I’ve always had this thing about “working out;” frankly, I think it looks kind of silly, or at least I think I would doing so. What I want to know is, what can I do to 1)Tighten up my torso a little- for no other reason, really, than vanity and 2) up my pathetic cardiovascular endurance without leaving my house and without using any equipment other than, say, heavy objects for lifting? I suppose I could go running at night, but really, at this point I tire of running so quickly that it’s useless as exercise. What can I do to reach a level where I can jog for a long enough period that it’s actually useful? Jumping jacks?
Push-ups sit-ups and jumping jacks. Then run as far as you can then turn around and walk for a min and run home. Just make sure you go further every day.
The above works just fine, but I would add:
Different types of sit-ups to work different areas
Deep-knee bends to work your butt muscles
Stretching to keep you limber
You can add a pull-up bar to a doorway to work your back and shoulder muscles
Sideways leg-lifts will give your thighs a nice definition.
Put the phonebook on the floor near a grabbable object (doorframe?) put the balls of your feet on the edge of it and do calf exercises
Doing 20 of each of those (5 pull-ups) will give you a nice workout in 15-20 minutes.
-Tcat
Get some hand weights (or even cans of beans) and do arm curls or lunges with them.
Lunges are great along with weights (long strides where you bring your thighs parallel to the ground), and should help put your heart rate up quickly. Keeping it above 120-30 for 15 mins oncea day will do a world of good.
You can get a good resistance work-out with an “exer - tube”. They are inexpensive but very effective. For a cardio work-out, maybe you could pick up a step - the kind they use in aerobics. You might even get one of those work-out videos. I have several friends that use those.
If by “tighten up your torso” you mean lose you spare tire, there is no way to spot reduce. You must lose weight all over your body through aerobic exercise and eating less food. No exercise can target weight loss in a particular part of your body, regardless what informercials say.
You might want to look for a book on Tai Chi or Qi Gong. Although you may disagree wiht some of the philosophical aspects of the practice, theexercises techniques are sound. Most of them can be performed safely and easily in your room. After a lapse in fitness, you should begin with a light aerobic program so as not to stress your body too much and then ease into free weights, pushup, or situps to build strength. If jogging is your interest, concentrate on increasing your aerobic capacity.
As an aside, I have a book called “The People’s Republic of China 5 Minute Exercise Program” that was published in about 1970 to promote universal fitness for all Chinese people. It contained a subset of Qi Gong exercises interspersed with activites such as running in place or windmills. It’s a great artifact from the Cultural Revolution - and useful too. I don’t remember where I got it - probably from one of the embassy kids I grew up with - but I used to perform the exercises at home in my room all the time.
Go buy yourself a set of adjustable dumbbells. And you’re not going to be able to up your endurance without doing some kind of cardio work; unless you buy a treadmill or an exercise bike or something like that, you’re gonna need to leave your room.
Well, not actually. You can always run around your bed a zillion times. 
My suggestion to build up your endurance so you can run/jog for a reasonable time is to go out and run as far as you can comfortably - even if it’s only 100 yards. Then walk until you feel you can run again. Repeat this for 20 minutes. Eventually you will be able to run/jog the whole 20 minutes and will then be able to expand upon that. Do not run fast. Run comforably, within your comfort zone, no matter how slow, until you can run for 20 minutes. Then you can either start running faster or longer, or both, slowly.
ashtanga yoga.
I’ve never felt so good!
I am assuming from the OP that all of the suggestions to run a wee bit at a time until you build up some endurance aren’t quite doing it for you. (Not that they are bad suggestions, mind you). What about walking? No, not power-walking (a form straight from the MOSW). Just throw on pretty comfortable shorts and a t-shirt, go outside and jet along at as brisk a pace as you can handle. See how far you get in a half hour or so, and use that as a guide to gauge progress. And how do you ensure you don’t look silly? Simple, really. Just make sure every half a block or so you look down at your watch and mutter something under your breath. No one will suspect you are exercising, they will all assume you are merely late for some meeting or rendezvous.
10 replies and not a single lewd suggested answer to the OP, I am soooooo dissappointed.
You might be interested in working out to exercise videos. You can choose from a variety of instructors and a lot of videos are under $20.00. Why not go to www.collagevideo.com and also www.videofitness.com and check out the suggestions there?
Some good suggestions, but many of you missed a critical point- I don’t want to buy anything, and I don’t want to go for a nice jog in public. Maybe in the dead of night, but then I look like I’m running away from something.
Actually, I walk quickly almost everywhere and do it quite a bit, so that’s something anyway.
So go for a not so nice jog in public. Streak. Hey, everyone is running out in public. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. When I first started running, it was sort of unusual and people thought, on occasion, that I was a burglar or something, until they realized that I could not possibly be running away from something at that slow pace.
My mom uses my VCR in my room to watch a walking tape 2 or 3 times a week. It doesn’t take but about 4 square feet, and no one sees her. She is up to 2 miles now (it’s a set of tapes).
Since you don’t want to buy anything, why not walk in place while you watch TV? Better yet, watch MTV. In the mornings, VH1 has a “cardio-something” show for an hour or so that you could walk to.
Part of the tape my mom watches included using small hand weights (or soup cans) for part of the walk. It helps posture and strength.
Another thing you can do, which someone has mentioned, is some step-up exercises. You can do it while walking!
Moving at a good pace for just 30 mins a day is going to increase your cardio fitness.
I understand the thing about not wanting to go out to do this. There’s a lot of stuff to do at home. Have fun!
Alright. Unfortunately I don’t really watch TV at all these days, and when I watch movies I like to concentrate. But I’ve taken to lifting while I read message boards…
Scotth, I did… on the 1st response.
That’s all good stuff, but I have one thing to disagree with and one thing to add.
Disagree: Never, never do deep knee bends. Anything past 90 degrees is bad for your knees.
Add: A gallon milk jug full of water is just over eight pounds. Now you have dumbbells. Lie on your back and lift them in various positions. Put your chest on a tall stool, and do the same lifts facing down. Stand up. Keeping your upper arms still, slowly, slowly lift your hands to your collarbones. That’s a concentration curl. Hold your elbows up with your milk jugs near your ears. Slowly straighten your arms, up. That’s a military press. Improvize. Just be careful not to hurt yourself.
Get a skipping rope. A standard 8 foot ceiling will give you just enough room to swing it (assuming you’re not 7 feet tall). Just go to the hardware store and spend the $1.50 for 8 feet of rope - that smooth, dense kind (someone else here knows the material I’m sure).
You can spend the first few days tripping over it and feeling embarrassed, but no one will see you. Then start going faster, longer, and eventually work up to the Rocky movies high-speed double skip routine. Even when you first start out, within 30 seconds your heartrate will be soaring, and you’ll be out of breath within a few minutes. Give that a try for cardio. Open the window too, 'cause you’ll want the fresh air.