Like the rest of the world, if you’ve been hit by gym closures and restrictions by the Covid pandemic, you’re definitely missing your workouts.
Achieving your fitness goals can be challenging when you’re stuck indoors, with WFH blurring boundaries between off/at work times. While most people associate fitness with weight, leading fitness pros recommend that you don’t need a weighing scale at all. Fitness is as much a state of mind as body, and it makes you feel energized, confident and strong.
Any exercise should be filled with fun and playfulness and leave you feeling vital and filled with positive thoughts brought on by the release of endorphins. Anything that results in guilt, shame, obligation, and pain signals that it’s time to rethink your exercise or workout routines.
Getting a full-body workout in a small space, whether you’re a gym-rat, occasional visitor, or veteran, is a tough proposition. Perhaps, on the other hand, you’re short on time and have to squeeze in the max workout in the tiny window you get between meetings and doing the laundry. And then there are those for whom gymming isn’t fun but just a chore on the daily to-do list, undertaken for health reasons.
There’s one smart and simple answer to the problem in all these situations – a full-body workout machine.
Advantages Of A Full-Body Workout
Before we figure out the best equipment for a full-body workout, it’s important to understand the real benefits of this workout.
Time-Saving: You can reduce your exercise time significantly with this approach. Instead of a daily workout, the full-body routine can be done for just two or three days a week. You can also plan for modified programs where you perform just one exercise per body part and reduce the number of sets you do for each. This helps you speed up the routine and reduce the number of times you hit the gym.
Extra Focus: With this routine, you get more of a chance to really review your fitness goals. You can eliminate many workout routines that don’t belong in your set of objectives. Smaller and more isolated workouts that work specific sets can be ditched in favor of a more comprehensive one.
Prevents Plateaus: The bane of all gymmers is hitting the dreaded physical and the emotional plateau where you slip into a slump, and nothing seems to work. Full-body helps to put you on track.
Recovery Time: With enough time between workouts, your body gets the time and rest to recover from an intensive session. You can do two or three full-body workouts in a week and rest out the rest.
What Is A Full Body Workout Machine?
Full-body workouts use various sets of muscles in your body compared to exercises that focus on just one or two. While it’s impossible to find an exercise that will work every muscle in your body, full-body workouts typically focus on the upper body, core, and lower body.
These exercises would include aerobics as well as strength training.
Before you select a machine, talk to your doctor. Ensure that you factor in existing heart conditions, age, weight, lifestyle, medical conditions such as diabetes, major surgery you have had within the last year, and whether doctors have warned against any particular type of exercise.
A full-body workout should last for at least 30 mins for the best results. Experts who have conducted extensive research recommend:
- Rower: The at-home rowing machine offers both upper and lower bodywork along with low-impact cardio. It helps work out your arms, legs, shoulders, and core. You need to choose the one best suited to your health status, age, height, etc.
Several different types are available that vary in terms of materials used to manufacture the frames, resistance mechanisms, and the digital technology involved. Rowing equipment offers great endurance workouts, and you can adjust the resistance to match your rowing power as it increases.
This exercise requires the extensive and intensive use of shoulders, triceps, biceps, chest, back, abdominals, glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves. You will be surprised to learn that rowing requires the full power of your legs to make the strokes, and you can burn more than 500 calories per hour of moderate rowing.
Ensure that you learn the proper technique from online videos presented by experienced and trained professionals.
- Ellipticals: Unfortunately, this machine has suffered serious bad press and has been dubbed the lazy machine. But the truth is that it provides significant overall full body workout benefits. Some of us prefer to stand and exercise, and the elliptical is the right choice. You can combine stationary cardio, striding motions, and more without the risk of impact injury.
This machine combines the body movements required in a stair-stepper, cross-country ski machine, and a bicycle. They work both upper and lower body and can be used to stair-climb, walk, run with varying degrees of incline, resistance, and stride length. Unlike stationary bikes or treadmills, they offer a more intermediate range of motion, and it requires the use of a larger variety of muscle groups.
As with all exercises, you need to start with a warm-up. It offers the same cardiovascular advantages, significantly less impact on joints. You may also need to combine ellipticals with some weight training or strength exercises to build stronger bones and prevent osteoporosis in the long run.
- Kettlebell: This compact yet effective exercise equipment is versatile, simple, and helps to build strength and endurance in the legs, lower back, shoulders, and also to strengthen the core. Though you may feel it’s similar to dumbbells, the mass center extends beyond the hand, and it’s much safer than dumbbells.
Kettlebell exercises are holistic, and they work out several groups of muscles simultaneously, with the routine being partly aerobic, partly high-intensity interval training, and part endurance training. It offers better support to the joints and prevents injury. Kettlebell exercises enhance mobility, range of motion, mental toughness, more strength, and cardiovascular fitness. You can use them for squats, shoulder toning, and back rows.
The great thing about them is that they’re cost-effective and space-saving. However, if you have back or shoulder problems and a weak core, it’s better to avoid the kettlebell. Be careful about handling the equipment, and don’t drop it on yourself or anyone else!
Comments
