FITNESS TOOLS THAT WORK FOR ME

JUST PASSING ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

By way of introduction, I am a senior male with several decades of sports and workouts in my past. As of now, I do a workout at home every morning before breakfast. This is from a well entrenched habit, developed over the past 20 years (as I began to work out at home instead of at gyms). Let me hastily say that gyms are great! But I began to prefer a 30-minute consistent workout at home. I knew what to do and wanted to avoid travel to gyms and long waits for machines. Much of what I know to do came from gym experience in my past.

These days, I do physical therapy movements, lots of core work, male Kegel exercises and isometric holds for back, chest and arms. A right shoulder rotator cuff injury currently precludes heavier isotonic exercise. I get my cardio by outside walks or by use of my treadmill at home.

See my prior post on Kegels for men.

It can’t be emphasized enough – exercise is for much more than building muscles or cardiovascular health, Exercise boosts our energy, improves our mood, fights diseases, promotes better sleep and gives us an important social outlet.

In today’s post, my goal is to show a few exercise tools that I use at home. This will inlcude both equipment and nutrition items.

AMAZON

I find Amazon very easy to work with, both as a long term customer and as an associate. As an associate (or affiliate), I am able to use their links to items that are relevant to my post. If someone elects to make a purchase from the link, I may earn from the transaction. This is called affiliate marketing. Please see in my upper menu – BECOME AN AFFILIATE MARKETER – for full information on this. You may want to consider the business opportunity. It’s a great home-based Online business.

An illustration:

Here are a few links to products provided by Amazon that I use and recommend. Each link will show full information, prices, pictures and further links to similar or complementary options.

This Nordic Track treadmill looks like the one I have at home, with some changes. Mine has lasted well for over 7 years and steady use.

Here is the exact medicine ball that I use now. I do standing right to left pulling movements with the ball as I resist against the pulls for 50 reps. This is for the oblique muscles. I also do standing “woodchops” to work my entire core. See this former post for information and pictures of the woodchop.

Resistance bands with handles. These bands provide a full body workout with several options for each body part. They are currently priced at a nice discount.

Loop resistance bands. I use these for physical therapy and for arm work, both isotonic and isometric. Women may use them as “booty” bands. They are less than $10.

Cheribundi tart cherry juice. I am a huge fan of this drink. I read about it when I did my article on Alica Schmidt. Alica is a bundle of energy and she knows nutrition. I find that Cheribundi drinks calm me and allow for better sleep.

Shoulder heating pad with massage. This is a recent purchase I made to deal with my right shoulder rotator cuff sprain. I have not yet eliminated the problem, but this device gives me a warm and very pleasant healing experience.

Male Kegel exercise device. I mentioned above that I do Kegels for men (see the link to more information). This is great for awakening muscles that may have weakened with age. It works!

BULLWORKER

Bullworker Fitness is another affiliation that I use and enjoy. Bullworker provides an array of exercise tools that present both isotonic and isometric modes. We can do one or the other or both within one set.

The Bullworker Steel Bow is shown below. Note the variety of springs, which give us choices of resistance. The springs can be changed as barbells or dumbbells are, but much more easily.

The Steel Bow is ideal for chest exercise. We can attack our pectoral muscles from across, above or below the pectoral area. I also use the Steel Bow to work my abdominals – by sitting in a straight-back chair and pressing down between my legs, to the right and to the left. I do these slowly and use only my ab muscles to do the work.

I also use the Bullworker Bow Classic, which is larger than the Steel Bow, for back exercise. Bullworkers are high quality tools. My two Bullworkers look brand new, after 6 years of constant use. I like them for these reasons:

• The isometric mode protects my joints
• Isotonics and isometrics may be done within the same set of reps
• They are relatively small (but powerful) tools. They don’t take up much space at home and they are easily portable when we travel and need a workout option.
• They come with handbooks to clearly show a large variety of exercise forms.

See my Bullworker link at the side of my website. For full infomration on all of their products, click on the red link.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I mentioned the value of habits in my initial paragraph above. Habits govern everything we do, whether positive or negative. Good habits can override the occasional lack of motivation that we all experience at times. Let’s strive for good health habits. Success is easier when it is automatic.

Another point – keeping track of our workout or nutrition steps each day will insure success. I do this by computer entries for weight, exercise sets, cardio minutes, calories consumed per meal, blood pressure and pulse. I want to post good numbers or make corrections when I don’t.

It may be easy at time to say that we don’t “have time” for fitness. Bear in mind – a 30-minute daily workout represents 2% of a full day, leaving 98% for everything else. Isn’t it worth it?

Please leave me any comments or questions in the “Comments” section below.

Let’s stay active!