Nothing beats having a gym to yourself. Recently, my friends and I decided to set up an office gym to keep ourselves active and refreshed at work. Our budget was a hundred bucks and they were more than enough to get ourselves some useful and simple equipments from Amazon. Here are the pictures of our new equipments along with some basic exercises that I have shown my friends:

Equipment: Chin-up Bar

Exercise: Pull-ups

Step 1: Get a firm grip on the bar and slowly pull yourself up. Stabilize your body while pulling up and going down. Good form is the key to this exercise in order to develop your upper body strength.

Step 2: Once you have pulled yourself all the way to the top, slowly lower yourself to the start position. Do not go down fast because you may strain your latissmus dorsi (back muscles).

Pull-ups are one of the best exercises that you can do on your own. Unless you are a bodybuilder who needs to maximize muscle size, it is unnecessary to beat yourself up in the gym with heavy weights. Anybody who is able to carry his or her own weight (from doing push-ups, pull-ups, dips, and etc) is considered strong and athletic.

Equipment: Stretch Core

Exercise: Flies

Step1: Engage your abdominal muscles to keep your upper body stabilized and bend your elbows at 90-degrees.

Step 2: Squeeze your chest slowly while bringing your hands together. Cross your hands until you feel a full contraction from your pectoralis (chest muscles).

Stretch core will give you back the same amount of the resistance that you exert on it; therefore, this equipment is very helpful in toning and strengthening your muscles.

Equipment: Body Ball and Medicine Ball

Exercise: Basic Crunches

Step 1: Engage your abdominal muscles, keep your hips pointing to the ceiling, and optional, you may hold a weight above your head. But make sure the weight is directly above your head so you can’t see it while lying on the stability ball.

Step 2: Keep a fist-distance between your chin and upper chest, then slowly crunch up by using your abdominal muscles solely. Keep your eyes on a fixed object to ensure a stabilized body position. Don’t forget to exhale on the way up and inhale on the way down. A perfect and effective crunch is done with a controlled body movement and breathing rhythm.

By doing basic crunches on a body ball (or call it a stability ball) will strengthen your core muscles faster and more effectively. You may experience an unbalanced and uncomfortable body position in the beginning, but I promise that your perseverance to gain stability on the ball will make you stronger.

As you can see, a set of basic exercise equipments does not cost a fortune, and it also gives you an easy access to a short and sweet workout session that you long for in your office or home. Staying fit requires consistency and with only couple clicks away on Amazon, you are one-third (another two-thirds requires you to set up and use the equipments on daily basis) of the way to stay active and healthy.