Fitness: The Basics
Paula asked me a great question the other day: what are the exercises that everyone can do at home with minimal equipment to improve, or at least maintain, fitness? For all ages? Yes, okay. I can do that. It also helps that I recently started a routine that I do every morning for that purpose. Because, let’s face it, sometimes it’s not very appealing—or even possible—to leave the house. (That’s not our backyard in the photo, but ours looks just like that.)
The first exercise benefits legs: can you “cop a squat” to “pop a squat”? It’s the reason leg strength is important at every age. You may not understand those phrases, so let me explain it another way you may relate to better.
The next time you go into a bathroom to do your thing, you have to sit down. That’s the “cop a squat” part—sitting down. “Pop a squat” generally refers to the act of eliminating waste. All well and good and natural. Then comes the part that requires leg strength: you have to stand up again. That’s the minimal amount of leg strength you need to keep your bathroom visits private. If you can’t do that, you have to rely on someone to assist you.
So, if you value your privacy, work on keeping your legs strong enough to stand up. Simplest way? Stand up and sit down from a solid chair with arms, keeping your legs about a shoulder width apart. You may need to use the arms of the chair or a walker to start pushing yourself up in the beginning, but the goal is to stand without holding anything. Work up to 25 reps where you can sit and stand up straight again. Start adding more sets until you can do 100 total. You can do them over the course of the day or all at once.
No fancy equipment needed to train to cop a squat to pop a squat. Saturday, the complement to leg strength is core strength, and we’ll cover the basics of your core. What are you prepared to do today?
