Free exercise

Okies, what exercises can be done for free. By this i mean not spending a single penny on gym fees or equipment.

Thow in all your ideas or what you do!

Mine first: Gardening i.e. furuous digging!  Joggin round the block....

Well, for just pure exercise - burpees, jumping jacks, squats, lunges, pushups, planks

Activities that naturally incur exercises - running around with my boys.  I find the game with my 8 year old where I carry him on my back and trotting up a 40 degree hill ("dinosaur mommy") to be quite the workout, and my youngest likes to try to play basket ball (I get a good upper arm workout by holding him up to reach any number of nets in the neighborhood).

Honestly, you don't really need to spend any money at all to get a good workout in. In fact, you don't even need to travel anywhere. You could come up with a stationary high intensity interval routine like, jumping jacks, push ups, squats, situps and then repeat the routine for however long you would like. 

In fact, you can lengthen the routine to make it a bit more serious. For example, you could start with a light jog or fast walk, then stretch for 10 minutes, then get into your high intensity intervals then end with more stretching. 

I recommend the Couch to 5K program.  It doesn't cost anything, unless you count the cost of printing the schedule, and it definitely gets you in shape for running.  I did it last year on the treadmill and since outdoor running is such a different experience, I plan to redo the program running outside, if it will ever stop raining that is.   Anyway, it really does work good and I recommend it highly.

Walking!  It's low impact and very effective if you are consistant.  For upper body work, bring along two water bottles, one in each hand, and swing your arms.  That adds 50% to the calorie burn.

If it feels too easy after a week, walk faster and carry bigger bottles.

Yoga is fabulous www.yogajounal.com offers tonnes of pose advice and a weekly podcast.

http://www.yogajournal.com/podcast/

If you are willing to spend a tiny bit of money (less then $20) I recommend the book Yoga: The Iyengar Way I use it at home all the time every page is a full colour pose with tonnes of explainations beginners variations etc AND at the back of the book is the real gem.  It lists a series of 12 courses I think with on average 15 lessons in each where it lists the sequence of poses you should do in your practice that day.  You can build up from not touching your toes to bending into a pretzel in the comfort of your own home :)

I do this...

http://www.tastefullydriven.com/blog/2008/04/ 22/the-no-excuses-workout/

takes me about 20 min to do 3 circuits.

I run and do exercise DVDs that can be found on YouTube (30 Day Shred, pilates, etc.).

I dont know if you have comcast but i use the ondemand fitness section they have TONS of workouts all levels an its all free. I just started using it 2 weeks ago an so far i really like it!

If you already have these items;

jump rope ($3 at Target)

shoveling dirt in your yard

raking

fill bottles and jugs with water or sand or rocks and lift away

stair climbing at your favorite local building

chasing pigeons at the park

PS getting workout dvds at the library!