Surf Flat? Stay in Paddling Shape for Cheap

There are definitely advantages to going to your local gym after work to try to get in shape.  Your gym has every machine and weight setup you could possibly need to get a great workout, not to mention the scenery is usually pretty good.

But once you’re there, and finally not distracted for long enough to actually get to your own workout, and you finally find a free machine or benchpress, what do you do?  With so many options and fancy machines it’s hard to focus and be productive with your time.

Here’s my simpler, more cost-effective solution: I’ve discovered that it’s pretty amazing how effective of a workout you can have using just your own body weight as resistance, push ups, pull ups, and dips.  Go to Home Depot and self-engineer yourself a pull up bar.  You can use a 1.5″ wooden dowel, or if you’re a bit beefier you may need to use as steel pipe.  Either way, wrap it in a couple layers of hockey tape and hang it somewhere your wife won’t yell at you for drilling into the walls or ceiling.  Now you’re ready to work those paddle muscles.

Now, if you’ve never done a pull up in your life, this first workout may make you feel pretty depressed, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. Here’s the routine, you should be able to complete it in under 45 minutes, which means only 20-30 second breaks between exercises.

• Wide grip overhand pull ups
• Standard push ups
• Wide grip underhand chin ups
• Military push ups (narrow hands, elbows in)
• Narrow grip overhand pull ups
• Wide push ups

REPEAT…yes, I said repeat on the second set of each, you should be maxing out.

• Decline push ups (feet on a chair, great for upper chest and shoulders)
• Wide hand dips (put your hands on the edge of chair, and keep your legs straight, lift a leg for more resistance)
• Diamond push ups (wide feet, hands under sternum with index fingers and thumbs touching making a diamond)
• Narrow hand dips
• Dive bomber push ups (wide feet, go from downward dog position, to cobra position and back again, dive bombing chest close to ground)

Repeat…

If that hasn’t thoroughly kicked your ass, I don’t know what would.  Repeat this routine every 3rd or 4th day and you’ll be a duck diving and paddling machine by the time the next big swell hits and don’t forget to take your flexx labs supplements.  If this routine looks slightly familiar it’s kind of a rip off of a popular DVD-based workout program, but damn effective…product review to come…