Something to hang from, something to carry

There is a version of getting fit that starts with a membership, a pair of shoes that cost more than a week's food, and a plan to go on Monday. We do not have much time for it.

All you actually need is something to hang from and something heavy to carry. A branch, a door-frame bar, the climbing frame in the park once the kids have gone home. A rucksack full of books, a bag of sand, a child. With those two things and the floor you can do nearly everything a body needs: pull, push, squat, carry, hang and run.

There is an old military line for this. Improvise, adapt, overcome. It was meant for worse situations than a garage in the rain, and it works fine for a garage in the rain.

The trap with a gym is that the day you cannot get there becomes the day you do not train, and those days add up. Make the plan for the version that needs nothing, and the gym becomes a bonus rather than a condition.