With the new year will come resolutions. And the most perennial of all resolutions is the vow to get in shape. Since gym memberships are so often bought, then quickly forgotten, it might be wiser to stay at home and work out there instead.
While you could go all-out and buy yourself the fanciest of home gyms, sports medicine expert and CTV Health blogger Dr. Grant Lum says there's no need for that. Working out at home doesn't have to be complicated or costly, says the medical director of Athletic Edge Sports Medicine, in Toronto.
In fact, a home gym that gets results for beginners and experienced athletes alike can consist of just a few devices. Lum has offered to CTV.ca his top 10 favourite fitness tools that are effective at building strength and reducing injury.
Most of his picks challenge the core, training the muscles that support the spine. "So that's the internal abdominal muscles, not the six-pack muscles but the internal muscles," Lum says.
Building strength in this area can prevent an injury by protecting your back, he says, "but also it helps to generate more power for your favourite sport. So core training is a prevention tool and a performance tool."
Here's the list of Lum's favourite workout tools:
Therapy ball
Exercise balls have been the "it thing" fitness gadget for so long, they're now a fixture in most gyms. They go by dozens of names like body balls and Swiss balls, but are all essentially giant balls made from PVC that are used work the core.
While they can be used to do exercises that specifically target abdominal and spinal muscles, like plank poses and sit-ups, "even just sitting on it will work your core muscles because it's an unstable base," says Lum.
So instead of standing to work arm muscles with bicep curls, exercisers can work two areas of their body by doing those curls while sitting on the ball, engaging their core by trying to remain balanced on the ball.
BOSU Balance trainer
A BOSU is much like a therapy ball but is actually a half ball, mounted on a base. Rather than sitting on the ball, a user stands while performing exercises.
The key difference is that it's more stable than a therapy ball, so it can be used for more complicated exercises, such as athletic drills and aerobic activities. Essentially, any exercise that you can be performed on the ground can be performed on a BOSU, which will increase the effectiveness of the exercise.
"By working on an unstable platform, you're forcing your core to stabilize you all the time. So you could do exercises standing on a pillow, or you could do them on a therapy ball if you're very advanced; this is somewhere in the middle," says Lum.
Balance board
Balance boards consist of either a board on top of what looks like a soup can, or a disk on top of a ball. "A balance board is like taking a BOSU and flipping it upside down," says Lum, "so it's a little more complicated to use."
Originally produced for skiers and surfers to practice balancing during their downtime, a balance board can be used for training in all sports and is great for increasing coordination and leg strength. They can also be used to stretch leg muscles, like the Achilles tendon and are
good for anyone practicing, basketball or turf sports, but especially winter sports, such as skiing and snowboarding.
"The athletic position you would use to balance on the board - slightly bent over, knees bent, hips bent - is the same position you use while skiing, right?" Lum notes.
Quick change dumbbells
Dumbbells have long been a staple in gyms of all sizes because they can be used to work just about any muscle in the body. But a full set of dumbbells can be expensive and space-hogging. Quick change dumbbells solve both problems by providing a range of weights in a small amount of space at a lower cost.
The quick-change systems work with a handle and plates. Users either dial a dial or pull a pin to have the handle pick up as many plates as needed.
"They come in different weight ranges, so you can ones that are good for beginners that go up to 30 or 40 pounds, while advanced sets go up to 250 lbs and even higher," says Lum.
"With a simple bench and a set of quick change dumbbells you can do a ton of different exercises. And free weights allow a range of motion that is more natural rather than the simple one plane offered by exercise machines," he adds.
Heart rate monitor
The best way to improve fitness and see results is to train at the right intensity. With a heart rate monitor, you can make sure you're not over- or under-training, whole also monitoring over time how you're building cardiovascular strength.
Heart rates monitor usually consist of a strap that's wrapped around the chest and that transmits info to a receiver worn on the wrist. (Most receivers usually double as watches and timers.) There are even heart rate monitors built into sports bras or shirts.
"They're important for monitoring performance. But also, from a safety standpoint, they're especially good for those people who are just embarking on a new exercise routine, or for people who are coming off cardiovascular surgery or have some chronic medical condition like diabetes, high blood pressure, or recovering from something like a concussion. A monitor can ensure that you stay in a certain range that is designated by your physician," says Lum.
Kettlebells
Kettlebells are hand weights that look like cannonballs with handles. They've been used for as long as anyone can remember, and have long been popular in Russian and Eastern Europe.
"There's a big change going on towards old-school training methods in the last few years," says Lum. "So we're getting back into exercises like the clean and jerk weightlifting, straight-leg dead lifts and things."
While dumbbells and barbells isolate specific muscles, kettlebells are inherently unstable because the weight hangs off the hand; so lifting and steadying them engages many muscles at once, including those all-important stabilizing core muscles.
Lum says kettlebells can be used just as you would dumbbells, "or you can use them for what we call plyometric exercises, for producing fast, powerful movements. So a tennis player can grab one and swing it across the body like they would with a tennis racquet, for example," he says.
Masking tape
Lum includes this tool, which can be found in any toolbox or kitchen junk drawer, just to show how simple exercise at home can be.
He suggests using the tape to mark a giant X on the floor to create four quadrants and then jumping from quadrant to quadrant, to train for any sport that involves cutting and turning, or lunging, such as basketball, volleyball, soccer, or racquet sports.
"That kind of jumping exercise, or plyometric exercise, helps to build strength and agility," says Lum. "By forcing the muscles to work in that explosive fashion, going from relaxed to engaged quickly, it approximates what you'd do while lunging for a ball in squash or running across the court to catch a drop shot in tennis, for example."
"By regularly training your muscles to do these movements, you're going to increase your power to do those sports while also, again, reducing the chance of injury if you have to suddenly execute those moves," Lum adds.
Yoga DVD
"Yoga is a great supplementary exercise," Lum believes. "It's good for stretching and flexibility, but it also builds strength, so it's a great addition to any routine."
Because the movements are slow, they're not complicated and carry low risk for injury. Yoga is also a great activity to do on off days or days when you don't have time for a full workout and doing yoga at home is great for people who don't like the crowds of exercise classes.
"It's always better to get instruction from a live teacher who can watch what you do and give you feedback but that's not always practical for everybody. So this is a good introduction," he says.
Weightlifting gloves
Lum sees a lot of injuries from weightlifting free weights at his sports medicine clinic, b"ecause if you have very moist hand or very dry hands, you start to lose your grip on a weight after a while," he says. "As well, if you have to grip hard to hold something, that can lead to forearm injuries and things like tennis or golfer's elbow."
Since weightlifting gloves can prevent those injuries, they are well worth the couple of dollars they cost.
Functional trainer
If price is no object, Lum says a fantastic investment for a home gym would be a functional trainer such as the Torque F5.
Functional trainers are weight machines that run on cables that can be moved into multiple positions, allowing for dozens of exercises. Like any home gym, the trainers let you lift a heavy weight without needing a spotter. But functional trainers are superior to traditional machines because the handle and pulley system allows for a more natural range of motion rather than just one plane of movement provided by machines that use bars and pulleys.
"Just the way they're designed, you can go through more functional type movements, just as you would in your favourite sport," says Lum. "With most home gyms, you're stuck moving in one direction only, which isn't necessarily how you really move in sports or real life."
They also have the advantage of folding away neatly, and actually look pretty good in your basement. "They're just a beautiful thing," says Lum.
