Meridian Gyms | Most Affordable Gym

Meridian Gyms | Most Affordable Gym

This is Brett Denton with Boise Gyms and Meridian Gyms in Boise Idaho. And today we’re going to talk about the different ways that you can work out without a gym and why going to a gym might be a bad idea for you. Or at least not a good idea. So let’s dig right in here and let’s talk about you know the going to a gym versus staying at home and working out or going out and doing something else. So when you go to the gym the many different types of gyms right. Meridian Gyms You have your big box gyms and these are gyms where you basically rent equipment and rent space and you don’t get any services other than you get access to treadmills lifting equipment like free weights and machines. You know maybe they have a pool maybe house and tennis courts and stuff like that because you get access to a lot of amenities and if you use those it’s a great deal. And what happens with most of these gyms are what happens with the clients who pay for most of these gyms is they’ll pay you know anywhere from ten dollars a month like for your planet fitness is all the way up to maybe 200 dollars per month. Add your more high end boutique type of gyms like your Equinox fitness. OK. And so what happens with these gyms is people end up not using them because you know it’s not a huge investment especially for you like your planet fitness with ten dollars per month.  Your Equinox is a little bit bigger investment of course but a lot of people that are using the equinox gyms are people who have a decent amount of money and 200 dollars to them per month for a gym membership isn’t a lot of money. And so what happens is is that people don’t use the gyms right. And these big box gyms actually count on this. Meridian Gyms The goal of the big box gym is quite simply to have as many memberships as they possibly can. The more memberships they have the more money they’re going to make. Obviously this is very self-explanatory. And the goal of these gyms is to not have people show up that frequently because when people show up frequently and actually use the amenities and use the equipment the equipment needs to get replaced and that replacement costs the company money. Right. So the gym only wants people to use the facilities every once in a while. We’re not at all. You know I mean the gyms would rather have people never show up and just continue to pay them a membership. That way the gym always looks good and it’s more of like a sales model than an actual working gym. And so this works well for you if you’re somebody who is self-motivated. So if you’re somebody who’s self-motivated then by all means get a gym membership and get a gym membership.  Meridian Gyms With all the amenities that you’re going to need now a lot of people don’t need the higher end gyms because they don’t need some fancy locker room. They don’t need steam rooms they don’t need no exercise classes. They don’t need those things. They don’t need a swimming pool they don’t need basketball courts. They just want to work out. So if you just want to work out you can find a gym that has the atmosphere and the equipment that you want. This is extremely important when you’re looking for a gym though. You got to find a gym that has people who are similar to you and has an atmosphere and an environment that you like and you feel good in. Otherwise you’re not going to go right that’s friction. If it’s someplace that you don’t like to go so you’ve got to find a gym that you like. Right. But you don’t need all the bells and whistles unless of course you’re going to use the bells and whistles. So if you’re self-motivated you’re going to take yourself the gender you get to work at on your own. You’re going to take use of the amenities that are provided than a gym membership to big box gym is a phenomenal investment because it’s a very little amount of money for a tremendous amount of years. So great idea for you if that is you don’t get. Now that’s not a lot of people that maybe maybe 50 percent or sorry 15 percent of the population maybe. So that’s you great. You’re are probably already doing it right now. Meridian Gyms Now for the rest of the people. Right. They want to be in shape and they’re not sure where to go or how to do it or any of that. All right. So we could talk about what it’s like to work out on your own at home. This is going to save you the money of hiring a personal trainer.

It’s going to save you the money from going to a gym but you do have to invest in a few things if you want to get a really good workout. Now can you do bodyweight workouts. Sure you can do bodyweight workouts and we’re going to talk about that today. So here are all the different ways that you can work out on your own. If you don’t want to go to a Boise gym or Meridian gym in Idaho and Idaho and Boise in particular is a great place to be because you’re able to do a lot of things in the outdoors. Right. There’s foothills nearby. There’s a lot of greenbelts paths in the town. It’s very it’s very easy to bicycle all out of places so there’s a lot of things that you can do. So let’s look at the easiest things you can do if you had a bicycle you could start biking everywhere you go. Right. So instead of driving some or want you start taking your bicycle right. That’s a very easy way to start getting some exercise without actually having to exercise right. You’re doing something that you already are doing. And so instead of taking five minutes to get somewhere maybe a plane in ten minutes and you take your bicycle instead. This is a great way to get physical activity and in fact. You know I think it’s I’m not sure the country exactly Denmark I want to say but I’m not sure that’s correct. You know they have a huge population of bicyclists who commute to work and this is a tremendous way to get activity and it’s a tremendous way to get exercise and it’s a great way to stay healthy without having to add extra workout time to your already busy schedule. Meridian Gyms So start biking more places right now does this mean you have to do this every single time you commute to work or go anywhere. No but you know started doing it when you have time it started doing more of it because a little bit it’s going to be better than nothing at all. So start riding your bike more places. All right that’s number one. Number two start walking more. Meridian Gyms Right. Quite simply parked further away. And I know you’ve probably heard this a million times but it’s true. Just start walking more started doing low level activities more if you have a sitting if you sit at a desk all day long stop sitting at your desk so much I’d get a standing desk or get one of those walking treadmills to put at your desk and get more low level activity and take the stairs instead of taking the elevator if you are forced to sit at a desk and you can’t decide on what type of desk you have then sent an alarm to get up every 30 minutes so every 30 minutes take a five minute break and as a matter of fact more and more studies are showing that if you take these little five minute breaks every 30 to 50 minutes you’re going to have a better opportunity to have more focus. You’re going to be more focused you’re going to be able to concentrate better you’re going to be able to have a better output at your work. OK. So you want to make sure that you’re getting those breaks and you’re taking those Rest’s about every 30 to 60 Minutes. And so that’s another one get a lot of low level activity. Meridian Gyms Right now low level activity is going to make sure that you’re moving more so your metabolism is up. You’re also not going to get stuck in certain postures as often if you look around people who are sitting at computers a lot they end up being hunched over and bent over and they get really tight in their packs and their shoulders and they get weak in their upper back. And this causes a lot of shoulder issues and a lot of posher issues. So again just getting up and moving around more is a tremendous idea. So those two things alone are going to start to improve your health your well-being your metabolism your attitude your sleep I just tremendous tremendous benefits to those things. So start bicycling more start walking and moving more. All right. So now let’s take it up another notch. OK so let’s say you have a little extra time and you want to start doing some stuff on your own that doesn’t involve a gym. All right a lot of people are going to go immediately to saying you should start running and I’m going to not say that I’m going actually tell you that running is an advance sport. And there’s a really good book out there by Kelly’s start and it’s called Ready to Run. If you want to start running I highly recommend you get that book first and you go through that book and you go through all the tests in that book to

determine when you are actually ready to start running. Running is an advanced sport because you have. Multiple impacts of the foot and the joints of the body over and over and over again on anything from a concrete surface to an unstable surface like if you’re doing trail running up in the Boise foothills. And this is something that your body has to be ready for. Your body has to be ready to take the absorption of those steps over and over and over again. So it’s important thing that you’re actually prepared and ready to do it. OK. So we’ll get to that in a second. But instead of starting out with running why don’t you start out with some gentle yoga movements. There’s this thing called the Five rites of Tibetan yoga. You can look it up online and you can go through those. Right just start doing those first thing in the morning. Meridian Gyms They’re going to get your body limber and loose. They’re also going to be help you strengthen your body if you haven’t been doing much. And so you start with I think it’s one to three reps and you work yourself all the way up to 21 reps. This is a great thing to add into your program because it doesn’t take very much time. You can do just about any time of the day but if you can knock it out first thing in the morning great you have your exercise out of the way for the day you’re going to feel better you’re going to increase your energy your mobility is going to start feeling better. In other words are joints are going to be able to move better. Meridian Gyms You can start improving some strength. And so that’s a good place to start right. Some gentle stretching some gentle movements to really get the body ready to do more difficult physical activity. And that starts with mobility and getting your body into a conditioning state or condition state or can actually handle heavier or more intense workouts. So that’s the first step of a more intense program than the second step would be start doing some bodyweight movements and these can be very simple basic foundational patterns so you can start doing bodyweight squats bodyweight squats are easy. And if you don’t know how to do them it’s very easy. Just grab a chair and sit down in the chair and then stand back up and sit back down in the chair and stand back up and just do this you know five to ten times to start out and then you get stronger you can do it more and you can increase the quantity you can increase the reps you can increase the frequency. Meridian Gyms So squats are a good one to start with another one maybe a basic push up. Now I don’t recommend that you start out in a push up straight on the ground instead start in what we call a pop which pee you pee pee. It stands for push up position plank. This puts up position plank is the top of a push up so you can imagine what the top of the push up looks like where your arms are straight you’re course tight. Your legs are straight. That’s what you want to work on first you want to master that position before you do any movement in the push up position. OK so master that gets so you can hold that good in tight for one minute without taking a break. Once you can hold it for one minute without taking a break the next step would be a ASKAP push up ASKAP push up is where are you. Meridian Gyms You’re moving your body around the scapulars and you’re really strengthening all the musculature there in the upper back but specifically the musculature that attaches to the scapulars and the next step would be a hands elevated push up and then so all you do on this one is you put your hands up maybe on a bed or a chair or even a table and then you can start working that push up movement but you’re not having to push your entire body weight. You’re pushing a percentage of your body weight and so it’s a little bit easier and it just slowly worked down lower and lower and lower until you can get to your full horizontal pushup right. So you got your squats you got your push ups and then and the movement you can do is what’s called the hip bridge or a hip extension. There’s movement is very simple but it really is a key movement pattern and it’s going to activate the glutes hamstrings in a little bit of the lower back and it’s a tremendous exercise to do this when all you need to do is you lay on your back you bend your legs up you know and then you just push your hips to the sky by squeezing your glutes digging your heels into the ground. And then you go back down touch the ground with your butt and come back up and it’s as simple as that. You know you get it you start out 10 reps or so and you can increase your reps as you go. All right.

Some other movements can be found just about any Internet service that you type in body weight training. And this is a fantastic way to get started. But again I highly recommend that you work on mobility and stability before adding a bunch of strength patterns and strength movements into it. Don’t worry about adding any weight until you have the proper patterns down in the proper mobility. Now once you do so once you’ve mastered these bodyweight movements and you feel good and your mobile and you can move well you can get a set of weights. Now one of the best sets of weights to get for a home gym is what are called power blocks. Now power blocks are adjustable but they don’t take up very much room. So you can get a set of power blocks all the way from five pounds I believe clear up to like 120 pounds. But they only take up the space of about one dumbbell. And so they’re tremendous when it comes to saving space and they’re absolutely efficient when it comes to changing weights and making sure that you have every weight that you could need right so you can go up in five pound increments. And I don’t think most people will ever max out a set of power blocks of power blocks are a great first tool to add to your home gym because you can do a lot of stuff with them and you can get as high of weight as you could possibly need for a home gym setup and you can do a lot with a 120 pound dumbbell on each hand. You know I mean that’s 240 pounds total. And there’s not a lot of people who are going to be doing dumbbell work with 240 pounds. Meridian Gyms So I’d be the first tool that I would add. Once I mastered the body weight training at my home gym The second tool which is absolutely fantastic is resistance bands and you can visit the best place to get resistance bands is W WW resistance band training Dotcom can WWE resistance band training Dakang is a great place to get resistance bands and the ones that you want to get aren’t the ones with the handles. You want to get the ones that are just like a regular rubber band right so there’s no end and there’s no beginning. It’s just one loop. These are fantastic because you can use them for a lot of different things. And again I would go to that website resistance band training dotcom to make sure that you understand all the moving patterns but there’s plenty of programs on there that you can purchase and you can do all these you know at your home or anywhere. Resistance bands are one of the best tools for you to travel with. Right so if you’re going to go on a work travel you can take those resistance bands that fit right in your luggage and you can do a hotel workout you can do a workout out in the park you know just tremendous thing to have whether it be in your home gym or when you’re traveling. So those some things that you can do when you’re working out and you don’t want to work out at a gym. Tremendous movements. Now if you ever are wanting to come to a gym and you’re in Idaho come out to one of our Boise gyms or out to one of our Meridian gyms and we’d love to show you the movements that we do that you could also take home and do on your own.