UKking

Over the last few months I've been trying to get myself more in shape. My BMI puts me right smack in the middle of normal so I'm not trying to particularly lose weight, just turn fat into muscle and become a little more athletic. If I'm honest, it's the vanity thing, that stereotypical 6 pack dream!

I'm not gym member so I don't have access to anything like that so have had to improvise a little bit. I got a second hand 'stepper' machine, and a set of free weights.

I start with 20 minutes on the stepper as a cardio base, to work up a sweat and loosen up a bit. Then I do some light stretching of my legs and arms (quads, touch toes and hold, arm over and hand between shoulder blades...). I'll follow that with 200 crunches, hands on the back of my neck and legs in the air with ankles crossed. Then a minute of 'the plank' (holding a press-up initial position to work core muscles), followed by three sets of weight exercises for my biceps, triceps and back. I then repeat the crunches, plank and weights, and finish with a hard stretch out.

I was doing this every other day, but I'm now trialing it every day to see what difference it has on me. It doesn't take more than 30-35 minutes, with maybe the odd minute between different parts. Now and again I increase the number of crunches (when I first started I was doing 50 in my whole workout).