Tips for an Effective Home Workout

Home training has gotten a lot of criticism over the years, especially from gym communities. 

The primary critique of home training is that it’s not sufficient. The idea is, most of the exercises we can do at home are, well, easy and don’t do much for us.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t true. Sure, there are plenty of easy exercises you can do. But there are also some incredibly challenging and advanced moves that can take your training to the next level.

In this post, we’ll go over four simple and actionable tips you can implement to make your home training more effective. Let’s go.

 

1. Do More Challenging Movements

The most common argument against home training is that exercises are too easy and only suitable for beginners. Okay, why not do more challenging movements then?

Take the push-up as an example:

Most reasonably fit people can do sets of 20 to 30 repetitions. And while that also results in good muscle gain, you might want to train in a lower repetition range. Well, in that case, you can substitute the exercise for:

• Plyometric push-ups
• Decline push-ups
• Uneven push-ups
• Single-arm push-ups

The same goes for virtually any other movement out there.

 

2. Add Resistance Bands to the Mix

Hate them or love them, resistance bands are useful and are here to stay. More importantly, you can add them to the mix and make your workouts more challenging. Let’s use the push-up as an example again:

If the classic version is too easy, you can wrap a resistance band over your arms and behind your back, thus increasing the resistance.

You can also loop a longer resistance band over your shoulders and underneath your feet and make bodyweight squats more challenging.

 

3. Do More Total Work

Doing more work is one of the most reliable ways to increase the effectiveness of your training program. For example, say that you’re doing around ten sets of direct chest work per week and you’re not seeing much results:

• Three sets of push-ups
• Three sets of dips
• Four sets of dumbbell flyes

Before doing anything else, the simplest thing you can do is increase the number of weekly sets you’re doing and see how it goes. For example:

• Four sets of push-ups
• Four sets of dips
• Four sets of dumbbell flyes

And two or three extra sets of a different push-up variation. Alternatively, you can increase the volume by adding a second similar workout within your training week.

 

4. Add Weights When Possible

Adding external resistance to different exercises is a fantastic and often inevitable part of progress. 

For example, if you get to a point where you’re doing more than twenty reps per set on decline push-ups, add weight. Fill a backpack with books (or other similar objects) and put it on your back for an extra challenge.

You can do this for all sorts of exercises: squats, lunges, inverted rows, and more. You can also get yourself some dumbbells, kettlebells, and weight plates, so you have more options for overloading different exercises.

Did you find our blog helpful? Then consider checking others:

• Dumbbell Exercises
• Dumbbell Chest Exercises