I wish gyms were less expensive, and had places, even a table perhaps, that kids and tweens could use. It would make exercise more accessible for me and my lifestyle.
In university, I had an indoor track I could use, it was fantastic and had plenty of room for families and people exercising.
No, we need cities and towns that are designed around active transport. Exercise should not be a "thing you do", it should just be part of life. If you want to "do exercise" it needs to be in addition to the normal every day base level of exercise everyone gets for free.
That said, you don't need to wait to be given those opportunities. Look for every opportunity for unnecessary expenditure of energy - you'll find there are plenty.
This. When I lived in Europe I was getting 60+ minutes of walking every day just between work and home and lunch and work. In Korea, I get 40+ minutes to and from subway stations. Family in the US will tell me they went for a really good 30 minute walk, and the thought I'm too polite to express is "How is 30 minutes of walking special enough to tell me about?"
Basically Singapore. Unfortunately that country can't be model in any western countries due Chinese inherent concept of devine right to rule (mandate from heaven). The system depends on people believing in a single party in overwhelming majority (>65%) and mandatory voting. Western countries depends on majority of voters being lazy and bot involved and let a small subset of vocal minority to control the government with small margin of winning votes (~55% out of say 60% voters turnout). For a city to be designed around active lifestyle, you need strong and consistent government with good resources to implement. Even some Nordic countries that are well ran compare to say a messy western country like USA, still can't implement the active lifestyle properly and consistently across more than a single election.
This should be in every city. The only way I could reliably exercise when my kids were babies was by running them in a stroller.
Apart from the mental health aspect (lack of agency, no time or space to yourself), you can’t always subject your kids to the weather of the day or they’re uncooperative to the point that the run isn’t feasible. Not to mention the multitude of reasons people can’t run, from disabilities to simply having no safe place to run with a stroller. Smooth sidewalks with space are kind of a luxury.
With a lifestyle and/or restrictions like that, no wonder people get out of shape. We can’t rely on our communities having space and accommodation for kids and so, well, without a family network we’re on our own.
You don’t need a gym, those are just excuses. You can do a lot right at home, and more frequently as you don’t need to go all the way to the gym every time.
Physical fitness for good health has 2 components: aerobic fitness and strength. You can improve your aerobic fitness and your upper body strength at home (rings and/or handstand pushups are enough for all but the most advanced strength athletes).
Core/lower body strength is another matter entirely. People tend to quickly progress to 1x body weight squats and deadlifts. And someone who is more advanced will probably be in the 2x-3.5x range. Without access to serious weight, lower body training is usually pretty ineffective, strength wise.
It's a bit expensive to get started, but a rack and weights will pay for itself in saved gym fees after a couple years, or a few months for 2 people somewhere expensive like SF. We managed to fit one back when my wife and I lived in 1 bedroom apartments.
> a rack and weights will pay for itself in saved gym fees after a couple years
That's been my solution.
If you take into account resale value, it'll actually pay itself off much faster - especially if you're willing to wait for good deals.
I think I was able to put together a full set of weights + another set of 45s for less than $1/lb. I'm using a cheap bar and a cheap rack, so the whole thing cost me less than $800.
I estimate that I could sell it all today for $600 for sure, and probably get back all my money if I was willing to wait 1-2 months.
The other big advantage of using a home gym is wait times; I used to go to a commercial gym, where the wait time for a rack was often more than 30 minutes at peak times. As long as you don't need machines (lat pulldown can be very nice), a rack at home can make gym time much more efficient.
I assume your parent was confused about notation. You can get 1x body weight squats (that is to say your actual body + 1x your body weight as additional load) by doing one legged squats off of a chair.
I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though?
My thesis is that disregarding upper body gains, which can be compensated by other exercises, single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x, with almost no gear at all.
You can also reasonably easily add about 2x15kg in dumbbells which is almost another 0,7x or so, making home training quite powerful.
> I don't understand where I'm wrong about the 2x bw though? ... single leg squats will get you to 1x + 1x bw, which is 2x
The disagreement is purely about notation.
In the strength world, people routinely ignore bodyweight when measuring squat intensity - they only list load weight. I suspect that this is, in large part, an effort to be consistent with other barbell exercises like Deadlift (which I mentioned earlier), Press, Bench Press, Row, etc. where including one's body weight wouldn't really make sense.
If you want to go really cheap, buy a kettlebell. When that becomes too easy, buy a heavier one. Unless the goal is actual powerlifting, buying a kettlebell every time you need a heavier one will carry a person a very long ways.
If a person has more money and the space, they can do the same thing with dumbbells.
It's really not complicated, but people make it so.
The big corporate gyms are dirt cheap and typically have onsite daycare for a small fee. My wife and I pay $55 a month for a family membership at LA fitness, and daycare is $5 per visit or $15 extra per month. No indoor track, though.
Planet Fitness is like $10 a month and usually 24/7. I'm sure someone will criticize planet fitness because it doesn't have x,y,z...but I don't think you can get better value for an average person.
More likely people might criticize that Planet Fitness does not exist in every country. Or it might not be close enough to everyone. Where I live the cheapest gym membership is 24€/mo and that gym is shady as hell (really bad reviews everywhere).
In university, I had an indoor track I could use, it was fantastic and had plenty of room for families and people exercising.