Trying to stay sane and fit at home? Maybe it’s time to finally put that garage gym together! (photo courtesy of insider.com)
Over the last 10 years or so I’ve become accustomed to working out at home rather than a gym. Prior to that I utilized the high school, college, or company gyms. What changed was access to a gym and time limitations. I found it just as effective and much more convenient to work out at home. The thing now is many of you don’t have a choice. Surely you haven’t just given up hope for maintaining your physical prowess and overall health?
With that, I can only assume you have taken action to facilitate working out at home. If you haven’t, don’t fear there are plenty of options so you don’t have to sacrifice your meat hauling abilities and beautiful bodies! As I’ve written numerous times, nature gives us all we really need to stay in hunting shape. Find a road, trail, hill, lake, or whatever and get moving. Walk, run, swim, burpees, go for it. It’ll do more for you than you realize.
Find some pavement and pound it if nothing else. You’ll make gains which will beat the alternative of sitting around accomplishing nothing. (photo courtesy of holabirdsports.com)
As for me, I’ve kept it pretty simple over the years as far as equipment at home goes. Sandbags, kettlebells, and body weight exercises have treated me well. I picked up a treadmill along the way for the convenience of logging miles when the weather is bad (although I have and would encourage you to head outside during those bad times to condition your mind to handle the additional challenges) or want to watch hunting shows while I work up a sweat.
My home gym is very basic but allows enough flexibility that I feel I can touch on enough exercises to be a lean mean hunting machine.
I am seeing some pretty sweet setups popping up on the web though. If you have the coin or even come across a sweet deal the sky is the limit for your garage/basement gym. If I decided I wanted to upgrade my setup my first purchase would be a squat rack, straight bar, and weights. I feel that with that setup I could easily maintain peak performance and hit 80%-90% of the exercises I would even care to execute. From there I may look at a bench of some sort that could facilitate a few additional lifts/movements and maybe some dumbbells. The nice thing about mixing in dumbbell variations is working muscles individually and also forcing your body to balance itself when working only one side or the other.
I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t mind having something like this in my basement. (photo courtesy of garagegymreviews.com)
Whether your gym is open, you’ve simply taken up running, or you have that bad ass gym in your garage, keep at it. It will be of benefit to both your mental and physical health. If you have always wanted to create your own sweaty sanctum now may be the best excuse you’ve ever had. Don’t make excuses, create results. Good luck out there!
Hunting Fit 