Strength Training at Home | How to Get the Benefits Strength Training

Strength training at home can be a little difficult when you have been reaping strength training benefits at the gym for a long time. The gym is full of equipment like barbells, weight machines, bands, cardio machines, etc. that are usually not possible for everyone to keep it at home. You might have a few things at home but that’s not always enough.

The coronavirus outbreak has made working out harder, which might have induced unnecessary stress in your life. But with a few adjustments, you can still practice strength training at home. You might have to make compromises and you won’t get the complete benefits of strength training but you can still use it to stay active and fit. If you’re looking for expert advice, check out FITCOACH – AI-enabled fitness coach that adapts to your needs and preferences. Or activate FITPASS-TV – workout at home in real-time with expert trainers guiding you from their homes.

Strength Training at Home Tips

• Try new movements

The best way to get the best of a workout is to try new moves. Your brain takes some time to master a move from the time you try it and that’s a challenge in itself. A very simple example is trying lateral lunges after having done forward or backward lunges for some time. Try Pilates workout or Yoga and HIIT. The idea is to get out of your comfort zone if you are strength training at home. Check out videos or tutorials before doing it to get it right.

• Work on your range of motion

You must learn to make exercises harder for yourself without weights. How to do that? The answer lies in increasing the range of motion. Your muscles work harder when you expose them to a longer range of motion. Taking the example of the stationary lunge, elevate your foot on a slightly higher platform – even 2 inches is good enough – instead of just doing the regular motion. By doing this, you will bring your leg up and down at a greater distance. As a result, you will feel the burn with fewer reps. And then there are simple things like holding anything with some weight while doing, say, sumo squats. Keep your feet on your bed or on a chair to make pushups harder.

• Slow down and do more reps

It might not sound like it but exercises are much harder and effective when you take your time with them. Try holding the squat position when you lower down for a few seconds with each rep and take longer to come back up. Your number of reps will decrease dramatically at first but it will boost your strength. The act of holding at the weaker position maintains tension and challenges your body.

• Single-leg Exercises

Want to correct muscle imbalances? Work one side of your body at a time – unilateral exercises. Lunge with a single leg, splits squats, single-leg glute bridge, etc. are great for this. Also, you can challenge yourself much more this way by using much lower weights. So, when you do not have heavy weights, go for unilateral exercises to focus the strain on a single limb/body part.