How to Navigate Home Workouts
Let’s paint a picture; The Coronavirus has you all cooped up in your house. You are working from home, you are eating your meals at home, and (hopefully) you are working out at home. You are missing the gym and your normal routine. Unsure of what to do with starting a workout routine at home, you search the internet. Suddenly all these girls who look like gymshark models are sharing their guides, plans, and their “own” at home routines.
Getting a good sweat and being sore can give you those endorphin highs and make you feel good. Your apple watch may have even tracked 400 calories burned, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean you are getting a good workout. Home workouts that are heavily focused on cardio, circuit training, or AMRAPs (failure training), are going to be difficult to make progress with once you (inevitably) stop seeing results. Putting out maximal effort to failure every single workout is NOT going to keep you progressing after your initial results.
Here is what you should know; you CAN have effective workouts at home. (Crazy statement coming from the gym owner right?). BUT you have to be intentional with programming. In order for your workout to be effective, and give you results month after month, there has to be a way to apply progressive overload. Remember this phrase. Live by this phrase. Progressive. Overload. Now, let’s talk about it.
Progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise leading to continued adaptation. Once your body has adapted to a certain stimulus, you need to be able to change factors in your workout in order to keep seeing desired changes in physique, strength, or endurance. Adaptations stop within just 3-4 weeks of changing a stimulus, and then will need to be adjusted again.
Factors you can manipulate in order to apply progressive overload include; weight/resistance used, reps, sets, rest times, and frequency of training.
It might be tempting to change all of these factors at once, but it only takes small changes to one variable for progressive overload. Picking just one or two of these factors will keep you progressing without having to make drastic changes like adding hours of cardio or slashing calories just to see results.
Picking the right movements will also be key in your at home workouts. Just because you’re at home doesn’t change the importance of foundational exercises. Movements that are king
Squats
Deadlift variations
Hip thrusts
Overhead presses
Rows
These are movements that should be included in your workout routines. These are likely necessary to see desired body composition changes. You can do donkey kicks all day long, and they won’t give you the same results as a few hip thrusts performed with adequate resistance.
Tools to use in your at home workouts
Body weight
Bands
Did you think it was going to be a longer list? You can workout for months with just body weight and bands and be able to apply progressive overload, while seeing desired results, without having to add a set of dumbells for a long time. But if you have them, definitely use them. (:
The last important factor I will leave you with is CONSISTENCY. None of this will matter if you aren’t being consistent to one routine. So, look at your at home workout routine (or in the gym) and ask yourself can I apply progressive overload to this? And, am I being consistent with one method?
If you can answer yes to both, keep going, girl. You’re killing it.
(This article is based on the general population seeking body composition changes.)
Written by: Madison Maynard