Well-equipped, even luxurious gyms are opening up everywhere — but you may not need to invest in a membership.
I tried the gym for a few months,” says Shalini Deshpande (name changed), 32, an urban planner from sultry Georgia, USA. “It broke my heart to have to join it; I do not believe one should get into a car to travel to a place to exercise. I tried it anyway, found that I did not make use of the membership and decided not to waste any money.”
She started working out at home, to her own programme and with none of the large machines that gyms provide. “I have switched to stretches and weights. Free weights are said to be slightly better than using the machines in the gym. The main reason being that while you are using the free weights, not only is the targeted muscle group exercised, but you also develop an overall balance and core strength and stability.”
Gym or home: for most people committed to improving their bodies, it’s an easy choice. Gym wins. “The environment is conducive to a serious workout,” explains Arun Grover, 51, a senior marketing executive with Tractors India Ltd in Kolkata, and a gym-goer since his school days. “Equipment these days is important, and you’re always under the eye of a trainer.” There are certain risks, he says, to working out at home. “I’ve been doing workouts since I was in school, and you get so used to it you might start doing something technically wrong, which could be damaging to your system. You always need a trainer — he’s like a third eye.”
Professional opinion is more mixed, although it, too, leans toward working out in a gym. The gym boom in Indian cities and towns is visible to all, and recently overseas chains like Gold’s Gym and Fitness First have opened franchises in Indian metros as well.
Shodhan Rai is a senior trainer at Gold’s Gym in Bangalore. According to him, access to the right tools and advice is important. “First of all, it depends on what equipment you have at home, and how knowledgeable you are. It’s better to start off in the gym, use the knowledge of the trainer, get the form right, get to know the workout. It’s better than working out alone at home. You’ll be able to perform better with all the equipment.”
Rai’s boss Sameer Shetty, head trainer at Gold’s Gym and a kinesiologist (who studies how the human body moves) with a degree from California, on the other hand, says: “All you need is a set of dumbbells. Most people get basic equipment like a workout bench with variable incline, a cable machine. It depends on your goal, and if you know your stuff.” He adds that “It’s better if you start off at home — get used to that, until you’re not seeing any change,” and then come to a gym.
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Grover, with his decades of experience, knows why: “It is said that it is better to use your own body weight rather than metal weights. Normally it is more acceptable to the body; it’s the weight that you’re used to.” Body weight exercises include such classic staples as pull-ups, push-ups, squats and lunges, which together cover all the major muscles and in all of which you use mainly your own weight to provide resistance. For toning the body, body weight exercises are ideal, but for adding strength, you need to add weight. “At the end of it,” says Grover, “if you want to get into more resistance and strength training you have to take metal weights,” and keep adjusting upwards as your strength builds.
Yet that does not perforce mean going to the gym, or purchasing expensive exercise machines (typically Rs 25,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh and more) for use at home. Inventive solutions, if you don’t use dumbbells and the like, involve using your imagination to add weight: heavy books, buckets filled with water to varying levels, and so on — do take proper advice. After all, adepts of ancient martial arts like karate and modern disciplines like gymnastics do not use machines at all — and yet they have well-shaped bodies. You can also use the Internet or purchase a selection of exercise DVDs to follow at home.
“Though I work out on my own now,” says Deshpande, “I do use the apartment gym because it is a two-minute walk away — free of cost, the weights are there, as are various machines, and they have full-length mirrors to observe the correct body posture during the exercises. I use the treadmill for cardio, it is a pain to run outdoors in the winter and I assume the air would be cleaner indoors. I do know, though, that if this gym wasn’t there at my fingertips, I would be exercising at home.” If you have the motivation, you can work out anywhere.
If you are working out seriously at home rather than at a gym, then experts prescribe the following essential equipment: free weights (dumbbells of different weights, barbells), a workout bench that can be inclined, rubber resistance bands and perhaps an inflatable stability ball — if you already have good balance and fitness — which is easy to travel with. You also need good exercise shoes and breathable clothes. Finally, choose the right surface: tile and marble are slip-prone, a carpet is dreadful. Get an exercise mat which can firmly be anchored, or invest in a wood floor.
