Exercise Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive

My August 3 blog entry concerns exercise and recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury. I write about an article in the August 2006 issue of Reader’s Digest that says making exercise a habit is a way to keep your brain healthy, and I attribute my full recovery from my coma I suffered at age thirteen partly to exercise. Some survivors of TBI may be living on government assistance and think they cannot afford exercise equipment or membership to a club. But…

Exercise doesn’t have to be expensive.

I never did own a membership to a club. In college I worked out at the physical activity center on campus, with membership included in tuition, and after college I designated a room in my home to my workout room.

In the almost twelve years I’ve have been a regular exerciser, I have amassed

*ankle weights
*a step for aerobics
*a set of 6#, 8#, 10#, 15#, and 25# dumbbells
*a stationary bike
*a Swiss ball
*an eight-pound medicine ball
*about twenty different step aerobics, floor aerobics, Pilates, yoga, and weight training videos, all from http://www.collagevideo.com/, a site that has nearly every fitness video released
*a high step
*a tennis ball
*a light resistance band.

Add all that up, and it’s probably around $600. But I didn’t spend it all at once. The cost was spread over twelve years—and some of it I got for gifts—no cost to me.

So you see, it is possible to get in shape on a budget. Just be resourceful (the shoe-shine box, above, was actually a shoe-shine box one of my brothers made in high school shop class) and smart. In 1996 I bought a set of six-pound dumbbells for $6, and the typical price for dumbbells is still only about 50 cents per pound. Buy more expensive equipment on sale (the stationary bike, above, I bought at an after-Christmas sale). When your spouse or a parent asks what you want for your birthday, give them some ideas of fitness equipment you would use.

Hop to it! Hopping is a free cardio exercise.