my fitness program, free for you today

I stumbled on a book the other day entitled You Are Your Own Gym:Use the Body You Have to Build the Body You Want. All 171 pages of this paperback volume are no doubt packed with good things, but I will not be opening its covers for much longer than it just took me to see how many pages it has. I have a fitness program all my own.

I’m calling my version of this classic work Your Toddlers Are Your Gym: Use the Bodies You Have to Build the Body You Want with the subtitle Make Your Kids Work For You!

For optimal results the trainee should have children available in a range of sizes, lighter weights to use for high reps (definition) and heavier wights for low reps (muscle mass).

Below are some sample pages from the existing book. I then demonstrate how these same exercises can be successfully accomplished using the weights above.

“Overhead press”:
“Thumbs Up”:

One gem of wisdom I spotted on the book’s pages that is relevant to my program as well: “For an exercise or workout to be functional, it must resemble the event being trained for as closely as possible” (9). For my version to be most functional, there should be laundry everywhere, a newborn crying, and smoke coming from the kitchen.

One functional exercise I suggest based on the principle above would be running into the grocery store in the rain, laden with a purse weighing 20 pounds, pushing a baby buggy, carrying a flailing toddler, and screeching, “HARRIET! Give me your HAND!”

“Interval training,” says the author, “is the repeated performance of high-intensity exercises, for set periods, followed by set periods of rest” (14). I call those periods Nap Time.

 

“The hardest part is often just getting started. Next time you don’t feel like training, try kicking yourself. . . it doesn’t always have to be so structured or serious” (42). Hear that, Mamas? Try kicking yourself.