Training at home might not be for everyone. If you are someone who loves going to the gym for the variety of equipment it offers or you simply enjoy the social aspect of training, then working out in your living room might sound far from ideal. However, just because the gyms are closed doesn’t mean you should stop investing in your health. Below are a few things you could do to make your home workouts count.
Stay consistent
Just because you can’t go to the gym doesn’t mean you should take additional days/weeks off training. Staying consistent with your training will help you better preserve the results you achieved in a gym whether it’s muscle mass, strength or performance. Sure, it might take some time to get back to your usual routine when you are back to the gym, but it’s going to be a lot easier if you keep consistently training at home to the best of your ability.
Add more volume
If you don’t have access to a similar weight range to what you normally lift in a gym, you can increase the difficulty of your workouts by adding more volume. In other words, you can do more exercises, sets or reps. In terms of adding more exercise, if you feel like you don’t do enough of certain things in the gym (e.g. training your core or isolating specific muscles), now is the time to include them in your routine. Since you’re saving time on gym travel, you should be able to do a bit more than you would do in a gym.
Use the tools at hand
My backpack is slowly becoming one of my favourite tools for training at home. You can virtually perform any bodyweight exercise while wearing a backpack. From squats, lunges and good mornings to push-ups and step-ups. Depending on your backpack and if it’s comfortable to use the handles you can also do bent-over rows or deadlifts. A backpack is just an example, but you can use anything else available at home (e.g. water bottles). If you’ve absolutely no equipment at home, you can still find a way to add resistance to your exercises by being creative.
Mix things up/use different training styles
Shifting from gym training to home workouts is an opportunity to try different approaches to training. You can try doing exercises back to back (e.g. supersets) or adding plyometrics (e.g. a set of lunges followed by jumping lunges). You can also try timing your sets to achieve muscle fatigue. For example, you can do a minute of bilateral leg exercise (squats), unilateral (lunges) and plyometrics (squat jumps) back to back. This will definitely challenge your leg muscles even if you only use your bodyweight.
Invest in basic home equipment
Bodyweight training is great but at some stage, it’s good to add additional resistance. Buying a few resistance bands won’t be too taxing financially and won’t take up space in your house. It will, however, make a huge difference to your training. You can train any movement pattern using resistance bands as well as do a lot of isolation exercises. Whether you love or hate training at home, having a few resistance bands or a pair of light dumbbells can be a game-changer if you don’t have access to a gym.
Focus on intensity vs reps
If you usually train within hypertrophy 6-15 rep ranges, it might not work too well for some exercises if you only have light weights/resistance bands at home. Instead of aiming for a certain rep range, see how your body feels doing the exercise. Sometimes, if you are only using a very light band, you might have to go way past 15 reps to fatigue your muscles. In this case, focus on how hard your muscle is working and continue to the point where you can only do one or two more reps until the working muscle gives out.
Address your weak points/ learn new things
Have you always wanted to learn to do plyometric push-ups or skater squats? One way to make your home workouts more interesting/challenging is by learning a new skill. It’s also a great opportunity to focus on your development areas. For example, if you feel like your shoulders or glutes are not as developed as you’d like them to be you could spend more time focusing on isolating muscles in those muscle groups. Similarly, if you feel weak at the bottom of a push-up or a squat, you can spend more time focusing on those areas than you would in a gym.
Get outside
If you do have resistance bands or a suspension trainer but really lack the space, getting outdoors and tying up your resistance bands to a tree might not be the worst idea. Furthermore, while you’re at it, you might find some additional “equipment” like benches for your step-ups or monkey bars for chin-ups and legs raises. Even though it might sound like a hassle, having to come up with alternatives to gym equipment won’t only help you stay fit but will develop your problem-solving skills.
Do the best you can each session
If you love going to the gym for both physical and mental health it can be frustrating not to be able to train the way you love. Unfortunately, when things are out of our control, all we can do is try our best with the tools we’ve got. It might be challenging to figure out a routine that works for you with limited equipment and space. Even if your sessions might be far from how you normally train, just do the best you can in all of your home workouts. This will definitely pay off when you get back to your normal routine.
One of the main keys to success on a fitness journey is an ability to keep going in a sub-optimal environment. You won’t always have time to work out as much as you want or be able to exercise the way you enjoy. Yet, this shouldn’t be a reason to take a break and wait until everything falls into the right place for you to be able to workout. Adapt your routine when necessary but keep going even if it means squatting in your living room with a backpack full of dog food.