Saturday, December 3, 2011

30 Days To The Abyss Day 3

Welcome to day three! Today I'm going to talk about gear. One thing I've found is that you don't have to belong to super-ulta-mega gym to get fantastic results. You can achieve amazing results with absolutely nothing more than your own body. However, some basic gear can help you break up the monotony of just doing pushups, situps, pullups and running through the neighborhood day after day. I'm going to show you what I use given my budget and living arrangements but it's up to you to determine what you will need or want to achieve your goals.

The single most important piece of gear I have is a Camelbak Groove water bottle. I got mine at Target ($25) and they also sell the replaceable filters. These things are pure genius and super simple. They allow you to fill up with water from any source and the filter takes out the gunk and nasty taste and gives you a bottle of tasty refreshing water. I carry mine with me everywhere and I've filled up in the kitchen sink, a public bathroom sink (shudder), any number of drinking fountains and even a garden hose. There are a number of different types but my research showed these to be the most reliable and the filters last many more fill ups than the competition. You can get over 300 fill ups with these before replacing the filter. Look around cuz the prices vary. Here is the link to the Camelbak site. http://www.camelbak.com/Sports-Recreation/Bottles/CamelBak-Groove-6L.aspx




Next, and without too much description is the rest of the gear. You don't need a lot of weight or even really heavy weights. I got a bunch of different sizes so that I could really vary my exercises. There is also a jump rope in there because it is a great overall body exercise to jump rope. There is also a TRX exercise system (http://www.trxtraining.com/). I haven't used it yet but it comes highly recommended from my friend who's been on a SEAL Team for the past several years so I'm looking forward to putting it to the test. Another piece of equipment in this picture is a heart rate monitor. If you want to get really technical and do different types of training and keep track of what's going on then you have to have one of these. Keeping track of your heart rate will help you determine if you're working in a cardio zone or a fat burning zone or even if you're about to have a massive coronary! And of course in the second picture is the Iron Gym. I got this to do pullups and various ab exercises so that I don't need someone else to hold my legs.


































Depending on your goals you may decide that you need other equipment. You also may decide that you would just prefer to belong to a gym. Whatever you decide just remember that a piece of equipment unused is nothing more than clutter. Get off your ass and get moving!

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to add an equipment suggestion from my own experience: Workout or resistance bands.

    http://www.amazon.com/Aylio-Fitness-Exercise-Anchor-Medium/dp/B0026PMD70/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1323012466&sr=8-11

    These things are amazing. They store very easily and are so. damn. versatile. You can use them for stretching, for extra resistance in just about any workout that you can do at home, and my favorite, you can use them for -assistance- in things like pull-ups, if you're like me and need to build the upper-body strength necessary to to proper pull-ups. Doing an exercise properly is very, very important to your ability to do said exercise without hurting yourself. I'm simply no good at pull-ups, so normally use the assistance machine at the gym and over weeks drop the weight. But when there isn't one of those available, you can just loop one of these bands over the bar, tuck your feet or knees into it, and use it to help you.

    I know I probably sound like an advertisement, but seriously. I love these things. (Also they allow me to do inverted push-ups, which makes me feel like a badass even when I use assistance.)

    My two cents. :)

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  2. I agree with you. I have several of them but after the move we still have things in a storage unit and I think they're buried somewhere. It'll take me a bit of maneuvering to get those dug out!

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