Exercise
An essential part of the good life

Introduction

Jerry Seinfeld once said that if the body was a car you wouldn't buy it, because it requires too much maintenance. Given that we are saddled with our bodies, one part of living well is doing the maintenance. Brushing our teeth, getting the right amount of sun, eating mostly plant-based whole foods, taking supplements we need (eg B12), drinking water and checking in with a doctor, dentist and maybe even a physio every now. I'm talking here about the basics, not obsessing about it and I'd go so far as to say that if someone isn't in a reasonable routine with maintaining their health, then they haven't quite "got it together" in life yet. 

An essential maintenance task for our physical and mental health is exercise. You might want to argue with this but just tell your brain to stfu (stop thinking foolishly and unwisely). The first sentence in this paragraph is right, and whatever stupid thing your brain is saying after that is wrong. Time to stop being wrong. The best time to stop being wrong is years ago, the second best time is now.

I have been in decent shape a few times in my life: when I was at school and playing lots of sport, when I worked in a sawmill, and a few times when I was in a good routine with going to a gym etc. Something always intervened though and I would get out of shape pretty quickly if my habits changed, such as when I left school, moved continents, got injured, moved house, started a new job, or embarked upon an IT degree. Anyway, on the positive side, I guess at least I can say I keep returning to exercise, but it's only what I outline below that finally solved the problem for me in a long-term way.  

I should mention something related to my IT degree, where I put on 10kg in the first year. The way we live today is incredibly sedentary. If you look at people living a more traditional forager lifestyle, they often look healthy and even quite ripped. They are living the lifestyle that our bodies evolved for. We aren't meant to sit around all the time like many of us do, especially for our work and repeat after me "capitalism doesn't care for you". Exercise is just something we have to do, that has amazing benefits physically and mentally: as someone once said if they could put all the benefits of exercise into a pill, we would all pay a lot to take it. Of course there is no pill, it would probably have shitty side effects anyway, and you don't need it because you have everything you need to exercise with you already.

Mentally, exercise has been shown to be almost as effective as drugs or therapy for many people. Physically, well the benefits are too many to name, but we can't ignore vanity and looking a bit better. I always think of it in this completely unscientific way: "If I get in 1% better shape, I will be attractive to 1% more people", or for people in relationships like I am, 1% more attractive to your partner.  Now don't check my maths here, but this has some sort of truth to it. We can always look a bit better, and that's something. Sure it would be great to have six-pack abs, but I'll take just a bit less of my keg as well. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Advice

In our society where individuality is a cult and we all want to be the hero, most of us need to get better at taking advice. Not from everyone, not from crappy people, but at least from people who we respect, who care about us.

The reason I am writing this is to try to have a positive influence on others with something that I struggled with myself. I have found a way to exercise regularly at home that works for me, that I enjoy and that solves a large part of the problem.  I like it because it doesn't require going anywhere, much space, much equipment, is cheap, flexible and I can do it in my underpants. Whenever someone tells me that they would like to get in shape, I always want to recommend this method to people, so I thought I would write a little introduction to it rather than try to explain it poorly.

Now it's an interesting thing that someone will say "I need to get in more shape", and when someone starts to give advice about how they do, the person will shut the advice giver down. That is not the correct response unless the person you are talking to is an idiot; the correct response is to listen to what the person has to say, take it seriously, maybe discuss how it could work for you and only discard it if you have a better plan.  If, six months later, your better plan doesn't happen, at least you will have listened to the other person and have a plan B.  I don't care if this is your Plan B, Q, Z or 9 from Outerspace, but here is a solution to your problem, that will help you get to where you want to be, and should be, in life. Also, this plan is compatible with all the others, so there's no reason not to take it seriously. Yes, a lot of people give crap advice, for a start they can't understand your unique situation, but part of doing life well is being able to seriously listen to advice and filter good advice. If you aren't in a good exercise routine, you need to slap yourself in the face, pour a glass of cold water on your head, whatever it takes to wake yourself up and be ready to accept advice.

OK so lots of people go to gyms, but they are expensive and often inconvenient. I am talking about home workouts. I had a friend James who was a Savate (French kickboxing) world champion who I knew through vegan shenanigans. I was at a party of his once that was an interesting combination of kickboxers and ethical vegans, and I saw he had a small home gym. I commented on it and he said something I'll probably misquote but that stuck in my head "Most of the people I know who are really ripped work out at home". The comment about working out at home returned to me when the COVID pandemic happened and going to the gym was weird and potentially dangerous.  It's easy in hindsight to think COVID wasn't a big deal because we know more now. At the time though unless you were relatively young and healthy, the medical profession was really playing catch up with what COVID was, how it was spread, and how deadly it was, and it was a little scary.  I decided I would try working out at home rather than going to a gym and putting a mask on.

Dumbbells

So COVID was weird times, you couldn't even buy things like weights, or more than two cans of baked beans, and I really love me some beans. Luckily I remembered that 20 years earlier I had bought a 29kg pair of adjustable dumbbells. After some searching around the house and garage, I found my old dumbbell bits in various places, which comprised of 4 - 1.25Kg, 4 - 2.5Kg, and 2 - 5Kg weights, along with 2 - 2Kg hand barbells with collars. For each hand, I could swap these weights around and I had variations of 2Kg, 4.5Kg, 7kg, 10Kg, 12Kg and 14.5Kg for different exercises. If I just needed one dumbbell I could even get close to 29Kg. So just to explain what might be obvious to some, you are weaker and stronger doing different body movements, so while for a bicep curl you might use one weight, for an exercise working your legs you might use a heavier one. This is why adjustable dumbbells are awesome, you can flexibly move the weights around for different exercises, and go up in weight on the same exercise as you get stronger.

Here is a picture of a 20Kg set very similar to my first set.

 

It seems now that instead of my old 29Kg set a 20Kg set is more common. My wife actually bought me a 20Kg set for my 50th birthday, and that came with the hand barbells, 4 x 2.5Kg and 4 1.5Kg weights. You can buy a similar set which will last a lifetime for less than $100 AUD. Here are some sets online, but the links will probably break soon and you can find them anywhere:

Adjustable dumbbells at BIG W (Australia) with metal and rubber handles which might not be as durable.

Adjustable dumbbells on Amazon.com.au with metal handles.

You can get plastic weights and various others, but I like these because they are immortal and interchangeable. These are standard weights, with a 1-inch diameter hole in the middle (as opposed to the wider diameter Olympic style). That means you can expand them at will with heavier weights as you get stronger, weights that you can buy anywhere, from sports shops to variety stores. You will also find these weights easily and cheaply second-hand. I also now have 4 - 0.5Kg weights which someone left for free outside of a nearby house, as well as 2 - 10Kg weights which a friend gave me when they were moving house. You can also buy additional pairs of the dumbbell barbels and collars to enable you to have more variations of the weights you already have. 

So now I have 2 complete pairs which gives me a couple of ready-to-go weight combinations for doing sets. A "set" in gym talk, is where you combine multiple exercises, usually 2. The exercises in a set usually work different muscles so you rest one muscle group while working another and can achieve more time-efficient workouts. Say I am doing a set that alternates between a leg squat and a bicep curl, I load one pair up and put lighter weights on the other. This means I don't have to change between each exercise of the set. Not that this is much of a hassle, you can change weights in a minute or two, and before I got the second pair of adjustable dumbbells I would just pause my workout, swap the weights and it was fine. Note there are some very fancy adjustable dumbbells that I talk about in the notes at the bottom of this page if you are really serious.

Now let's say you spent the money and you now have a pair of adjustable dumbbells that will last you for decades, now what?  To the Internet!

Finding workouts

The Internet is awash with free workouts, from pdfs of routines, to videos of classes and various workouts. You can also pay for lots of things such as classes and online real-time lessons with personal trainers.

Personally, I searched YouTube, and it's almost intimidating how many free exercise videos there are on there.  I tried typing in "dumbbell workout" and got a few random ones I didn't really like, shirtless bros covered in tattoos, and surgicallly altered women in skimpy outfits, not to diss the beautiful young people, but they weren't my vibe. Finally, I found a channel with two trainers who seemed like regular people with an incredible variety of workouts. So here are Coach Cozak and Claudia, and their channel HASFit - Heart and Soul Fitness! No vocal fry, some bad jokes, and nice unserious people. A nice thing I found out about their workouts too is that Coach Cozak often does a slightly harder version of the same exercise that Claudia does, so you can follow whichever one of them works for you on a given day. I have some knee and shoulder issues so I usually do Claudia's version there. 

 

Here is the HasFIT playlist of free muscle-building exercise routines. The total body workouts I do go from about 15 minutes to over an hour. Basically, I just figure out how much time I have/how energetic I'm feeling, and I go through and pick a workout to match from that list.  They have all sorts of more targeted workouts, remediation workouts, beginner workouts and various styles of cardio workouts, so you aren't limited to one sort. I've also made my own YouTube playlists of HASfit total body workouts and cardio workouts that I like and put them in time order so I can pick one quickly.  So check out the HASFit channel and there are plenty of workouts that don't require weights as well, so there's not really any excuse not to get started. Or maybe you like the tattooed men and skimpy outfit women, whatever works for you.

Ultimately, what I have now is a way to work out that is always just there.  It doesn't cost anything, I don't need to go anywhere, it doesn't depend on the weather, what I'm wearing, anything being open or any other person. I can sneak it in at any time of day, even if I only have 20 minutes. The main thing in between me and a workout at any given time is my willpower, because I don't have any excuses or even small barriers. I'm also not just limited to only doing this for exercise, I still ride my bike, walk, go on hikes and so on, but I have this regular thing at the centre which other more sporadic things revolve around. 

As for routine, I try to at least do one every second day, that's the minimum but I try for 2-3 consecutive days with a day or two break, and I also have breaks of a week or two every now and then. This happens anyway, when you go on holiday or get a cold. I also have a workout routine that is committed to memory with some back exercises I got from a physio thrown in, that I do once a week instead of my HASFit.

Now do I look like an adonis?  Sadly for my wife, no, but I'm at least 5 kilos lighter than before I started and I have a lot more muscle. I can do a couple of sets of 20 pushups now, which may not sound like many to fit or young people but when I started I could only manage a single set of 6. I won't turn any heads at the beach, but I feel slightly less self-conscious about being there or in any situation where more of my flesh is on display. 

This comes to my final thing. There's a saying I like "If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well", but like all pithy sayings this is only partly true. Doing something like exercise in a half-arsed way is better than nothing at all. Apparently, men especially will go too hard at exercise initially, not enjoy it and stop doing it. Exercise is a life goal, we want to be in it for the long term, so just do it, use light weights and form the habit! I'm not even sure heavy weights are that healthy on our joints anyway, we just need to move with enough resistance that at the end of a workout, our muscles are complaining a little and we've breathed a little harder and sweated a bit. If what I've written here doesn't work for you, that can't be the end of your journey, you have to find something that does.  Maybe getting involved in a sport to integrate social things, maybe doing long bike rides or runs, but remember you can also do what I've mentioned here and do those things. It all helps. I'm trying to have a positive influence on people here. Some goals in life are hard to solve, but exercise is just will power and here is an easy and cheap solution you can start now. Maybe you have a better idea, awesome whatever yours is find it, but enough procrastinating, solve this problem in a way that integrates into your whole life now. 

Offer

And the final, final thing. I'm passionate about this so if I sent this article to you, I want to make you an offer. In the spirit of us helping each other fulfil our potential, which should be part of all our lives, send me your address and I will, very happily, send you a set of adjustable dumbbells to get you started. I don't want anything standing between you and a lifetime of regular exercise, other than turning off your brain for a few minutes every day or two and having your muscles feel some weight, as they should be doing naturally.

Notes

Dumbbell collars for quick changing

If you buy dumbbells like the ones above, it can take a couple of minutes to change weights in routines. This can be annoying, so I was looking for a method to quickly add or lower some weights. The plastic dumbbell collars below are not really for these sorts of weights, so they can only take a small amount of weight at the angles you have in dumbbell workouts - I don't go above 1.25kg, but this lets you in seconds add or remove up to 2.5kg from each hand. Be careful as always when using something not for its intended purpose, but these have been great for me, particularly after I found the .5kg weights, which means I can make smaller adjustments of just 1kg on each hand. 

 

Free dumbbells

There are non-adjustable dumbbells you'll see all around.  These are great they just take up a lot more room and you need to buy new ones each time you want more weight.  I have a pair of 2kg ones someone wasn't using, which are fine for a couple of exercises where I don't really need weights but want something (hello iron cross) and my wife uses them sometimes to join in on my workouts for a bit.

Anyway, workout equipment is one of those things people are always getting rid of and upgrading. Outside of my house right now someone has left a weight bench on the street, it's not the best one I've ever seen but it would do the job. Once you get the core set of adjustable dumbbells you'll probably find you can build up more things cheaply, or even for free.

 

 

The rolls royce of adjustable dumbbells

OK so you like the sound of having endless home workouts, but you have a bit of spare cash and want to solve the problem in a more long term way. There are plenty of fancier adjustable dumbbells which have a quick-change mechanism. These are great for space-saving, here's your starter gym right here in a space not much bigger than a shoe box. They generally come in two weight classes, 12Kg each hand, or 24Kg+ each hand. As a 6 ft guy, the 24Kg ones are what I would get, but that would be overkill for some people, and the 12Kgs would be fine. Companies like Powerblock also have an EXP type of dumbbell, where you can buy a smaller set and add more as you get stronger. Anyway, Powerblock seems to be the best here, but I'll let you search for other ones if you like, but some of the cheaper ones which claim to do the same thing don't look very durable. Personally, I wouldn't buy any weights that didn't have a 5-year warranty, this is an investment in lifelong fitness here and we want the problem solved.

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Physio

One thing I got wrong when starting this was not thinking about form. When I lifted weights above my head I would try to lift them as high as I could to the ceiling etc, when really I should have focused on a strong core and not extending myself too far. Form is important, and one way to help with this is not to do the exercises too quickly. Another thing is as mentioned to concentrate on your core, and making sure that is engaged in doing all exercises, particularly ones that affect the back.  If you can afford it, it is worth booking a couple of sessions with a physio and going through how to do some of the main exercises with good form. The deadlifts, curls, shoulder presses, squats, various pushups, and whatever ones you do a lot of would be good to get right, especially those with heavier weights, say more than 15% of your body weight. You can also find advice about this online for free as well. If you plan to lift heavy, you should probably definitely consult a professional.

Oh and on this topic, try to move to a "what can I do" from a barriers mindset. If you hurt your knee, there are plenty of "back and upper body" workouts to do, and visa versa. Be flexible in not letting anything stop you improving in life, do it half-arsed but just do it.