Condo living can be quite a challenge. The small spaces can be cramped, especially if you have a lot of furniture and if you don’t arrange them in a practical way. How then, can you stay fit inside of one when you can barely move? If you are looking for condos for sale in Montreal or some other major city where there’s a real estate boom, developers add pools and gyms as standard features to attract new buyers.
Older condos however, usually don’t have gyms, and for those that do, they’re often small, crowded with yoga or pilates classes and the equipment is limited, making a home workout much more practical.
Small Space, No Problem
You don’t need much space to get a good workout if you know what to do. During lockdown, convicts would often pump out a workout in their 6 ft x 8 ft prison cell just to stay in shape. Don’t worry, you don’t need to spend some time on the inside to learn how to get some exercise in a confined space.
Sure, there are other alternatives like going out for a run or using some of the facilities at the park or rec, but this isn’t always doable, especially when it’s freezing outside. Remember that you don’t need much to get in shape and stay healthy. You got the perfect gym already, with built in weights and adjustable leverage – your own body.
Chest Workout
For a killer chest workout, you can do a variety of pushups. Start with feet elevated pushups, followed by regular pushups and wall/table pushups all in quick succession, with no rest in between. Do as many reps as you can of one pushup variation before moving on the next one. Just prop your feet on a chair or a table for elevated pushups. The higher you put your feet up, the harder it gets, so adjust accordingly.
Same principle applies to wall pushups: the more horizontal you are, the harder it is. For a more challenging workout, perform pushups using two chairs. Arrange the chairs so that you can safely lower your body in between. The extra space under your torso gives you more range of motion as you lower yourself down and is an awesome chest workout as well. Pushups are great because it’s a compound exercise that hits more than your chest. Your triceps, abs, shoulders and glutes are also given a workout.
Lats and Back
For your lats (the part of your back that forms the “V” shape), you can do door pull ups and table rows. Choose your sturdiest door (no glass) and hang near the hinge. You can put some folded newspaper on the other end so the door won’t sag when you hang from it. Pull yourself up explosively, wait a second and lower yourself down slowly. That’s a rep.
For table rows, position yourself under the table and lie down on the floor, with your face underneath the tables’ edge. Grab the edge and pull yourself up while keeping your body straight and rigid. Lower yourself down slowly. That’s one rep. The regular pull up is the ultimate measure of strength, because you’re pulling your entire weight up using only your arms.
Leg Workout
For a simple leg workout, you can do bodyweight jump squats. Stand up with your feet shoulder width apart and perform a low squat with your arms forward. From the squat position, immediately jump as high as you can, raising your arms above your head and reach for the sky. Land softly with your toes and again lower yourself into the low squat position. That’s one rep.
That’s it! Simple and basic bodyweight exercises you can do in a cramped condo, with no equipment necessary. Perform these as a circuit to mix in a little cardio as well. For example, you can start with with door pull ups, followed by jump squats, the three pushup variations and table rows as your last exercise. If you still have a little more in the gas tank, do a couple of chair dips, chair pushups and finish things off with a bunch of sit ups.
Do these with no rest in between except for when you need to drink water and write down how many reps you made. Writing down your reps is important so you have a number to beat the next time. Doing one set of every exercise counts as a whole circuit, and you can do one or more if you can, but don’t overdo it or you’ll risk overtraining. You can do this every other day or 3 x a week.
