Exercise: Try This At Home

Just a few years after the corporate world started designing workspaces with fitness in mind–longer walkways, more stairs–architects have translated the concept to home design. And just a few months after that happened, writers started to write about it. One such writer is Joan Vos MacDonald, whose "High Fit Home: Designing Your Home for Health and Fitness" (HarperDesign, 2005), is discussed in this article in the Washington Post. Because the high-end concepts featured in the book–one home has interior and exterior climbing walls– are as fiscally challenging as they are physically challenging,  the Post graciously includes sidebar suggestions that might better fit the budgets of the rest of us. Here, Jeffrey Potteiger, professor of physical education, health and sport
studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a fellow at the
American College of Sports Medicine reminds us that most of us don’t even have to invest in a Stairaster, because we have real stairs. The trick is to use them often, even when we don’t have to.  And James
Anastasion, director of the Rockville Sport Rock indoor climbing gym, points out that if you have a basement or garage with exposed beams,
you’ve got the essentials of a climbing wall. Learn more.