Twitter recently revealed the top 10 New Year's Resolutions of 2015, and first on the list is "work out". January is when many people decide to invest in exercise equipment or sign up for a gym as a token of their new-found dedication.
But if you haven't yet taken the plunge, here's a piece of good news. The best kind of exercise doesn't require any equipment or tools.
Australian fitness expert Nathan Helberg said that exercise is supposed to make you feel better and move more easily.
Speak to regular gym-goers and iron-pumpers, however, and you're likely to find they feel stiff, and don't often perform the movements they make in the gym in their day-to-day lives.
"Traditional training with weights and equipment can [cause injuries]. I didn't like what traditional exercise had made me become," Helberg said, in reference to pain in his shoulders resulting from past weight training.
Exercise made everyday movement painful, he said. "That's what set me on the journey to recapture my movement."
Prolonged periods of traditional training that isolates muscle groups or motor patterns is potentially harmful. The body, after all, works as an integrated system, and not individual parts.
Helberg switched to bodyweight exercises in a regime called Zuu, in which participants mimic animal movements. He is not the only person who sees the benefits of bodyweight exercises over those involving dumbbells and barbells. In the Worldwide Survey Of Fitness Trends For 2015: What's Driving The Market, a study conducted by Walter Thompson, a member of the board of trustees of the American College of Sports Medicine, bodyweight training topped the list.
According to the survey, bodyweight training — in which no additional weight is used — has taken the top spot from last year's champion: high-intensity interval training.
"When you do traditional training, you always move on the same planes. For example, you're pushing up and down doing bench presses, but in reality the body doesn't work like that," Helberg explained. "Bodyweight exercises are much more effective because that's how you operate in your daily life. A lot of people who come to a gym would sit on a machine or use other equipment. When they leave the gym, they don't move like that again. Does that make sense?"
Helberg said that performing bodyweight movements can also be a better form of cardio than running on the treadmill. It's also easier on the knees. Bodyweight exercise also requires no equipment, meaning it can be done anywhere.
To get a feel for bodyweight training, Helberg suggested trying the "bear crawl" movement, in which a person's weight is on the balls of the feet and hands.
"In your bedroom, a hotel room or a gym, just crawl forward and backwards for 30 seconds, then take a 30-second break. Try and do that two to three times. The beauty of it is that every single joint in your body works. When every joint works, every ligament and tendon gets dragged into the movement. When that happens, you get to engage every muscle in your body. You elevate your heart rate in a low-impact environment. It's also fun because most of us haven't done that since we were kids."
Other easy bodyweight moves include planks, calf raises (standing on the tiptoes, hold briefly, then come back down) and frog squats (squatting down until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then pushing back to a standing position).
Regular trips to the gym, however, shouldn't necessarily become a thing of the past. Helberg said he believes in a sense of community when exercising — one thing that can't be found alone at home.
"One of the great things about being in the gym, especially if you go to a class, is you form friendships and interact with people. You have this great culture going on," he said.
Nathan Helberg, left, performs a frog squat in his Zuu class.
