For whatever reasons, there are people who refuse to move weights in the gym and who refuse the tedium of cardio exercise (which, in my view, should never be tedious with the right amount of sprinting intervals).
Everybody benefits from heavy weights, but moving weight is hard - not fun at all.
For those people who refuse weights I recommend 5-6 one-hour calisthenics classes weekly. These classes have all sorts of labels, and some are more challenging than others. However, for general fitness, they are good and highly stressful. The stress is necessary. While we prefer the Maggie's formula of 2 days weights, 2 days calis, and 2 days cardio, for those who will not do that, the cali classes are a good alternative. More variety, group enthusiasm, jolly people, stupid "music", all that. My group is a jolly but very focused and determined team. Everybody does his/her best and, for some of us, it's not impressive.
These classes are not for building strength. They are for building energy, building cardio, building endurance, building agility, and putting all of your muscles to work. Since they tend to be free with gym membership, lots of people do them daily, before work. The classes I do are 50/50 sex -wise, and 50/50 over/under 45 years old. Yes, there are pretty gals to look at but you can't because you are just trying to keep up. Are sweaty gals sexy? Totally.
You can tell the newbies from the veterans. 45-60 minutes is exhausting. I was once a newbie. The people who struggle through it for the first few months at 5-6 days/week and stick with it show remarkable fitness gains. Most newcomers do not stick with it because it seems like too much at first. It can be, at first.
It really might be all anybody needs if muscle- and bone-building are not your goals. I happen to love-hate my weights days and my cardio routines but I get a kick out of the challenge of classes and look forward to them. Cali classes do enough HIIT cardio for anybody's cardio needs, really.
Best part? When the hour is done. Everybody applauds the trainer and then you can collapse on the floor in your puddle of sweat.
