Why go to the gym? It takes how long to get ready, drive to the gym, get warmed up, and wait for people to finish using what you want to use. Then once you’re done you got to head back home. This can add an hour of time it takes to stay in shape.
No thanks. I mean who has the time to do that these days. Even if you do you know ways it could be better spent.
Why not train at home instead? And no you don’t need a home gym to do it. You already have one. It’s called your body.
Sure you can get tools like barbells, weights and kettlebells to use at home but these are by no means necessary. Let’s face it for the average person bodyweight exercises are more than enough to get a great workout in. With progressions and variations you can find bodyweight exercises that can work for anyone from your 80 year old grandma to a professional gymnast.
So how do you get started?
You probably already know the basics. Cast your mind back to school gym class if you’re foggy at all. We’ll start with three, the pushup, the bodyweight squat and the chinnup.
The pushups works the muscles of the upper body, most notably the chest, shoulders and triceps. There are hundreds of variations of the pushup from the regular version to swaying or Hindu varieties. But changing your hand and leg position you can do all kinds of things with pushups. The ultimate pushup is probably the handstand pushup as it makes you lift your full bodyweight.
To start with just select a basic variety and see how many you can do. In your subsequent workouts you’ll just add more to this number. Breaking it up into sets as you go along will do you fine. Shoot for a goal number like 100 or 500.
For squats all you have to do is squat down. Again there are many variations like changing up the stance, raising up on the toes or staying flat footed. Go down as low as you comfortably can. If its challenging to start hold on to the door knob of an open door and sit back.
When you are proficient in this exercise you’ll be able to crack off big numbers in one go. This exercise will not only make stronger and more enduring legs but will test your conditioning as well.
The chinnup works many of the opposite muscles of the pushup in the upper body, including the biceps and lats. This may be beyond many people starting out, in which case you can have a partner assist you or use a chair to help you get up. A simple bar can be setup in your home if you don’t have somewhere already you can hang from.
The chinnup or pullup is on the very best overall exercises. Variations include close or wider grip, kipping or strict styles and many more. Super advanced trainees can even do a pullup with one arm. But for some people just hanging from the bar may be enough of a start.
If you worked just these three exercises for a period of time and did them progressively you would see improvements in your physique and strength. No gym required.
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