This Is Your Active Lifestyle: Alternatives to the Gym

Walking the dog. Both of our weights fluctuate slightly based on the regularity with which I do this.

pretty much all of the exercise i do is recreational (aside from cycling, which i do for $$$).

i will rep very hard for rock climbing---super fun, and really good for you. there's probably a few gyms in providence, and i'm fairly certain there's a few reputable bouldering areas nearby as well.

also: hot dudes!

TENNIS!

yea, no doubt, rock climbing dudes be gettin' all hard & sinewy DAMN

ok keep it clean

every day off i get some old early 90s ardkore breakbeat ish in the headphones & run around for at least 2 hours just for fun but its actually good for me too

haha

really what i want is a rock-hard bicycle butt

well, i want one but i want my boyfriend to have one more, no lie

it helps that i live a couple blocks from this park tho
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/2006_Dogwood_Festival_from_Meadow_in_Piedmont_Park_looking_toward_Midtown_Atlanta_skyline-zoom.JPG/800px-2006_Dogwood_Festival_from_Meadow_in_Piedmont_Park_looking_toward_Midtown_Atlanta_skyline-zoom.JPG

xpost ahh thats one thing about being a str8 dude is you never want who youre dating to have a "rock hard bicycle butt"

if you want great legs: Tennis or Ice Skating

theonly exercising i do is on my bike

i love my bike

tennis makes for some great shoulders too

Maybe get a cheap pedometer and see if you can up the number of steps you take a day. When I drove to work, parked close to the building, and didn't much budge from my desk most of the day, I got in between 2400 and 3000 steps. The recommended minimum for basic fitness is 10,000!

Now I walk part of the way to work, pretty much always take the stairs, and try to run a errand on foot on my lunch hour (drugstore, dry cleaner, etc.). Now it is totally easy to knock ofrf 10,000 without much effort.

does anybody garden or landscape? it's a bit late in the season here to do any planting but i think that might be a good option for me in the future

I garden, which can be a really good workout. My hamstrings are killing me today after pulling weeds this weekend. And any sort of wheelbarrowing/mower pushing/etc. is good for upper body!

i want top swim in the ocean every day but im landlocked :(

my home is no longer girt by sea OMG!!

part of the reason for starting this thread is i've been re-reading this book which puts a lot of emphasis on body awareness and playful activity -- i highly reccomend it as a motivation fitness text, it's pretty relentlessly positive and exhaustively lists all of the reasons for being active on a daily basis

i was hoping that would be a link to the bible or something funny

i should just have lots of athletic sex, maybe

its hard to do this when chicago is a fucking ice cube 8 months out of the year

^^^ for real

i'm psyched to move to mpls if only because there's like 12 miles of XC skiing trails right out the back door of my new apartment. i've only XC skied a few times, but it's way fun and seems like the best way to make lemonade from frigid midwestern winter

i just looked and there are 2 rock climbing gyms in the town where i work! rad

haha the idea of moving even further north is making me stress as is

u dont know how mad i was that it was actually kind of cool out today - if i was living anywhere south of here id be so excited for perfect weather but at this point im practically ready to move to LA for a couple years

i'm psyched to move to mpls if only because there's like 12 miles of XC skiing trails right out the back door of my new apartment.

-- gbx, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:06 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ this sounds like heaven

its hard to do this when chicago is a fucking ice cube 8 months out of the year

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:04 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/7851/mpw13517jp6.jpg

its hard to do this when chicago is a fucking ice cube 8 months out of the year

-- deej, Monday, 16 June 2008 19:04 (12 minutes ago) Link

Yeah, NYC is not as bad but weather is highly unpredictable. 3-4 months are too cold, 2-3 months are just hot and nasty with bad air quality, and there's a decent amount of rain in the other months. I don't really like gyms but I haven't found a year-round alternative yet. I suppose I could just get a treadmill.

my problem lately is that all i ever really want to do is just play around, and it's sorta tough to make a life out of that.

esp since i've just signed up for 4 years of being chained to a desk

guys, EMBRACE THE WEATHER

srsly. i don't want to be all hardman "cowboy up" and shit, but the weather is never actually as bad as you think it is. just wear different clothes.

my only concern with rockclimbing is that I have, and I quote my friend here, "slender ladylike arms" :(

it is true i have proportionally little upper-body strength, though i don't think that will completely prevent me from building some (i hope)

doing stuff in inclement weather is only marginally more difficult/uncomfortable than doing stuff in good weather, but you feel 10000x more badass when you come back inside.

xp elmo: climbing is about leg strength and balance, don't sweat it

as far as weather goes id be more concerned about heat than cold but then i dont live in chicago either

guys, EMBRACE THE WEATHER

losing proposition dude, unfortunately

to be fair my bitching about weather is like 90% being more a fan of hot weather and 10% about it being easier to play basketball

yeah i guess i'm thinking of stuff like running and biking

like, people spending $$$$$ on treadmills instead of $$ on some decent clothes

or xc-skiing vs. nordictrack??

The new dog means at least one good walk around the neighborhood per day, and now that spring is done, it's a small-scale Bataan Death March.

Plus I get a fair amount of exercise from working in my garden, and this year I'm mowing my own yard (with a push mower) instead of hiring someone to do it like last year. It's not particularly taxing, but in 90 degree heat it's a good workout.

i enjoy running, at least to a limited extent, and think that if you don't enjoy that or similarly sustained aerobic exercise it may well be because you aren't fit or don't want to exert yourself enough (though it's probably relevant that i can't ride a bike and am not especially good at tennis or basketball), and that this can change. i think walking can suffice but you have to walk at a sufficient pace for a sufficient distance (ie a fairly long time) and preferably with elevation gain. i belong to a gym because i don't want to run outside or in my apt.

rock climbing in my limited experience is fun/frustrating, but a lot easier if you're small and/or strong to begin with.

wouldn't nautilus or something be the quickest route to buttfirmedness?

don't get me wrong here, i was going to the gym 4x-6x a week for a period last year, about 8 hours of sustained cardio every week, and I lost a solid 40lbs. and it was great! and i've since kept most of that weight off with decent eating habits.

i've lost a lot of the aerobic capacity & endurance since then but i'm not against going to the gym -- i just think it's kind of a self-punishing fallacy that you have to QUOTE EXERCISE UNQUOTE everyday in order to stay in shape.

X-Country skiing is HARD FREAKIN WORK. Esp if trail-breaking. I haven't done it in years, there's never enough snow in NYC except for about two days after a freak blizzard, once or twice a year.

the trails in mpls are groomed for skating, methinks

i mean, sure, i have fitness goals! but i'm thinking of highly regimented exercise in the same way as i think of dieting -- good & useful in the short-term for reaching a well-defined goal. far better, at least for me, to develop healthy eating habits & an organically active lifestyle to sustain over the long haul.

xposts

i have never x-c skied and would like to v much

that way you don't get all fucked-up & self-criticizing & falling-off-the-wagon when your slip up on your diet or if your schedule prevents you from getting to the gym for a week, whatever

i think i need more competitions in my life.

who will train for a triathlon with me?

ha thanks to adrenaline I swam 3 miles in the pool the other day.

also started back on the bike 10 miles to work, now just to combine the two and start running ;)

-- Jarlrmai, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:21 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

friend of mine was going to help train me for a short-distance triathlon but it didn't end up working out because he went into the police academy and is busy learning enforcer skillz

crackin skulls in the line of duty is good incidental exercise, i guess

oh that reminds me that i want to take a martial art

Carrying around baby nephew

i play basketball in the summer and run all year round - neither of which cost any money or need particular scheduling

martial art sounds like it could be fun, none of that psychotic mixed martial arts business though, i don't think i have the sufficient rage to master it

I used to take a weekly Pilates class until I broke my wrist and it didn't heal right. Perhaps I ought to take that intro to ballet class.

crackin skulls in the line of duty is good incidental exercise, i guess

In DC some cops patrol of bicycle; as long as the weather's good that's got to be a good means of exercise.

i think part of this active lifestyle thing is going to require getting up early every day, or at least most days :\

i just bike and walk a lot
for me biking to work is faster than taking the subway so no getting up early, ymmv obvs

home --> work is 8.3 miles

i think i could fuck with that

thatd be perfect x2 a day - i used to ride my bike to and from work when my work wasnt the place i lived - was v nice

totally doable elmo. it'll probably suck for a week or two, if you're not used to it, but it'll probably turn into a highlight of your day!

crucial: acquire fenders.

scary RI drivers, tho

i'm taking directions down for the non-hwy route, i'll drive home that way to see if it's an ok bite route

wait tables (seriously, I dropped to an unhealthily low weight for my body when I started - dunno how much was the physical act and how much was the drinking/not eating)

work construction (not so much with the cardio most days, but you build muscle and drink a shitload of water)

Exercise not required by work is not in the cards at the moment, we just started our three months of 100+ temps.

ok the most direct bike route is 50% nice 50% scary narrow