If you, or your partner, are the kind of people who wait until there’s a change in the seasons to get more active, listen up! If you’re the kind of person who has been using teeny spaces at home to do YouTube workouts over winter and now want to get outdoors, this is for you too!
I want to help anyone, especially men looking to get back into good fitness habits, get ready for outdoor workouts with three small but important items. In my opinion, these are all must-haves, and most importantly, they won’t break the bank! Let’s start by knowing how to keep track of things.
Cheap Fitness Tracker
If you listen to a lot of podcasts like I do, you’ll hear the same ads on rotation. I’m talking the likes of Manscaped, LegalZoom, Ben & Jerrys, and Whoop. The latter is what I’m interested in most, as a good fitness tracker is a very handy (or should that be wristy thing to have. If you’re working from home and sitting down all day, looking at a tracker and seeing you haven’t hit your daily step goals is enough to make you get up and go for a walk.
I mention Whoop specifically because it’s one of many fitness trackers which aren’t actually selling you a product. They’re selling a subscription to use the app/service linked to the app. So while one seems cheap, you might not want to be paying monthly. I found the simplest solution was to buy a cheap fitness tracker from Amazon and give it a go. It might take two or three to get the one that matches you best, so which sounds better: spending $80-$100 total trying out three of four different fitness trackers, or spending $399 on one Apple or Samsung watch you might not like the feel of? I know which I’d go for.
One bonus advantage of the “non-brand” trackers is that they can usually be synced with free apps across devices, as they all use Bluetooth to work.
“Cooling” briefs
With the change in the seasons, if your partner is an avid runner, they’ll know all too well the annoyances of boxers which cling like there’s no tomorrow while sweating. Runners used to have to make do with knowing that after a run, things will be sweaty and damp down there – a big no-no! So how do you combat it and give them something they never knew they needed for running? You turn to wicking briefs.
Take these men’s boxer shorts from the aptly name Bawbags. They contain wicking technology which draws moisture away while running and is quicker drying to avoid discomfort when running. Honestly, getting a pair of underwear like these is a good idea. Just imagine, would you rather finish a run with things dry down there or with the kind of dampness you only expect in a summer heatwave?
Resistance Bands
When gyms closed, I know people who bought full weight sets, ab wheels, pullup bars etc. If there was a home gym item to get, it was bought. I also know many people who know have said items gathering dust. If you want to have a gym-style workout in the garden or park, just get a set (NOT ONE) of resistance bands.
Like fitness trackers, you’ll find a wide variety of cheap bands online. I recommend getting a selection as they all have different tensile strengths. You can use bands just like weights for almost any exercise, and they help you work the entire body. If you don’t believe me and have one lying around the house right now, go grab it. Stand on it and pull the corners pretending to squat 20 times. Unless you’re the fittest of the fit, you’re going to feel it.
Until gyms fully re-open, it’s a cheap and safe alternative that will let you work out anywhere.
There you have it. Three simple and effective ways to get ready for working outside now the weather is getting better. Try them out, and let me know how you get on.
