Introduction

Beyond the Gym is a guide to exercising outside of, you guessed it, the gym. Though an indispensable feature of many people’s plans for health, the gym has drawbacks. Imagine these scenarios:

“I’m at my desk all day long. My neck hurts, my lower back hurts, and I’m gaining weight. When I was in college, I walked everywhere and went swimming, played frisbee with my friends, and felt good. Only a few years have passed, but I feel decades older.”

“It’s a two hour drive to and from work. I have no time to move. Most of the day I’m either in front of a computer or a steering wheel. Who has the energy after all that to go a gym?”

“I’m in my forties and recently divorced. I go to the gym regularly, but everyone there is decades younger. I feel so old there, even when I’m working my butt off on one of those machines. It makes me feel so self conscious, so I tried running at the park, but my knees hurt. I want to be healthier, but I don’t know how to go about doing it.”

“After a ten-hour shift, I have another hour-and-a-half subway ride before I get home. I try to sleep on the ride, but the train’s so rollicky that I never feel rested, and then–who knows what will happen if you sleep. Plus, my neck hurts when I lean against a window. And I don’t want to drool on anyone! I have no choice but to take the subway, yet staying awake reading a book on the trip is just as hard as sleeping there is. I don’t know what do.”

Sure the free weights and machines at a gym encourage your limbs to work out, the mirrors reflect how great you look when doing so, and the other people beside you lead by example, helping you to run faster, sit-up quicker, and bench more. But, as the previous quotes show, the gym doesn’t work for everyone. But not enugh has been written or talked about on how to be healthy without a gym or a specialized and expensive diet. For exercising, the only other options anyone mentions are to recreate a gym in one’s own home, or to go to an outdoor field to play sports and exercise. That doesn’t work for me, and it doesn’t work for many of you. I’m just too busy and too poor. That’s why I’ve developed ways to exercise in the places I can’t avoid, places likes my office and the subway. Eventually you’ll find exercises specifically designed for a bus, car, train, plane, and many more.

A word on motivation. If you’re reading this, you’re probably sitting down. Are you reading from a computer monitor in your office or bedroom, or from an ipod screen on the creaking subway? Wherever you are, I  bet my right eye you’re not as energetic as you could be. Or want to be, for that matter. Our seats seem made for turning us into cardboard cutouts of real people: flat, lifeless, and board.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A seat, anywhere, offers numerous ways to offset the lethargic comfort which is the reason for sitting in the first place. But to use a seat in a new way, for vitalizing yourself, you have to do it yourself. Chances are, no one else is doing crunches near you, no athletes thrusting dumb bells, no mirrors to show you how red your face is, no motivation anywhere but in the dullness you feel in yourself. To exercise wherever you are, all you have to do is reject dullness anywhere and everywhere you sense it. Boredom is a sin, and Beyond the Gym is here to help you eradicate it from your life.

The following is an outline of some things to consider when working out in as public a place as a subway:

Safety

The outdoors, subway, bus, car, and plane are not private gyms, but open, mercurial areas where nearly everyone wants to be left alone save the few who may cause you trouble. Put extra effort into staying focused on your environment as you exercise. You u’ll get more from the routine by staying present.

Though a robust body deters harassment, better is simply to be attentive. Muggers, purse thieves, vagrants, are more likely to aggress against someone distracted than someone together, even if the former is bigger and healthier. In short: attention pays. Subway Exercises wants to help you be healthy but not by tossing aside your safety. Don’t neglect the subway environment to focus doggedly on your workout. We applaud the intensity but ask that you refrain from it on the subway, where you are too exposed. Again, the subway is not a gym, and you cannot transplant the gym mentality from one to the other. Plus, you don’t want to miss your station stop. If you find yourself forgetting where you are, or neglecting what’s happening around you in a significant way, you may be straining yourself too hard and need to ease up.

As you practice the exercises created by Beyond the Gym you’ll find that your awareness will awaken to both what you and others are doing. The benefits to your mind will be just as evident as to your body, working hand in spirit, so to speak. Be sure to read our section on strengthening attentiveness; in fact I recommend beginning there—it’s that important. When it comes to exercising in public, the burden of safety lies on you.

Hygiene

Many of the exercises you’ll be learning here require you to touch different parts of the environment with your hands. The best way to keep clean would be to wear gloves, but, barring that, remember to wash your hands after touching something. Carry around wet wipes, antibacterial soap, or hand-sanitizer. Regardless of the extra gunk that will get on your palms from working out in the train, hand washing is essential practice for a healthful life.

Pain

At a gym many faces are often bloated, grimacing, and red as berries. They’re bodies are being pushed to the limit. This might be OK in a gym environment, though yogic and martial arts traditions would disagree with the need to strain the face to improve the body, but it won’t cut mustard beyond them, where discretion is paramount. Therefore, maintaining a calm expression is the first stage in all Beyond the Gym exercises, unless you’re the only one in the subway car. If you’re doing an exercise that causes your face to contort, and with focus and breathe you can’t return it to normal, ease off the accelerator on that exercise.

Exercise is painful. But fortunately for those not masochistic there is good pain–and bad pain. A decent test to know whether the pain you’re experiencing in an exercise is good or bad is to ease out of the exercise; if the pain subsides, it’s more likely the good type. If not, you’ve strained yourself pushing too deep. Defining pain this way has a draw back–you won’t know whether a posture will hurt you negatively until after you’ve tried it. Therefore be cautious when moving your body in a way you aren’t used to. You’re body may be better off with no tuning if you do so recklessly.

There are two overall methods for stretching: to go into the stretch and hold it, or to go in and out repeatedly. Both work and are accepted practice. On the subway, though, it may be odd to see someone’s limb bouncing in place, so more than not you’ll be using the deep hold method. Go into every movement you learn here with focus and to the point at which you are feeling something interesting in the joint or limb being exercised. If you’re getting bored, you’re not deep enough in the pose, or you need to switch to another one. If you feel less interest and more dismay, you’re going too far! So long as you attend to how you’re body is feeling you’ll be fine.

Credentials

I am not a doctor or certified physical therapist. The advice and guidance you find at Beyond the Gym was written by someone  experienced in improving his well-being, but not certified in it. Everything I’ve written about here I’ve practiced. I wouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t believe it will improve your life and the lives of those near you, even the strangers sensing something remarkable’s going on in the seat next to them. My recommendations are tested and performed by me. They’ve benefited my life, and I’m certain they’ll benefit yours too.