Unless you’re a chronic gym junkie, just the thought of exercising can sometimes be enough to make you want to crawl back into bed or flop on the couch with a pint of ice cream and your latest Netflix DVD. Trying to stick to a long-term fitness plan can bring down even the best of us.
Wonder workouts, five-minute fat-blasters, and gimmicky insta-diets are extremely popular, but that collapsible total gym you saw on a 3 a.m. infomercial while finishing up a box of cold pizza and a couple of Cokes isn’t going to magically turn you into an exercise fiend, and it’s more than likely not worth however many easy payments they’re asking for.
Instead of spending your student loan money on some as-seen-on-TV fitness contraption that you’ll use maybe two or three times before it becomes your new laundry rack, try engaging in a physical activity that you enjoy. When you’re having a good time while you’re being active, the regular-exercise part will just kind of happen without you having to dread doing it.
1) Skateboarding
Your button and joystick fingers may have mastered the kickflip and the 15-foot staircase grind on every one of your Tony Hawk video games, now try your hand at it in real life. Skateboarding is an activity that you can do almost anywhere, on your own or with a group of your friends, it’s cheap, and it can double as an environmentally friendly mode of transportation around campus. It’s also a terrific lower-body and core strength workout that’ll burn calories and help you lose weight.
2) Balance Boards
A balance board is a piece of wood like a skateboard deck that rests on a cylindrical “rock” or roller. You’ll have to use your lower body and core strength to stay balanced on top of the board. You can use a balance board on any hard, flat surface for cross-training or rehabilitation to improve your balance, motor skills, coordination, and leg strength.
3) Dance Dance Revolution
If you’ve ever seen the hardcore DDRers flailing their limbs and stepping, cross-stepping, and freestyling up a sweat in the arcades, then you know why this video game can double as a workout that’s not for the weak. Buy any one of the many DDR editions for your Playstation 2, PS3, Xbox or Wii, and you’ll have a fun cardio-building challenge that you can take on in your living room at a lower level intensity.
4) Nintendo Wii
Although the consoles can be hard to get your hands on, once you do, the physical movement involved in playing Wii games can tone up a set of weak or flabby arms. Wii Sports, which comes bundled with the Wii, lets you play virtual tennis, baseball, golf, bowling, and boxing, providing a light in-home workout. All five games require upper-body strength and coordination, and the virtual boxing matches can get your heart pumping pretty fast. Or you can go all out with Wii Fit, which comes with a balance board and features more than 40 activities and exercises, including strength training, aerobics, yoga, and balance games, specifically designed to get you in shape.
5) Cardio Tennis
Not so great at serves or returns? It doesn’t really matter with this new fitness craze. You’ll get a fresh-air workout without having to engage in monotonous and high-impact activities like running. These classes can improve your tennis technique, but the focus is on aerobic training as you engage in drills and spurts of high-intensity activity.
6) BalleCore
BalleCore is a cross-combination exercise form, integrating Pilates, yoga, and ballet, but without dancing or any dance steps or combinations to memorize. The standard choreographed classes run 55 minutes and focus on core muscle training, posture correction, and techniques that can be practiced outside of class. You won’t need any prior dance experience to start.
7) Zumba
Zumba is a dance-aerobics workout to Latin music that includes interval training and body-toning movements. Incorporating moves and footwork from salsa, merengue, cumbia, flamenco, and other Latin dances, this infectious exercise doesn’t feel like work, just a night out on the club floor.
8) Capoeira
Afro-Brazilian slaves created this fusion of game, sport, and art form during the 16th century as a kind of combat disguised as dance. Combining kickboxing, boxing, groundwork, dance, and acrobatics, this martial art is taught in classes throughout the country. All you need to become a practicing capoeirista is loose-fitting clothing and an open space.
9) Tae Bo
The Billy Blanks late-’90s workout sensation is still kicking. Starting at $19.98, these DVD workouts bring together kickboxing and tae kwon do exercises for a cardio and strength-building training program that you can carry out in the convenience of your own home, once you clear away some space. Just maybe keep the blinds closed for this one.
10) Neuromuscular Integrative Action (Nia)
A relatively new fitness method, Nia takes a holistic approach to exercise. Blending nine classic movement forms — including tai chi, tae kwon do, jazz, and yoga — taken from martial arts, healing arts, and dance, Nia seeks to address the body, mind, emotions, and spirit in combination with physical activity.