Who needs expensive equipment or a gym membership to get in shape? No one! You can get a kick-butt workout at home, in your bedroom!

And you can turn your bedroom into your very own home gym for less than $100. (That’s less than the cost of two months at most gyms!)

This special report from CoachLevi.com shows you how to setup a nice home gym that will fit into a small room, but allow you to perform a full body workout for maximum results.

Just enter your name and email below so I can send you the report:

Bonus: A list of exercises you can do in your new home gym is included!

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If you were a normal human, that headline probably would have made you run for cover! But since you are one of those crazy exercise addicts they call cyclists, you’re excited about making your hard exercise routine even harder!

It’s quite simple to make almost any exercise A LOT harder. All you have to do is incorporate an exercise ball! Also known as a “Swiss ball,” “stability ball,” or “inflatable ball,” adding one to your workouts takes each exercise to a new level. Instead of an exercise targeting one muscle group, it will target your entire body! That’s because you need to perform the exercise while staying balanced, which is harder than it looks!

Here are some examples:

The Abdominal Crunch

While doing a few hundred crunches on the ground will strengthen your six-pack, doing 20 crunches on an exercise ball will strengthen your entire core (abs, obliques, etc.) That’s because you have to keep yourself from rolling off of the ball!

Push-ups

Push-ups are one of the most common exercises, and doing them will build your upper-body to a common level. But if you want to be uncommonly strong, use an exercise ball!

There are two ways to add it in.

First, do push-ups with your feet on the ball and your hands on the ground. Having your feet elevated (decline push-ups) incorporates some stabilizer muscles, but having them elevated on a moving object really brings in the muscles of your entire body!

Second, if you’re looking to make things even harder, try push-ups where your hands are on top of the ball and your feet are on the ground. These are extremely hard, especially for us cyclists with weak upper-bodies. See, your arms are supporting your body and stabilizing the ball at the same time. Expect to fall over the first time you try it!

Superman

Here’s a great exercise for your lower back. But why not try it while balancing on top of a stability ball?

This is really hard, because it’s more about balancing your body over the ball. So you need back strength to hold yourself up, plus great balance to keep yourself up there!

Sitting Down

Sitting down is pretty simple. It’s hardly exercise.

But try sitting on top of an exercise ball and you might change your mind! This is a great way to sit around and watch TV, since it’s a non-stop workout.

Standing Up

Got the hang of kneeling on an exercise ball? Then it’s time to step it up, and that next notch is quite a stretch from the first one - standing on the ball! If you think it’s easy to stand on an exercise ball, you’re either too naive or already an Olympic level athlete!

(Be careful. Falling off one of these things hurts!!)

Well, now is the time to go and try it out! (Just be sure to start at the beginning of the list!)

When I found this article, I just had to laugh. Not that gardening isn’t exercise, it’s just that my mom has a nursery and huge gardens, so I’ve been stuck doing this since I was a toddler. Although it can be relaxing, it causes plenty of stress for me because I’m always forced to do it!

But it is a good workout and can be fun, so check it out. And if you like it, start volunteering to build trails for mountain bikers - that’s a workout!

Article: Tending the garden improves mental and physical well-being

Those are three of the trends in the active.com article I mentioned yesterday. Sounds good, considering everyone is crunched for time these days and is looking for a good workout in not a lot of time. And avoiding crowded gyms is definitely a plus!

Once I thought about it, I have that those trends taken care of since I have Graeme Street’s programs, Cyclo-Core and Cyclo-Zen. Core is filled with functional workouts while Zen has a few yoga-based workouts. Best of all, you can do them at home in about 30 minutes.

They’re hard though. If you don’t believe me, read the whole review and watch the video: Cyclo-Core review

After a few months with just Cyclo-Core, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Cyclo-Zen. (I have Speed too, which will be reviewed next month…)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect since I never did yoga. I had an idea of a few yoga poses, but that was about it. Not that it really mattered, because Graeme’s workout programs are on a whole new level.

I mean, I thought I was pretty good at calisthenics and all that. But Cyclo-Core kicked my butt!

So at least this time I wasn’t expecting to breeze through anything! I was looking forward to the chair position and other “mental toughness” exercises though. I guess I was looking for a new challenge, and I had wanted to try yoga anyway. All the magazines say it’s good

Yes, even if you have mastered Cyclo-Core, you’ll have some work to do before mastering Cyclo-Zen!

First off, what do you get?

There are two DVDs with six different workouts, and two audio CDs called “Zen and the Art of Recovery.” You have your choice of power yoga, recovery yoga, strength conditioning, flexibility training, yoga-spin intervals, and of course, the dreaded 8 Minute Power Routine!

I popped in DVD 2 and went straight for the power routine! It started with hindu squats, so I wasn’t too worried. But soon I realized that doing this stuff for 8 minutes straight was equivalent to sprinting uphill, out of the saddle, into a headwind, for 8 minutes! Not an easy task, and definitely not something to do more than twice in a row to start out!

(Just getting through the 8 minutes once is a challenge!)

[By the way, all the stuff I wrote about in the Cyclo-Core review about it being better than weight lifting and such, that all applies to this too. I just want to highlight all the extra stuff about Zen.]

So next up we have the Power Yoga. In typical Graeme Street fashion, this is hard work! You don’t work up a sweat or move quite like Cyclo-Core, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier. Some of the positions really strain you, and they will definitely make you sore the next day!

After my first attempt, I noticed my joints (especially my ankles) were sore the next day. I think that’s because of the wobbling I did trying to balance in the positions!

On that note, balance is key in these workouts! Balance, stamina, and mental focus play a huge role here. Zen will really train you in those three disciplines.

Thinking that the Recovery Yoga would be nice and easy, I tried to do that to recover from what I had just done. Well, it wasn’t that easy. I’d use it as a stand-alone workout for an easy day, but I don’t think I’d want to do right after a hard workout.

Regardless, it’s a nice addition to your arsenal of workouts. Worth noting is that you get to see a new face and hear a new voice in a couple of these workouts

But I’d have to say the best part is that feeling you get once you complete the yoga workout. It’s like this overwhelming calm comes over you and you are content to just lie on the floor for a while. It’s a little different from Cyclo-Core, where you want to party because you are finally done, but you have no option besides lying on the floor, as you’re quite worn out

Now to be honest, I haven’t even attempted the other workouts on these DVDs. With it being spring and all, I’m outside most of the time. But this gives me more new stuff to look forward to at the end of the season.

I haven’t listened to the audio CDs either, I’ve just been pretty busy. On one of these lazy summer days coming up, I’ll relax and listen to them, and report back with my findings.

Even without fully testing this product, I know what my recommendation will be. If you read the Core review, you won’t be surprised by this.

My final verdict is…

If you can only afford one of Graeme’s programs, get Core. But budget for Zen before buying any new high-tech parts! (If you’re serious about your training, you’ll quickly realize the value here.)

This is also a good buy if you just want to try out yoga. If you think of the cost of a few yoga classes, the $70 for this doesn’t seem so bad

There are some $20 yoga DVDs out there, but I can’t say for sure if they are any good or not. I decided not to bother with those once I found this.

And seriously, the 8 Minute Power Routine by itself is worth a pretty penny! So, are you mentally tough enough?

Click here to order Cyclo-Zen for yourself!

P.S. By the way, I was the president of the Babson College Cycling Club. We did a video in 2005 with Cyclo-Core, so I had some of the team get together now to try out Cyclo-Zen. That’s where the pictures came from.