Frugal Fitness: Get a Great Workout for Free


3...2...1.... and NOW you get it. Something tells me this diet tip involves a lot more than a diet.

Zumba! Kettlebells! TurboKick! Circus Class! Stripperobics! Krav maga! In addition to the perennial faves like yoga and boot camp, there are so many fun ways to exercise and with new programs coming out all the time it's a wannabe-fit girl's dream!

And a frugal girl's nightmare.

The trick to finding exercise that you love is to try everything but as anyone who has looked at the impressive offering of classes (Trapeze! Hanging yoga! Pilates Reformer!) at an Equinox gym and then looked at the price to become a member of Equinox will know - exercise ain't cheap.

But it can be, and I'm going tell you how to not only get in on the fun for a discount, but often for free. Over the past 4 years of doing the Great Fitness Experiment, I have become an expert at cheap exercise. With 4 tiny kiddos at home and an insatiable appetite for novelty, I've had to get creative. Learn from my miserliness, young grasshoppers!

To see my 4 tricks for getting a free workout, join me over at BlogHer where I'm the anchor-blogger (that sounds funny - I think I need bigger hair and whiter teeth for this) for the month of January. Be sure to read the comments too as there have been some excellent suggestions posted there too (that I wish I'd thought of but didn't. you know.)

Want more Charlotte today?

I'm on the Huffington Post talking about Zuzana of bodyrock.tv's gritty and honest interview about her past in the porn industry. I have a lot more respect for her now. If you don't have time to read my article, at least read her interview - it will really make you think about how we commodotize women and the effects on our society.

Check me out today at Redbook talking about the stigma of minivan mamas. (Huge thank you to all of you who contributed your thoughts to this one on FaceBook and Twitter! You guys are a gold mine!!)

Plus: the results from the first week's challenge of January's Great Fitness Experiment are posted! Guess who won? (Hint: US!!!) Go Team GFE! Thank you to everyone of you who participated this week and did your workouts - we had the longest plank hold times and the highest rate of workout completion! You guys ROCK! Let's keep the lead this week with our new challenge: all the pushups you can do in one minute! Want to play along at home and see if you can beat my score? - every toe pushup counts for 2 points and every knee pushup counts for 1. Thanks Lindsey - we're loving our new workouts this week!

Free fitness tricks, fitness porn, minivan lovin' or challenge winning - let me know what you think! And how long did it take you to figure out the problem with the ad at the top? Seriously, it took me like a full minute.