The 4 Benefits of Home Workouts
Curiosity arises thinking about home workouts during quarantine. Videos are all over the place on social media showing different exercises and methods to spice up your workouts as well as fitness equipment being sold for about a 200% markup (not saying everyone is doing that).
The thing that comes to mind: Is everyone sticking to their programs and moving forward with their fitness journey?
You are in the same boat as just about everyone right now in trying to make the most out of these home workouts or maybe trying to add to your home gym collection.
When I was thinking of things to write about today the thought came to mind about the positives of that are coming out from these home workouts. In hopes that everyone is getting what they can done, let’s look at some positive takeaways while exercising at home.
1. No Excuses Allowed
Many people are at home a bit more than normal during this time, which gives a lot of opportunity to improve upon your fitness. There are a million and one excuses that can come into your head to skip a workout.
Maybe you are late coming home from work or you are forced to go during busy times. Whatever the case may be, things come up and can interrupt your gym time.
Now that you are home there should be fewer things that get in the way of you setting time aside to exercise each and every day. If you are able to keep a regular exercise routine you will be pleased to see some good results.
Consistency is king and staying consistent with your fitness will be a game changer for your overall health and wellness.
Looking at this from a month view, maybe you plan to go to the gym 3 days a week, but every few weeks you have to miss a day. Let’s say last month you got 10 workouts in.
Now, the excuses have subsided and you are getting 5 sessions in a week. 20 sessions over a month period and you just doubled your exercise capacity from the month prior.
This increase in exercise capacity leads us to the next point - frequency.
2. Frequency
For the most part people do not have a fully stocked gym in their house. Granted there are ways to supercharge a home workout with minimal equipment, but in most cases people are not able to load exercises as much as they could at a gym.
So, if we can’t load as much as normal, what is another great option? Add some volume and frequency.
Due to this higher frequency and less loading, your are able to recover faster and allow you to hit each body part more frequently throughout the week without overtraining.
For most people this is the more ideal option for their exercise routines. Less damage done to each body part and more frequency per body part is a safe way to add more volume to your workouts without injury.
What I have seen from the people I train is that some of the best results on programs are ones that focus on frequency such as full body workouts. This could allow a person to hit each body part 3-4 times a week instead of focusing on 1 or 2 muscle groups each workout.
3. Creativity and Originality
As I stated above, although it is possible to cause greater muscular damage without weights, most people are not doing so with their home workouts.
The modification of intensity is something that must be done to create effective programs. Many other things go into effective programs such as rest, sets/rep schemes, progressive overload, and exercise selection.
All things considered, you have to get a little creative to come up with effective home workout programs that involve minimal equipment.
This new creativity will get you out of your normal exercise routines, which is a good thing! We all tend to fall into ruts of training where we gravitate towards the things we like.
Originality is something our bodies need to adapt and change. We need new stimulus in order to improve upon weaknesses and better ourselves in the process.
One thing I have incorporated much more into my own program is isometric training (pausing, or static contraction). Isometrics are something that I had no problem skipping when the gyms were open. For one, I suck at them and two they are abysmal.
I am taking this time to get better at this type of training and seeing great results in the process. My ankles and knees are feeling more stable and my low back is enjoying the strength and stability it has been causing to repent all the sitting throughout the day.
4. Work on Yourself
I mentioned above about improving weaknesses. This is a great focus to have during your home workouts.
Work on the areas that you need improvement upon.
You may have a weak core and need to stabilize those muscles.
You may feel instability in one of your knees when doing single leg exercises. This is the perfect time to address this issue and add stability to that knee so when the gyms do open back up you are better than when they closed.
Some people have pain and need to work on stretching, mobility, connection, and activation. These are things that can be done any time throughout the day.
If you address these things in short spurts throughout the day, you are able to create good recruitment patterns within your body and reverse the problems that may arise.
If you ask anyone who works at a desk all day how they feel when they get up and move during their day it is always a night and day difference in how much better and more productive their day is. Now you can make these short bouts of movement targeted and more beneficial to your overall health.
We are all together in trying to better ourselves each and every day. Let’s make sure we are all looking at the good things that can come from our current situation and keep striving to make this situation even better moving forward.
- Coach Jeff