Student Fitness

By: Joe Norton

College is busy. It’s tough to find time to go to the gym. What, with classes and meal periods, parties & homework… not nescessarily in that order but still - we can’t always find the time to go to the gym everytime we want to workout.

No worries! There are TONS of exercises that require little-to-no equipment that you can do anywhere, anytime. Including in your dorm room. You can work out most muscle groups using just your bodyweight, in the comfort of your own place.

Below I’ve listed some of the more beneficial dorm room exercises that will show you real results if you do them consistently.

Abs - Possibly the easiest muscle group to workout using just your bodyweight.

Abs are unlike the other muscle groups in
how they can be trained almost everyday of the week. That’s right, with abs you
don’t have to follow the “never 2 days in a row” rule. However you should make sure you don’t work them for extended periods of time
without rest. I recommend atleast 1 or 2 ab rest days every week. With that in mind, you can make working out your abs a nightly thing. Like just before bed everynight try and squeeze in a few minutes of abs and increasing the duration you work on them as you progress.

Pilates - These usually involve just your bodyweight (or if you care to invest, a contraption known as reformer which is one of those seats with the pully’s and whatnot) and an exercise ball. I won’t discuss any pilates exercises which require either form of equipment. All you need is you, and a floor - easy as that.

The Hundred - The most basic, and starter pilates exercise

The Postion: Lay on the floor, back on the ground. Keep your hands to your sides a few inches off the ground, palms down. Feet straight out 6 inches to a foot off the ground. Keep your head raised off the ground, this will pull more muscles into the exercise and cause more stress on them.
What to do: while in this position you are supposed to wave your hands up and down (like getting as close as an inch from the ground and as high as 6 inches perhaps). The reasoning is that this is to be done “one hundred” times per set. If you can’t do it 100 times then do as many as you can, or just time yourself. Might seem silly at first, but within 20 seconds it’s going to get more difficult.
Variation: While in the hundred position, move your feet in a up & down
motion like you are walking.
For a video demonstration, that is almost exactly how I described, check here.

Leg Raises - AWESOME exercise. It has become my “bread-n-butter” ab exercise. Way better than situps.

The Position: Lay on floor, back on the ground. Head raised off the floor. Arms at your side,
press against the floor to
support yourself while you do the exercise. Keep your legs straight out, I recommend
not letting them touch the ground
for added difficulty.
What you do: Raise legs, keeping them straight throughout, go pass the 90 degree mark just a bit till you feel the additional contraction of your top abs. Don’t go too far back, I find that having your legs past about 120 degrees to not really help much and instead it can just hurt your back.

Roll Up - Pretty good exercise. You can see serious advancement as your abs strengthen.

The Position: Lay on the floor, back on the ground. Arms stretched out past your head, palms facing the ceiling like you are trying to reach for something behind your head. Keep feet straight out, planted on the ground. I recommend putting a pillow behind your head for this one because when you end reps, without great technique, you might have the tendency to forcefully touch the ground and try to bounce your way back up. Do not do this. Remember that technique is everything. Your body dosen’t care how many exercises you do, just how much you stimulate your muscles.
What to do: Slowly and with control, raise your upper body off the ground while keeping your arms stretched out. The goal here is to raise your upper body off the ground, using only your abs, and then touch your toes with your arms and slowly, with control, lower your upper body back to the resting position. It can be difficult, but with time you will find you are able to do many more reps than when you first began. For a video demonstration, that is almost exactly the way I described, check here.

Do these 3 Pilates moves every other night and in no time you’ll be a situp machine.

Who says you need fancy smancy equipment to get a six pack… People who sell fancy smancy equipment…

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Posted in Campus Fitness, Dorm Room Workout | By Joe |

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