Substantially similar post on my own journal

[alexseanchai]

A complaint I have been having is, I like physicality. I like (subject to caveats) embodiment—and frankly I suspect the cause of one of those caveats (body-wide owie) is insufficient exercise, which is to say, insufficient attention to my embodiment and physicality! I just. Time and cope, and weather outside my apartment (especially in summer and winter) and "Hurricane Alex has devastated the region" inside my apartment, and. Long story short, I spend most waking hours in one or another computer chair. As you might imagine, this is an undesirable situation.

For reasons I do not care to discuss outside lock, my cope has increased dramatically. (Shit I've literally procrastinated for a year and a half? Dealt with.) I wish therefore to try a practice of attention to physicality. And, hey. I cleaned my apartment! My living room and dining nook have a substantial open carpeted space now, so something like a YouTube video or channel that I could follow solo three mornings a week is an actual possibility!

Therefore: rec me exercise Youtubes?

I'm looking for something interesting enough to keep my attention over a span of time measured in weeks or greater, but basic enough that my (probable near-total) inexperience in the activity will not be a barrier. My priorities exercise-wise are, in order from the top, lung capacity, endurance, strength (full body), and flexibility.

I like to dance, but the only type I'm any good at is square dance; this is far too social an activity to work as my 3x/week solo morning exercise. I'm going to look for Irish dance exercise Youtubes later, though. I'm also going to try to get out to the city park to walk on the regular, but it isn't yet warm enough around here that I want to do that.

Thanks!

Comments

[cyprinella]

So I started taking a Bodypump class two months ago and it may fit what you're looking for. It's a weights class that focuses on a lot of reps with smaller weights and does all the major groups. Usually you focus on a group for the length of a pop or dance song. The exercises are designed to be done with a weight bar, but I've adapted exercises using handweights (and two bottles of wine in a hotel room one weekend :D). The trick is that I can't point you at a specific YT channel because it's one of those that's supposed to be a paid class but there's a lot of sample videos on YT from people posting their teaching applications. This would be an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKt6C8VDFU

[alexseanchai]

Cool. Thanks!

[indywind]

I do more than half of my workouts at home (before heading out to deskchair dayjob) and I don't have internet at home, so i can't rec workout videos but I can rec stuff you can do in a few square feet of clear space in your living room/dining nook (BTW, congrats for making space! Yay you!) that is good deskchair antidote, and both basic enough for beginner and adaptable enough that you can continue progressing or playing with variations for literally years. Whether anything keeps your attention or not has more to do with your attitudes and preferences than the material itself--different people groove on different stuff-- so no promises about that.
If video coaching makes a big difference for you, you can can probably find videos of whole routines incorporating these components, if that's what you want.

I'm a big believer in old-fashioned calisthenics or body-weight strength training, for strength, endurance, and cardio-respiratory fitness:
Squat variations
Split squats, squat lunges, and lunge variations
Pushups variations
Plank variations
V-sit or yoga boat pose
Crunches, bicycles, reverse crunches
Bird dog or yoga spinal balance
Bridge (w/optional leg lifts)
Reverse table or reverse plank
Triceps dips
Superman or yoga locust pose
Inchworm, elephant walk or bear crawl
Mountain climbers
Segmental rotation or reclined twist
etc.

Here is a website with videos of how to do many of these exercises (and other bodyweight exercises, filterable by experience level, target body parts, and equipment needed or not)
http://www.manvsweight.com/calisthenics-exercises/

Here is another site with a sample starter minimal-equipment workout (it calls for dumbbells; if you don't have dumbbells, you can use gallon jugs of water, or swap in a different exercise that works similar body parts):
https://stumptuous.com/the-less-thinking-more-doing-starter-program
More detailed explanation and progressions/variations on some foundational exercises (with video, if you have Flash player):
Pushups:https://stumptuous.com/mistressing-the-pushup
Squats:https://stumptuous.com/lurn-to-squat-good-e-zy

Here is a giant directory of exercises sorted by target body parts:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html
The same site also has a Beginning Exercise page:
http://www.exrx.net/Beginning.html
With a sample super-basic, minimum equipment strength training workout:
http://www.exrx.net/Questions/BasicProgram.html
(a sturdy dining table can be used in place of the bar for supine rows, or substitute another exercise)

Here's a 20-minute Youtube video of yoga for core strength that looks pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWlQ7Hf5DLk

You may be thinking: but I'm most interested in building lung capacity, don't I need to do more moving around to get breathing deeply?
Anything that requires sustained muscular exertion will also make your heart and lungs work to supply the muscles with oxygen. You can increase that effect (building lung capacity) by breathing deeply and slowly on purpose, rather than relying on reflex to manage your breathing. This can be done with any kind or degree of exercise, just as you can build endurance through any kind or degree of exercise by choosing the variation of it that requires moderate effort but you are able to maintain safely correct form, and gradually increasing the time you do it.


tl:dr: Calisthenics are great for non-gym workouts, and serve a variety of goals.

[alexseanchai]

♥♥♥

Thank you!

Further resources

[rickdonohoe]

Glad you find Calisthenics useful, and I just wanted to help you with a few extra resources.

You can find a lot of information here - https://www.calisthenics-101.co.uk

In particular you may find these useful?

https://www.calisthenics-101.co.uk/techniques/10-exercises-using-calisthenics-resistance-bands-to-boost-your-workout

https://www.calisthenics-101.co.uk/techniques/10-hardest-push-ups-to-add-to-your-workout

If you do then feel free to share the love!

Big thanks,
Rick

Re: Further resources

[rydra_wong]

Is this by any chance your website?

[rydra_wong]

I'm going to look for Irish dance exercise Youtubes later, though.

For lung capacity and endurance, anything that gets you breathing harder and your heart beating faster will do the trick. So dance could be a great option if that interests you.

Ironically, being crappy and n00bish at a movement style will actually help at improving your cardiovascular capacity, because you're going to be doing a lot more flailing. *g*

If you're okay with being "bad at" something in the privacy of your own home, dipping into different dance styles can be fun and interesting. I'm dyspraxic and can't dance, and have happily played with bellydance and modern dance and industrial and ballet workouts at home. If I treat it as movement learning and curiosity, rather than something I expect to be able to master, it's fascinating.

Depending on where your cardiovascular capacity is at present, yoga videos with "vinyasa" or "flow" in the titles might be worth checking out: they involve moving relatively rapidly from pose to pose, so they're harder to follow if you're still getting a grip on the poses, but can give you more of a "workout" than slower-paced yoga.

[alexseanchai]

I don't like being bad at anything. I recognize the need to be bad at first in order to get good! I just. *flail*

Thank you!

[lizbee]

I don't know if yoga is relevant to your interests, but I really like Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. She has a wide range of videos, including stuff for complete novices, and she's quite good at giving alternatives for challenging poses. I've found her really good for building up my endurance and flexibility.

[alexseanchai]

You're the second one to rec her; I'll definitely check out her channel. Thanks!

[rj_anderson]

Surfing in from friendsfriends to suggest FitnessBlender and, if you like something a little less matter-of-fact and more pep-talking positive, Blogilates.

[alexseanchai]

Excellent, thanks!

[rydra_wong]

There's also the option of compiling a playlist of awesome music that makes you want to dance that lasts the requisite amount of time (start short and increase it over time as your cardiovascular fitness improves), and then "dancing" to it -- where "dancing" can encompass things that are actual dance moves (sort of), random jumping around and flailing your arms, failed attempts to skip, twirling a broomstick handle over your head as if it was a sword, and anything that keeps you moving for the right amount of time.

(All actual examples I have in fact been doing this morning.)

Requires privacy and/or lack of self-consciousness.

[alexseanchai]

Heh heh. Self-consciousness is a thing even when in private!

You make a very good point, though.

[rydra_wong]

Self-consciousness is a thing even when in private!

Yeah, I get that!

I have to be in the right mood, but when I am it's really nice to be able to let go and be as flappy and odd-moving as I naturally am and move in ways I want to move, not ways that are censored to make me look like a "normal" person in public places.

And I throw in all sorts of things like bodyweight movements I'm playing with, or like the intermittent learning-to-skip project (I can now manage to skip one or two turns of the rope before getting whacked by it or entangled in it). But otherwise, I dance.

(For my personal autistic values of "dance".)

[alexseanchai]

Cool :)