Are you looking at starting a home workout plan?
With all the online workouts doing the rounds, it can be hard to know which one is best.
But before you go ahead and sign up for one, here’s what you need to know about your home exercise plan.
Match your exercise to your environment
The first thing you need to understand is that the program that worked for you at the gym will not work for you at home, so you’ll need to adjust your training program to match your environment. It’s a bit like taking your 4WD and driving on the sand — the tyre pressure you use on the sand, won’t work on the road. You need to adjust it for the different conditions.
Using the same program you had at a commercial gym, or a program that is similar to a gym-based one simply won’t work. You’re not likely to have the same equipment or machines, and your environment is totally different to what you find in a gym. For example, you might be training in your lounge room, back patio or garage.
You also need to take into consideration what your life is like now that you can’t go out.
Stress
Right now, stress levels in general are high. Adding too much exercise or exercise that is too complex into the equation will only increase your stress levels further, which will be detrimental to your weight loss journey. If you’re feeling stressed, under pressure, or are committed to looking after others, it’s okay to take something out of your program and replace it with a gentle walk or stretching.
Sleep
If you’re not on top of your sleep because you’re staying up late watching movies, or stress is interfering with your sleep, you won’t be able to train effectively. Not only will your workout suffer, but you won’t be able to recover sufficiently to do your next session
Nutrition
You also need to ensure you’re eating enough food, and what you’re eating isn’t junk. If you’re spending your days sitting on the couch eating junk food and drinking alcohol, your body won’t be sufficiently fuelled to work out. Therefore, if you’re nutrition isn’t up to scratch, you’ll need to pull back on your training until it is. And avoid over-training as a way to make up for your drinking and bingeing — it will only increase your risk of injury and burnout. Remember, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet.
Include all types of exercise
For home workout programs to work for you, they need to involve 3 types of exercise:
- Resistance training (aka FIRE) — This will have the greatest influence over your body shape. It should be focused, structured and involve progressive overload.
- Cardio (ICE) — Contrary to popular belief cardio shouldn’t be your main focus. Just a small amount in your program will yield results.
- Low intensity activity (LIA) — This is movement that doesn’t involve the high levels of focus and intensity that FIRE and ICE do.
What’s your goal?
When deciding on a home workout program, you need to understand what your goal is. What are you trying to achieve with your home workout?
Get fit or lose weight?
Because your goal will determine what exercise program is best for you.
Fitness Vs weight loss
A lot of people confuse fitness with weight loss. But the two are very different.
Fitness doesn’t guarantee weight loss. Getting fitter often refers to cardiorespiratory fitness — how far and hard you can run without needing to stop, or how many flights of stairs you can climb without getting out of breath.
To be fit you need to be efficient at your cardio which means you need to do the same kind of cardio over and over. But fitness doesn’t guarantee weight loss. This explains explains why people can train hard for a marathon and still not lose any weight.
To lose weight you need to be inefficient at your cardio. This means not doing the same thing over and over and focusing more on the things you’re inefficient at (i.e. the things that you find difficult). Because when your body is inefficient, it needs to work harder, which means it will burn more fat, which leads to greater fat loss.
For example, more swimming will not help a swimmer lose weight. It will only make them fitter and better swimmers, because they’re already efficient at swimming. For a swimmer to lose weight, they will need to do something different than they usually do, for example running or boxing.
The best home workout for weight loss involves mixing up your cardio exercise, by using as many different movements and muscle groups as you can, and doing the things that you’re not so good at. It also involves mixing up the intensity. Just setting up a circuit and doing that over and over won’t lead to weight loss. All it will do is help you improve how well you do that circuit.
Focus on functional training
Right now, you’re limited to what you can do. You don’t have the same equipment as you normally do, so you’re going to have to change your exercises. This means it’s the ideal time to focus on functional training.
Functional training is movement that has purpose. That purpose is to strengthen you in a particular way for an activity outside of the gym. Usually, it’s about getting better at every day activities such as walking, squatting, bending, lifting, or even getting in and out of chairs. But it can also help you play sport better, or perform another exercise better. Right now, work on improving the accessory movements and exercises that will help you perfect your main compound exercises, when you’re able to go back to your normal training at the gym again.
Keep working towards your goals
If you’re looking to start a home workout program because you currently can’t exercise in the way you have been, don’t forget about what you’ve been currently working towards.
Just because your situation has changed, or you can no longer get to the gym, or your group workouts doesn’t mean you completely change your program and start doing something totally different. You can still work towards your goals, but you just might need to take a different approach.
Work on your weaknesses
If you find that you can’t continue with your current program because you don’t have access to the same equipment, there’s still a lot you can do. Use this time to work on your weaknesses, because this will make a big difference when things return to normal.
Mobility
Mobility is the range of motion of the joints. To work on this, focus on exercises that challenge your range of motion of joints (e.g. practice executing your exercises in full range of motion)
Stability
If your core is not strong, focus on exercises that will help strengthen your stability (e.g. plank, side planks, birddog)
Flexibility
If your flexibility (range of motion of the muscles) is limited, focus on exercises that will help you improve your flexibility (e.g. add stretching to your training)
Imbalances
If you have imbalances (e.g. maybe your right glute activates better or is weaker than your left) your main focus should be on isolation exercises — exercises that focus on one side at a time (e.g. split squats, Bulgarian squats and one-arm rows).
Technique
Technique is focusing on how you are performing the exercise, not how many reps or what weight you are lifting. Focus on your reps being slow and controlled, engage the right muscle groups, and always aim for quality reps over quantity.
Functionality
You might be strong, but your body may not move like it’s supposed to. If this is the case you should do exercises that will improve the way you perform daily activities (e.g. single- leg deadlift).
Don’t underestimate the little things, when it comes to achieving the big goals. You don’t always need to be lifting heavy weights to make progress. Use the opportunity of home workouts to focus on the smaller things that will make a difference to your overall workouts.
Structure your progression
You can still progress both your FIRE workouts and your ICE workouts at home.
FIRE: Weight is not the only progression
If you’re worried that you’re not going to make progress with your home workout plan because you don’t have enough weights, don’t despair. There are more ways of progressing than just lifting heavier weight. For details on how to progress your workout, be sure to read our blog How to progress your home workout. But for now, know you can make progress by increasing your:
- load (the amount of weight)
- volume (the number of reps)
- density (the amount of work/effort)
- range of motion
- stability
- tempo (time under tension).
CARDIO: Progress your intensity and volume
With regard to your cardio exercise, you can progress that by increasing your intensity and/volume (Exercise duration or extra session)
For example, in the first week, you might only work out for 10-15 minutes on one day. You can progress that by extending it by 5 minutes every week while still sticking to one session a week. However, limit your sessions to a maximum of 30 minutes, as anything longer creates too much stress on your body. Your sessions can either be short and intense or long and half-arsed.
Once you have worked up to one 30 minutes session, you can add i an extra session then progress your second session the same way you did for your first session.
Similarly, you can progress with your intensity. For example, in week 1, you might work out at 20% intensity. By week 6, you may have increased that to 60-70% intensity.
You can also increase your intensity and duration simultaneously, but remember to avoid falling into the trap of over training. You can do this by matching your training volume to your intensity.
Match training volume to training intensity
Because you’re training in a new environment with higher levels of stress you may not be able to do the same amount of training you did at the gym. This means that you need to adjust the volume of your training program to match your stress levels and the environment that you’re training in. Adding more training right now, might only make you more stressed and lead to injuries.
For example, if you’re currently training at 20%, you might be able to do 3 or 4 sessions a week. But as you progress, and increase your intensity to 60-70%, you’ll need to reduce the volume (the number of session in your week), because training at that level 3-4 times a week, involves more stress than training at 20%, 3-4 times a week. In nutshell the higher your training intensity, the lower your training volume. And the lower your training intensity, the higher your training volume.
This may also change according to what else is happening in your week. For example, if you have a very stressful week with a lot going on, it may be prudent to take out one session in your week, to reduce the overall stress and load.
Avoid doing too much
It can be tempting to add in extra exercise sessions when you follow a home workout plan, especially if you feel it’s not as ‘good’ as what you used to do. However, doing too much will be a recipe for disaster. Not only will you increase your chances of injury or burnout, making you more inconsistent with your exercise, but you’ll also place your body under too much stress, which will make it difficult for you to lose weight.
Ensure your exercise program allows you plenty of time for rest and recovery, and you include active recovery sessions — or low intensity exercise.
Perform challenging exercises that don’t require much weight
Because things are very different right now, and you don’t have access to all the equipment that you usually have, you’ll need to work smarter, not harder. We often call this ‘doing less to achieve more’. Find a way that you can train safely and effectively at home and do the exercises that will give you the biggest bang for your buck. That means doing the least amount of training that will give you the biggest return.
Focus on your low intensity exercise
Many people underestimate the power of low intensity activity (LIA) but it’s a vital part of a complete exercise program. LIA keeps your body mobile, promotes blood flow and reduces stress. It will also help you lose weight. Great LIA includes walking, swimming, cycling, stretching, yoga, playing with the kids, doing the gardening, or any other activity that keeps you moving, without the intense focus of cardio or resistance training.
Involve your family
If you’re stuck at home and can’t get to the gym or your regular workout classes, now is the perfect time to involve your family in your weight loss. Go for a family bike ride, take a walk to the park, have a game of cricket in your backyard, or dance in your living room. Make your exercise program fit in with your family life, rather than trying to fit your family around your sessions. Not only will you be doing good things for your body, but you’ll also be building better family relationships, and modelling healthy behaviours for your kids.
Schedule your home workouts
Schedule your workouts for the same time as you would if you were attending a gym. If you don’t schedule them (like you do with work), you’ll always procrastinate and end up skipping your sessions.
Exercise programs that evolve
At Imani Tribe Transformations we devise personalised exercise plans for all our clients that take into account their goals, their injuries and their current situation — even if they have to work out at home. Right now, even amid the coronavirus pandemic, our clients are still training at home, under our guidance and support.
We know that getting exercise right can be overwhelming, especially when life changes and you can’t always stick to the original plan. That’s where we come in. We are experts in developing exercise programs that get results — even if you’re injured, can’t attend the gym, or have to make adjustments to your training environment. No matter what the situation, we can deliver solutions to help.
