Best home workout

Save money and get fit with these exercises you can do at home....

With some personal fitness trainers charging $75-$100 per hour and gym memberships costing at least a few hundred bucks a year, it’s no wonder people are working out more at home.

 

With winter fast approaching, finding the best home workout is a necessity if you don’t want to lose the battle of the bulge.

 

The beauty of working out from home is that you don’t need much space or equipment. Are you a busy beaver? Home workouts also don’t require a lot of time if your goal is to get lean and super fit.

 

Twenty-minute bursts of exercise can be just as effective as much longer cardio sessions; new research has proven that shorter bursts are actually more effective.

 

If you want to use some equipment at home, consider using the following:

 

• Exercise ball (65 cm if you’re an average-size male; 55 cm for females.)
• Jump rope (Unless you have ‘popcorn’ ceiling and don’t know how to skip rope like Rocky.)
• Yoga mat (If you have hardwood floors.)
• Push-up bars (Don’t have bars but do have dumbbells? They can double as push up bars.)
• Foam roller (For core strengthening and massage.)

 

If you’re going to do a short home workout, you should pick exercises that challenge your whole body. Don’t waste your time just doing dumbbell biceps curls. If you absolutely must do them, at least combine it with a full-weight body squat.

 

You’ll also want to pick exercises that get your heart pumping. Those arm curls don’t tax your cardiovascular system nearly enough if you want to get in better shape in less time at home.

 

Because you lack the time to do a standard complete gym workout—warm-up; cardio; weights; cool-down; abs; stretch—your home workout exercises should also incorporate flexibility.

 

Ideally, you’ll want to find exercises that combine at least two of the following three benefits:

 

• Strength
• Flexibility
• Cardio endurance

 

Which exercise combines all three?

One of the best exercises that combines all three benefits is the downward dog/upward dog combo. Matt Furey, a former martial arts champion and collegiate wrestling champ at Iowa is a guru on weights-free workouts. His program ‘Combat Conditioning’ features the downward dog into upward dog.

 

Furey’s version of this exercise is called ‘Hindu Pushups’ and Furey would no doubt be willing to admit that he didn’t invent this exercise; ancient strongmen of India did.

 

Many people are familiar with a downward dog. If you widen your stance by about a foot in the downward dog and then swoop forward into the upward dog and repeat 20 times (7-10 if you’re a yoga novice), you’ll strengthen your arms and core, stretch your hamstrings and core as well as your lower back and calves.

 

And oh yeah, your heart will be pumping as well.

 

For those who enjoy pushups, one of the best exercises to develop strength and get the heart rate up, you can perform a regular pushup and as you reach the peak of the pushup, push yourself into a downward dog.

 

Take a 30 second breather after doing several reps if necessary. Then do bodyweight squats, followed by core exercises like slow-motion/minimal movement (a couple inches at most) crunches either on the exercise ball or on the foam roller.

 

Don’t have either? Hook your feet under your couch and perform a set of 5-7 crunches that take 10 seconds on the return phase (the ‘lowering’ or ‘negative’ phase). You won’t be able to do 100 crunches, nor should you ever try to; abs are physiologically designed for short bursts.

 

Repeat 3-5 circuits of the Hindu pushups or regular pushups to downward-facing dog; bodyweight squats and core and you’ll get a highly effective, short home workout.

 

Do you have 5-gallon water bottles delivered to your home? Use them to do one arm deadlifts.

 

Use your imagination to come up with a home workout that suits your needs and interests.

How to Build Muscle without Weights

Feeling the effects of the economy? Have too little time to hit the gym—or too few bucks to join one? Here, then, is some guidance on how to build muscle without weights, all from the comfort of home.

Most people who want serious muscle gain—bodybuilders and powerlifters—pump iron to achieve results. If your goal is to be like Ahnold (the former California Governator), lifting heavy weights would be the way to go.

Have more moderate goals? Then, machines and free weight equipment are not necessary to build muscle. Just ask Atlas, Sampson, and Hercules. Think they used a Smith Machine or Ab Roller to crank out some squats and chisel their ripped 6-packs?

Figures both mythical and real for millennia have used the following three surrogates for machines, dumbbells and barbells:

·         Bodyweight

·         Elements from the natural world (think: rocks; stones; tree branches; dirt)

·         Heavy, everyday household items (water-filled laundry detergent bottles;  water jugs; gallon-milk containers)

There’s a good chance you don’t have boulders in your apartment. But you can do two out of three on the list.

You can use your own bodyweight and use household items to perform the following three exercises:

·         Squats

·         Deadlifts

·         Bench Press

A large contingency of weight lifters refer to these exercises above as the holy trinity of muscle-building exercises.

Before you squat with household item weights, learn how to perform a squat correctly with your own bodyweight. There are over one million Google entries on how to squat correctly, so you won’t have a problem learning how. The gist of the squat: 

·         feet about hip-width apart;

·         keep a flat back as you stick your booty out and pretend you are about to sit on a low toilet;

·         knees remain over ankles; chin stays parallel to floor

·         squat down as low as you can maintain a flat back

·         activate (gently squeeze) your quads (front of thighs) and buttocks as you come up, exhaling

Doing 5 sets of 20 will give you 100 squats. Getting enough rest and protein in your diet combined with 100 bodyweight squats will help you gain muscle.

Ready to add some weight to your at-home squats?

Grab your water-weighted detergent bottles. Go hardcore and hold on to a 5-gallon water jug with each arm.

As for deadlifts, try the stiff-legged variety. The regular version often gets too confused with squats. Most people who sit at a chair typing away all day have stiff hamstrings from not stretching enough. The stiff-legged deadlift will not only stretch the hamstrings, they strengthen the back of your thighs as well.

The basics for this exercise: Stick the booty out like you did with the squats, only this time, barely bend your knees as you reach your hips back. You should feel a stretch in the back of your legs. Again, activate the thigh and buttocks muscles as you come forward, exhaling.

Want to give the regular deadlift a try? Place your jugs and bottles on the floor and stick your hips way back and use your hips—not your back—to drive you back to starting position with items in hand.

Both squats and deadlifts recruit just about every major muscle in the body. For those pressed for time, these exercises are perfect.

Pushups also involve many different muscle groups. They strengthen your ‘pecs’ (chest), shoulders, biceps, triceps, deep mid-section core, and back muscles.

Beginning exercisers and anybody with shoulder joint issues should get clearance from a medical professional and perform modified pushups on the knees. Keep in mind to gently squeeze your belly button towards your spine to activate the deep transverse abdominis, which acts like a corset around your core.

Is ‘getting toned’ as a goal for you? For those who want to focus on specific muscle groups, split your workouts like this:

·         Day 1: Squats, Deadlifts, Pushups

·         Day 2: Core (bodyweight planks, Pilates-style crunches)

·         Day 3: Arms (half-gallon triceps kickbacks; water bottle arm curls and shoulder presses)

·         Day 4: Rest

·         Days 5, 6, 7: Repeat

Other in-home muscle building exercises using every-day items around the house:

·         Lunges

·         Bent-over rows

·         Lateral Shoulder Raises