How to Do More with Less: Unique Ideas for Low Cost or No Cost Exercise Equipment and Ways to Boost Your Workout

Are you ready to free your mind and cut your body to shreds? Let's explore some low cost/free options to create your own workout equipment and to take your efforts to the next level.

You don't have to have the welded iron racks and weight systems seen at the gym to get a decent workout at home. Take your abs, for example. If you have two surfaces at a ninety degree angle where you can rest both forearms (your kitchen counter tops), you can do leg lifts and reverse crunches. If your bones rub, tuck a dishtowel underneath each forearm. Other options: use the washer and dryer or stove and dishwasher for support. Anything able to solidly hold your body weight. The same surfaces can be used for tricep dips.

A window sill, counter or low bench is ideal for incline pushups decline pushups, or pikes. In some circumstances, you may be able to use your bed as long as the mattress or frame can support your weight without slipping or giving way.

For step aerobics, variations on jump squats, box squats, or incline exercises close to the floor, a concrete block can more than do the trick. You may need to wash it down and cushion it to protect your carpet or floor before use. An alternative: build your own simple wooden box. The same items can be used in place of yoga blocks for supported poses.

Walking and running are two of the most basic forms of exercise available to us. They take no more than what you're already wearing. You might be tempted to load up on Under Armor and the latest running shoes, but there is a big difference between what you want and what you need when it comes to fitness training. Our ancestors ran in primitive forms of footwear or barefoot. If all you're doing is jogging around the track or around the block, there is no need to sink a percentage of your paycheck down the big black hole of gear. Throw on an old tee and a pair of shorts. Choose the cheapest decent sneakers you can find. Forget everything you've been told about cushioning and support.

True, weight plates and bells aren't very costly, but they aren't always close at hand. If you don't have the extra bucks or if you enjoy being creative, there is always something useful nearby.

If you're at home, lift one end of a large piece of furniture. Find a small child who needs entertainment: give a kid a ride on your back as you do pushups, use their weight for a press or curl, let one hang on your feet for weighted pullups.

If you're at home and your partner can no longer take the madness, the garage is a gold mine of heavy, difficult pieces ripe for exploitation. An old tire is good, an old tractor tire even better. Lift and flip one for your arms and back, drag it for resistance. No tire? Push your car. Just be sure the kids are inside the house, you have a level surface, and a way to stop before it hits the house or traffic.

If you're out on the trail, lift your mountain bike, a log or a large rock. You can jump sticks for plyometrics. Trail riding and running in themselves are a way to get a more extreme workout. The uneven ground calls upon your core, requires better balance and coordination, and puts muscles into play you'll wish you still didn't know were there the next day.

For small weights, almost any household item can be used in place of a barbell. Of course, if you want to build your body, you'll skip the idea of tiny weights altogether. Work yourself up to five pounds or better as quickly as possible. Those teensy weights women are often pictured with? Wasting their time and yours.

A gallon jug is a very handy tool. You get double benefit because you have your water for hydration and a free weight. The water tends to feel more unbalanced than a standard weight and the slight unsteadiness can give you a better result, pushing you to use other large and small muscle groups to compensate.

Need a heavy bag, a punch dummy, a dead weight to carry? Take an old pair of jeans, cut off the leg and sew one end shut. Fill the jeans with sand or clamshell and sew the opposite end to close the bag. You'll want to use multiple rows of stitches and heavy thread, if possible.

Or you can go old school. Take an empty coffee can and fill it with a cement, concrete or plaster mixture. Add a sturdy handle or mount for a clip before the mix dries. Whatever you choose, anchor it deep into the mixture (for a clip mount, drop an old length of chain inside and leave one or two links exposed). You can use this as a sort of kettle bell or add it to a bar or pulley system as needed.

Tow chains. Car chains are unwieldy and heavy. Wearing/carrying a piece or manipulating one or more full chains can give you another chance to kick your workout up a notch. As with the water, the tendency of the weight to not sit stationary forces your muscles to fight to resist the added movement and to attain balance. Twist or pull the chains to work forearms. Drag them for resistance. Carry one for added weight while you do sprints.

Combinations of exercises can get you ripped as quickly as any equipment, without the expensive monthly payment.

Adding weights to any exercise will pump up the intensity, the caloric burn, your effort. Whether you're doing miles on the treadmill, pushing through sets of crunches, or even gliding through a yoga routine, keep a set of simple weights (or your homemade version) close at hand.

Even if you don't have the stamina to incorporate them throughout the entirety of your session, you can use them for intervals and build up the reps or weight you're utilizing. When you get used to the changes in posture and form, you will be able to double up many parts of your workout and get more benefit in less time.

Pair up! Combinations of exercises done together with a smooth transition and no rest or minimal rest in between give you more power in less time. Try a lunge with a bicep curl, situp with a double punch, or try triples like a lunge, curl, and overhead press.

Go to extremes. Some of the best results come by going where no sane person will go. Do extra reps. Do your routine with added weight. Do it on one leg. Do it tired. Do it again.

Get ready to bust a gut. To get that extra definition, to ratchet up your results, you have to push into areas most people fear to tread. That means multiple sets that target the same muscle groups. There are a thousand variations on the crunch. Do a set that targets your obliques, one that incorporates a leg lift, then squeeze those abs like you're trying to stop a bullet. Now pick three more styles, drop and give me fifty!

Get creative! Examine all of your regular habits with new eyes and see if any unique approaches jump out at you. Check your environment for opportunities you're missing to throw in sets. Run through the park? Make a stop at the playground. Near the beach? Run in the sand or try barefoot running. A low hanging tree limb in your yard. A bus bench. A set of stairs. They're all calling out to you to use them to grit out a few pullups, wail on your triceps, practice your vertical jump.

Incorporate balance. Use a ball if you have one. If you don't? Put a thick plank over a rock, a tire rim, or any sturdy cylinder you can find. Once you can balance standing, add weights and squat. You'll murder your core and hone your focus.

Mike Huckabee told a story about his running where he used a simple system to count laps. He would load his pockets with small rocks and toss one out with each lap. If you want to bring the pain, do the reverse. Count your laps by adding weight with each pass. This is easy to do if you have a weight vest. If you don't, be like Mike and use rocks. Wear an old jacket or backpack, add bricks, wrenches out of your tool set- whatever you can find a way to stuff in or clamp on to your clothes.

Rocky ran with a brick in each hand. You can do the same. Or run with your water jugs, a loaded grocery sack, a bucket of dirt. Get creative.

The trick is to do more with less.