There’s no place like your home gym

I frequently find myself sweating in my living room, and it’s not because I have my heat up… I frequently find myself sweating in my living room, and it’s not because I have my heat up too high. Rather, I’ve become a fan of the exercise DVD. And apparently I’m not the only student at Pitt trading in trips to the Pete for sweat sessions in front of the TV.

Home workout regimes are a great alternative for self-motivated people short on time — aka the average college student. Variety, convenience and minimal cost are just a few benefits to skipping the gym while still reaping results.

Pitt senior Annie Altmire has taken advantage of P90X — a home fitness program by Beach Body featuring 12 different DVD workouts — for the past three years since she’s been living off campus.

“As soon as I moved off campus sophomore year, I didn’t have a gym that was easy to walk to, so I started gaining weight,” she said. “I saw the infomercials and knew some people who had used P90X and gotten good results, so I decided to give it a try.”

Altmire enjoys that the workouts are different each day, focusing on different muscle groups. In addition, she likes the convenience of not having to travel to the gym — especially in the winter.

“They definitely provide you with a good workout if you put a lot into the workouts. If you do the workouts half-assed, like pausing the DVD a lot or not pushing yourself, then I don’t think they are as good of a workout as going to the gym,” she said. “For me, if I do the workout to the fullest, then it is a better strength training workout than the one I get when I go to the gym and lift.”

But not all exercise DVDs are created equal. Choosing a home workout should be approached with the same care as any other investment one would make. Rather than risk letting another DVD on my shelf collect dust, I research multiple reviews of the product and see if I can test it out on Exercise TV, which can be accessed online at exercisetv.tv, as well as through Comcast OnDemand.

Recently I chose to try Jillian Michaels’ “6 Week Six-Pack” after seeing some positive reviews on various fitness blogs and finding it for free on OnDemand.

A three- to eight-pound weight and a mat, if you’re exercising on a hard surface, are needed for the workout. But Michaels advises beginners to modify the workout by performing it without the weight. Since I’m so hardcore, I chose to do the workout without a mat and with a 10-pound kettle bell. Yeah, that didn’t last long.

The workout is about 45 minutes long, including warm-up and cool-down, and features multiple circuits of standing ab work, floor work and plank work that are eventually all completed twice in two monster circuits. The DVD features a Level 1 workout for the first three weeks of the regime and a Level 2 workout for the second three weeks. Michaels recommends performing the workout five times per week.

The most impressive thing about “6 Week Six-Pack” is that the DVD is an ab workout that avoids standard moves like the basic crunch and sit up. I appreciate this because I don’t need a $15 DVD to show me how to do crunches and sit-ups. Instead, Michaels mixes cardio and weight-training moves in with no-rest circuits of standing, on the floor and — most painfully — plank position ab-sculpting moves. Even exercise DVD veterans will likely pick up a new move or two with this DVD, such as the spider plank, where users hold plank position and alternate bringing the right and left knees in to touch the right and left elbows.

I also appreciate how Michaels throws in a cardio move every few exercises to increase heart rate — aka sweat rate or fat-burning rate. My average heart rate throughout the DVD was in the 140s — a decent 70 percent of my maximum heart rate — and at times I climbed up into the 180s. For an ab workout, that’s impressive. In addition, the cardio inclusion helps to squelch the misconception that it’s possible to get definition from ab moves alone when truthfully, these moves don’t burn enough calories to dig away at any existing fluff.

As far as the sweat factor is concerned, I can’t compare the workout to a 45-minute speed interval session on the treadmill, but there definitely was a noticable amount of perspiration. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give the DVD a 3 for the next-day-soreness factor. In terms of calorie burn, the DVD scorches about 300 calories — not too shabby for a 45 minute workout. This probably isn’t a DVD I will purchase or follow for six weeks, but it could definitely serve as a nice addition to your workout regime once or twice a week.

Though great DVD workouts exist, you might find that supplementing your workout routine of gym time and fitness classes with workout DVDs is your best bet. After all, home routines do have their disadvantages.

“When comparing an exercise DVD to a live exercise class, you need to consider several factors: encouragement, safety and tailoring,” said Laura Fonzi, a clinical instructor and aerobic coordinator at Pitt. “Oftentimes, it is more difficult to be motivated by a television than by a live fitness instructor who can provide continuous feedback and encouragement on what you are doing.”

Junior Caily Grube finds the gym environment more motivating than her home environment.

“All the energy of everyone working out at the gym is inspiring,” she said. “If I do a DVD alone I slack off.”

Grube, who used to do kickboxing DVDs with her friends, said DVDs are fine if you’re doing them with other people to keep you motivated. But she also finds the instructors intimidating and wants to take advantage of campus gyms included in her tuition.

Another reason to leave your living room, Fonzi said, is that an instructor provides an extra level of safety in a fitness class — letting you know when you’re performing moves incorrectly and also modifying different exercises for different fitness levels.

But ultimately, exercise is exercise whether you do it at home or at the gym.

“The bottom line is that exercise is encouraged in all forms,” Fonzi said. “Whatever makes a person exercise more frequently, as long as it is safe, is recommended.”