have not only a good cardio workout but also an excellent way to move around), and bodyweight can provide all you need to build a strong body: pushups, crunches, squats... just find something to do pull-ups too and you can have a full body workout for free.
Keeping the minimalistic approach is important to fight laziness, I mean, you have to remember that you can workout everywhere at every time, even if you don't have a garage full of strange things like me.

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