Recommended home fitness programs

If you have zero foundation/time fragmentation, choose "Basic Training without Equipment"; if you have 1-3 months of exercise foundation/want to get in shape, choose "Small Equipment Compound Training"; if you have exercise habits/pursue cardiopulmonary improvement, choose "Home Aerobic + Functional Combination Training". There is no need to force yourself to keep up with the high-intensity online training classes that often take an hour.

To be honest, the holes I stepped on could go around my yoga mat three times. I initially followed the trend and bought a complete set of Internet celebrity equipment such as abdominal wheels, yoga wheels, and sliding plates. I gritted my teeth and danced with Pamela for three days. My knees were shaking when I went downstairs. In the end, all the equipment was piled on the balcony to gather dust. It even took up space to press instant noodles. Later, I slowly figured out that the core threshold for home fitness has never been whether the movements are standard or whether the equipment is professional enough. It is whether you can start moving without any psychological burden.

If you have basically no exercise habits before and can't spare a whole block of time every day, there is really no need to make up any training plan. Do half-squats while standing while scrolling through mobile phones, raise your legs while watching TV shows while sitting on the sofa, step your feet repeatedly while washing dishes, and do 15 silent squats against the wall while waiting for takeout. If you add up to 20 minutes of these movements every day, most of your shoulder and back pain can be alleviated. Of course, there are many practitioners of strength training who do not approve of this fragmented training method, believing that it cannot reach the threshold of muscle hypertrophy. If your goal is to develop obvious muscle lines, you really need to focus on systematic training for 30-45 minutes each time. But if you just want to get rid of the discomfort of sitting for a long time, moving is better than not moving, and you don’t have to be bound by the standard of "how long you have to practice for it to be effective."

If you can already easily complete 20 minutes of freehand activities every day and want to do some targeted shaping, there is no need to rush to apply for a fitness card. Spend 20 yuan to buy a pair of 1-3kg dumbbells (you can also use a 2L mineral water bottle filled with water if you don’t want to spend money), and add a resistance band, which can basically cover 80% of your body shaping needs. There are only a few commonly used exercises for me: dumbbell bent-over rowing to train my back, resistance bands on my knees for side steps to train my hips, and seated dumbbell presses to train my shoulders. You don’t have to follow the "shoulder, back, arm, and leg circulation" as the blogger said. If you want to train your back today, do more sets of backs. Tomorrow if your waist is uncomfortable, just train your hips and legs. Whatever feels better. I have a friend who relies on these two gadgets. She practices three times a week and has reduced her waistline by 5cm in more than three months. It is much more useful than the personal training class she spent 3,000 yuan on before - after all, if you can’t buy a private training class, no matter how professional it is, it’s useless.

If you have exercise habits, often going to the gym or running marathons, and want to maintain your cardiorespiratory capacity when you can't go out, you have a wider range of options. If you are not afraid of noise, put on a thick yoga mat of more than 2cm, wear cushioning sneakers, and do a combination of burpees, leg raises, and jumping jacks. Your heart rate in 20 minutes can be equivalent to running 3 kilometers outdoors. I used to live on the third floor of an old community, and after jumping like this for more than half a year, I never came downstairs. Note that the sound of landing on the forefoot is really not that loud. If you are really worried about disturbing others, buy a foldable elliptical trainer or a cordless skipping rope, and do it for 40 minutes while watching a drama. You will not feel tired at all, and you will not disturb others at all. By the way, a reminder here, if you have an old knee injury, don’t follow the trend and do too many jumping movements. It is safer to choose seated strength training or an elliptical machine. Don’t relapse the old injury in order to lose fat.

One last thing to say, there is really no need to worry about which program is the most efficient in burning fat or which movement is the most effective in building a buttocks. Home fitness is simply for convenience. Even if you do the third set of radio gymnastics at home twice a day and persist for three months, it is still better than buying an annual pass and only going three times. I have seen too many people save dozens of fitness videos in their favorites, buy a lot of equipment, and finally give up after practicing for less than a week. Instead of choosing the "best" program that others say, it is better to choose the program that is least strenuous for you to do and easiest to persist. This is the best for you.