原文: Minimalist Fitness: How to Get In Lean Shape With Little or No Equipment

Two common barriers for people who want to exercise and get in shape are a lack of time and money needed for fitness.

Who has the time to go to the gym, or buy expensive equipment, or take long bike rides?

Well, if those are the things stopping you, you’re in luck.

It takes no equipment to get a great workout and get in shape, and with one or two pieces of simple equipment, you can turn that great workout into a fantastic one, you magnificent beast, you.

And with little or no equipment required for a fantastic workout, you can do it at home, or wherever you are. Even if you’re in solitary confinement.

It’s hard not to find time for this type of workout — you can do it while watching TV, for goodness sake!

The Pros and Cons of Bodyweight Exercises

Using just your bodyweight, you can do a large number of challenging exercises. I designed a workout that I do when I can’t make it to the gym, for example, and I can testify that it’s incredibly challenging (more on that below).

If you add just one or two pieces of equipment: a dumbbell, a kettlebell, a jump rope, a medicine ball, or a chinup bar, for example, you can increase the challenge even more.

Now, I’m not putting down lifting weights — I truly believe in lifting heavy weights when you can, but there are tremendous benefits from bodyweight exercises as well:

1. No gym fees or need to buy expensive equipment.
2. You can do the workout anywhere, anytime.
3. Most exercises involve many muscles working in coordination, resulting in great overall fitness and strength.
4. For people who are just starting with strength training, bodyweight is often more than enough to begin with. And it gives you a good foundation of strength you can build on later.

Bodyweight exercises aren’t the only thing you should ever do, however, for several reasons:

1. After awhile (a couple months perhaps), they aren’t all that challenging. You’ll need to continue to build your strength by adding weights. You can do that with some simple equipment (see below).
2. If you don’t have at least one or two pieces of equipment — a chinup bar or a resistance band perhaps — some muscles don’t get worked out as much as others. That’s not a problem over the short term, but over the long term you’ll want to make sure you get a balance.

I suggest starting with bodyweight exercises, and then slowly transitioning to a combination of bodyweight and weight training to get a good balance. And even if you’re doing a complete weight training program, you can always use bodyweight exercises anytime you can’t make it to the gym.

My Workout — Just a Sample

What follows is a little workout I’ve been doing recently when I can’t go to the gym — it’s just a collection of exercises that use compound muscles and joints to give me a total-body workout with nothing but my bodyweight and my chinup bar.

However, this is not the only workout you can do — not by a long shot. This is a sample, but you should look at the next section for a much wider variety of challenges.

How to do this workout: do a bit of a warmup — jumping jacks, jump rope, or just jogging in place for a few minutes will get your heart rate going. Then do the exercises in order, for 30 seconds to two minutes (depending on what kind of shape you’re in), with as little rest in between as possible. If you’re new to exercise, feel free to rest fully between exercises, but if you’re in decent shape, doing them one after another is a great workout. Like me, you’ll probably have to stop to catch your breath a few times — it’s a tough workout!

1. Pullups (palms facing away from you). Chinup bar required (here’s the one I use). (Video.)
2. Pushups. As many as you can (video). Do modified pushups if you can’t do full pushups, with your knees on the floor (video). If those are still too hard, do wall pushups, leaning against the wall or a chair.
3. Jump squats. Basically you squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then jump up as high as you can, and repeat. (Video.)
4. Bicycle crunches. I don’t normally recommend crunches, but these use a good combination of core muscles. (Video.)
5. Jumping lunges. (Video.)
6. Burpees. (Video.)
7. Hanging knee raises. Chinup bar required. (Video.)
8. Hindu pushups. (Video.)
9. Russian twists. (Video, but you don’t need to use the medicine ball as shown.)
10. Diamond pushups. (Video.)
11. Chinups (palms facing toward you). Chinup bar required. (Video.)

Create Your Own Awesome Workout

Now that you’ve seen my sample workout, you can create your own by picking whatever exercises tickle your fancy. Just choose 5-12 exercises and do them all, either with or without resting. Once that gets easy, do a second circuit.

A few suggestions:

1. Choose a variety of exercises that work out all the parts of your body. Don’t do all variations of pushups, for example. You should be doing some pulling exercises (like pullups), some lower-body exercises, like lunges and squats, and others that work out all of your body, like burpees.
2. If you want a real challenge, mix cardio exercises (see below) with the strength exercises.
3. If you have some of the equipment listed below, definitely use them. Or buy one or two pieces of equipment … but there’s no need to rush out and buy a whole bunch of things. You can get a great workout without equipment, at least for awhile.
4. If you’re just starting out, take it easy and gradually build up. Don’t get discouraged, and don’t overdo it!
5. As you get stronger, gradually add weights. Dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls are some good ways to do that. It’ll take a couple months of bodyweight exercises, though, before you really need to move to weights.

Basic bodyweight exercises

There are many, many variations of bodyweight exercises, but here are some of the more common ones:

• Pushups (there are many variations — Hindu pushups (video), dive bombers, diamond pushups (video) and others)
• Burpees (video)
• Squats (video) (variations: jump squats (video), Hindu squats (video))
• Lunges (video) (variation: jumping lunges, side lunges)
• Chair dips (video)
• Planks (video) (variation: side plank)
• Crunches - my favorite: bicycle crunches (video)
• Bear crawl - crawl quickly on hands and feet (video)
• Lateral barrier jump - jump sideways, over an obstacle (video)
• Isometrics
• Plyometrics

Exercises requiring minimal equipment

You don’t need to buy all of this equipment, but if you have any, these are great. Or buy one or two pieces in order to add an extra challenge to your workout:

• Pullup bar: Chinups, pullups, hanging knee raises (here’s the one I use)
• Resistance band
• Medicine ball
• Kettlebell (video)
• Dumbbells
• Tractor tires — there are lots of exercises where you flip tires, jump through them, etc.

Cardio exercises

• Jumping jacks
• Jump rope - requires jump rope, of course, but it’s a great workout (video)
• Side shuffles
• Touchdowns
• Run 800 meters (or a mile)
• Interval running
• Rowing (requires a rowing machine)
• Other cardio exercise machine if you have it

Do you have a favorite minimalist workout routine? Let us know in the comments.

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译文: 最简单的健康之道：怎么样用最少的器材来达到苗条的身材

      对想通过锻炼来保持身材的人来说，缺少必要的时间和钱是两个常见的阻碍。

      谁有时间去健身房，或者买昂贵的健身器材，再或者是踩一段长长路程的脚踏车？

      那么，如果上述事情阻止了你，你就是幸运的。

      不用器材来达到大量的锻炼从而保持身材，只需一两件简单的设备，你就可以把那种高强度的锻炼变成一种享受，你就是个健美的人。

      完美的锻炼只需要很少或不需要设备，你可以在家做，也可以在任何地方，即使你条件受到限制。

      很难找时间去做这类运动——你可以边看电视边做，看在上帝的份上。

      体重锻炼的支持与反对

      只用你的体重，你可以做大量挑战性的锻炼。我设计了一种锻炼，例如，当我没时间去健身房时也可以做。我可以作证它是难以置信的挑战（比起下面的)。

      如果你只添加一到两个设备,例如一个哑铃，一个壶铃，一个跳绳，一个药球，或者一个引体向上的杆，你甚至可以增加挑战。

      现在，我不打算放弃举重——我真的相信举重可以，但同时更相信体重锻炼。

1. 没有健身房费用，或者没必要去买昂贵的健身器材。
2. 你可以随时随地锻炼。
3.  大部分运动中，大量肌肉在协调中得到锻炼，这样就达到全身健康强壮。
4. 对那些刚刚开始强度训练的人来说，体重通常是不够开始去做的。它给你以后锻炼出来的强壮打下好的基础。

      然而，体重锻炼不仅仅是你应该做的，以下有几个几个理由：

1. 一段时间以后（也许几个月），它们就不是挑战了。你将需要继续增加重量来
2. 如果你连最少的一两件设备都没有，——也许引体向上的杆，或者一个拉伸器——有些肌肉就不会跟其他肌肉得到一样的锻炼。在短期内那并不是个问题，但从长远来看你就会想去保证你得到一个肌肉的平衡。

      我建议从体重锻炼开始，然后慢慢过度到一个体重和重量训练的综合项目，以达到良好的平衡。你也可以在任何情况下，不用到去健身房锻炼，在家做体重训练。

      我的锻炼——只是个例子

      接下来是我最近一直做的小练习，在我不能去健身房的时候——它是用到综合肌肉的练习集合，用我的体重和引体向上杠杆结合起来给我全身做锻炼。

      然而，这不仅仅是你可以在短期内做的锻炼。这是个例子，但你应该观察下一个环节为了更加广泛多样的挑战。

      怎么样去锻炼：先来点热身——跳爆竹，跳绳，或者就是原地慢跑几分钟，这些将让你心跳加速。然后按顺序做些运动，在两分钟三十秒内（取决于你是什么体型），最好少休息。假如你是刚开始去锻炼，在做运动时完全放松，但如果你有不错的身材，不间断的做运动是很好的锻炼。像我一样，你可能得时不时停下来喘口气。——这是个艰辛的锻炼！

1. 引体向上（掌心必须远离你）。必须有引体向上杠杆（这有一个我用的）
2. 俯卧撑。你尽可能地做。适当的做俯卧撑假如你不能全部做完。假如这样还是很难，对着墙做，倾斜地撑着墙或凳子。
3. 青蛙跳。基本上你是蹲着的，直到你的东西都到了台阶，然后尽可能地跳高起来，重复。
4. 踩单车。我不是很推荐踩单车，但这也可以好好地用到一些关键肌肉。
5. 运动肺器
6. 排气
7. 举腿。引体向上杠杆是必须的。
8. 印度式俯卧撑
9. 俄罗斯式扭腰。（像展示的那样，你不用去试用药球。）
10. 钻石式俯卧撑
11. 引体向上（掌心远离你）引体向上杠杆是必须的。

      发明你自己完美的锻炼

      现在，你已经看到我的样品锻炼，您可以创建您自己的选择不论你演习发挥幻想。只要选择5-12演习和做所有这些，无论有或没有休息。一旦得到容易，做第二个回合。

      一些建议

1. 选择不同的演习这项工作的所有部分你的身体。不要所有的变化俯卧撑，例如。你应该做一些拉动演习（如pullups ） ，一些下肢练习，比如lunges和蹲下，和其他一切工作的机构，像burpees 。
2. 如果你想要真正的挑战，有一定强度的混合心肺练习不错（见下）。
3. 如果你有一些设备在下面列出，肯定使用它们。或购买一个或两个件设备...但就没有必要急于出去买一大堆东西。你可以锻炼一个伟大的装备，至少在一段时间。
4. 如果您刚刚开始进行，是否容易，并逐步建立。不要气馁，不要过分吧！
5. 当你强大，逐渐增加重量。哑铃，杠铃， kettlebells ，医学球是一些好的办法做到这一点。这将需要几个月的体重演习，但之前，你真正需要转移到重。

      基本体重练习

• 俯卧撑（有许多变化-印度式俯卧撑（视频），钻石俯卧撑（视频）和其他人
• Burpees (video)
• 蹲下（视频） （变化：跳蹲（录像） ，印度式蹲下（录像） ）
• Lunges (video) (variation: jumping lunges, side lunges)
• Chair dips (video)
• Planks (video) (variation: side plank)
• 我最喜欢的，踩单车
• 熊踩滚轮，用脚快速地踩滚轮
•  障碍跳——跳台阶或是障碍物
• Isometrics
• Plyometrics

      锻炼需要的设备

•  引体向上：俯卧撑；抬膝盖
• 不间断练习
• 药球
• 壶球
• 哑铃
• 田径练习，这有一大堆练习当你脚感到累时。

      Cardio exercises

• 跳爆竹
• 跳绳——当然要求跳绳，它是个不错的锻炼。
• 竞走
• 触地
• 跑八百米（一英里）
• 间隔跑
• 划船（要求一个划船比赛）
• 其他心肺练习机器如果你有的话

      你有什么喜欢的不限器材锻炼计划？让我们讨论一下吧