Workout On A Budget

By Oscar Villegas on February 7, 2013

If you are like most Americans this past New Year one of your resolution was to lose weight, get fit, so you decided that you would go to the gym and workout everyday. The you realized that you’re a college student and that you’re broke and those resolutions came crashing to the ground. No worries you live in Southern California, where we have more than our share of amount of places to work out so the only thing you need is motivation. If you are in a “cup a noodle for every meal “budget then no worries there are many ways to get a good workout for free.

1. Use Your Natural Reasources

Claremont Hills Wilderness Trails

You live in Southern California where we are lucky enough to be blessed with many locations where we can get away from the ordinary and connect to nature. These places are also a great place to get your workout for free. Places like the Griffith Park offer many hiking trails for people to use free of charge, as well as a spectacular view of all of Los Angeles and the Hollywood sign. As a CPP student you have a variety of options if you don’t want to drive all the way to Hollywood. There is Bonelli Park in San Dimas which provides many hiking, walking, and biking trails for you to enjoy (if you go in the summer you can swim in the lake). Bonelli charges a $10 fee to park your vehicle (you can park in Brackett Field for free) but if you don’t want to pay that no worries. The Claremont Hills Wilderness Hill offer a 5 mile for the general public to use free of charge. A couple of miles away you have Mt. Baldy which offers even more options as well as beautiful scenery all free of charge.  If you are looking for more hiking trails visit Everytrail.com where you can get a review of the best hiking trails in California.

2. YouTube

If nature is not your thing don’t worry there are countless of other options its 2013 and there is a vast amount of information available online which can be used to your advantage. YouTube is your best friend if you’re trying to get a good workout for free. There are countless of videos online posted by gym instructors that will teach how to workout as well as give you routines for you to perform. One of these is Mike Chang’s Six Pack S shortcuts, which provide both works out routines as well as diet tips so you can get the best of your time without having to pay massive amount of money on the gym. Insane Home Fat Loss provides a constant amount of videos that allow you to get a great cardio workout without much equipment as well as from the comfort of your home.

3. Your Community

n the majority of communities in Southern California have middle school and high school which allow member of the community to use their track after school hours. So instead of staying at home watching television you can get off the couch and do a couple of laps around the track. A lap around the track is about a 1/4 of a mile so you can see your progress as you increase the amount of laps you do every day. Then there is the more traditional way of losing weight that cost you nothing more than a good pair of comfortable sneakers, running/jogging around your neighborhood. This method of staying in shape has been in practice for so long that it has become a cliché in today’s fitness obsessed world. There is something you can do to modernize your trip around your neighborhood, if you have a smart phone there is probably an app to help you measure your progress. Apps like RunKeeper and MapMyRun are free and allow you to track your progress over the days, weeks, months and even years. They also give you motivational awards such as beating your previous longest run, beating your time run and other such awards. The best thing about these apps is they make you run/jog a challenge and motivate you to beat yourself as well as show off to your friends as you can update your progress to Facebook and show everyone how much progress you have done as well as how much better you are for working out for free instead of spending hundreds of dollars in a fancy gym.

Now you have cannot use the excuse that you are broke to not workout. It may be difficult at first to get out there and work on something that you always wanted to do but where to lazy to do. With the beautiful scenery that surrounds Southern California it is anyone’s guess why you would choose to stay inside and watch television. So use all the resources available to you and make a change for the better in your life. Stay fit my friends.

 

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