Four Ways to Improvise and Save Money on Exercise Equipment

In order to save money on exercise equipment, you have to maintain focus on your fitness goals. You are trying to lose weight, get in shape, and stay fit. A nice collection of exercise equipment is not your goal. Exercise equipment is only a means to an end.

1. Use Your Own Body. If you want to get in shape, you have to exercise your body. Stretches, aerobic exercises, sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups are all free. Almost anyone can lay on the floor and do six-inch killers. All you need to start exercising your body is motivation. We just have to get up, get out, and move around.

2. Improvise With Household Goods. Why go out and buy a set of hand weights or dumb-bells, when you already have a big can of beans in your pantry? Physical therapists have often asked patients to exercise using small cans of soup and to work their way up to larger cans. If you are trying to exercise, you can do curls and other exercises with a large can of beans or a gallon jug filled with water. Pick up a good heavy book. Put it down. Repeat twenty-five times. If you look around your home or garden, you can probably find a small statue, a decor item, or a rock, that will work perfectly for weight training.

3. Improvise with Landscape. Remember the dreaded Step from aerobics class. You can also step up and down on the curb on your cul-de-sac, your back porch stoop, or other stairs. Instead of buying a treadmill or exercise bike with a sophisticated program to simulate hills, you could just run or bicycle up an actual hill. If you see a nice solid concrete wall that is waist or chest high, there is no reason you can't use it to do push ups at an angle. You'll get a work out that is similar to a military press.

4. Buy Equipment at Thrift Stores, Garage Sales, and Consignment Shops. People start and stop exercise programs everyday. They buy expensive exercise equipment and hang laundry on it. They see intriguing informercials for exercise equipment and dial away for it in the middle of the night. Much of this equipment eventually ends up being donated to thrift stores or sold through garage sales and consignment shops. For example, a recent visit to a Goodwill thrift store revealed a perfectly good Power Rider for only $27 and a nice exercise bike was in the back room just waiting to be priced.

While many Americans benefit from having quality exercise equipment, the need for exercise equipment is often an excuse to avoid exercising. Millions of Americans are sitting on the couch waiting until they have the room in their home or their budget for exercise equipment. But, ultimately, it isn't the exercise equipment that does the exercise: it's us.