With Stay at Home orders still in effect, I have gotten many questions regarding training at home. These have been anything from requests for programs to thoughts on exercise selection and training frequency. I figured it was important to summarize a few things that can go a long way in getting the most out of your at home workouts.
1. Know your surroundings, get creative.
Take inventory of what you have access to and work within the limits. Someone who doesn’t even have a single dumbbell probably shouldn’t be performing a similar set/rep scheme to someone who has an at home gym with a barbell and weights. As far as getting creative: almost every exercise you do at the gym can be done at home if you put some thought to it.
Examples:
Use a chair or couch for Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat
Set a heavy book(s) in your lap for weight during a Wall Sit
Staircases can work for cardio and/or strength
Load a backpack to increase weight/intensity
2. Manipulate Time Under Tension
Using Isometric and Eccentric training is going to be your friend right now. If all can you do is bodyweight exercise, changing tempo is going to be more beneficial than doing an endless amount of reps for a particular exercise. Isometric Exercise: muscle actively held at a fixed length (think of sitting low in a squat and staying in that position for time). Eccentric Exercise: muscle actively lengthening (think of slowly lowering during a squat for a certain amount of time before reaching your end position). You can utilize isometrics, eccentrics, and even a combination of both in the same repetition.
3. Stick to a plan, then progress:
Just because you lost access to certain equipment doesn’t mean you should be coming up with a new workout off the top of your head every day. If you plan to workout every day Monday through Friday, find a 5 day plan and utilize it for 3-4 weeks. This means the Monday session doesn’t change each week, you know exactly what’s coming. You can still implement progressions within in the program by adding sets or reps, or weight if you have access to it but overall things stay the same. You’re not just throwing darts at a board and hoping a workout sticks.
BONUS: Understand residual training effect.
Residual training effect is the retention of changes in the body state and motor abilities after the cessation of training beyond a certain time period. The table below gives you insight in to how long you will maintain a certain physical quality. It explains why it is plausible to maintain and even improve abilities with at home training if your plan is smart. Example: I’ve been sending my athletes full plans for at home. Strength training, mobility, conditioning, etc. but a big emphasis is finding a way to keep speed and power up since we know it’s possible to see a drop off in as little as 5 days if we don’t train this quality. This means we need sprint and jump work. Lucky for us most of our sprints and plyometrics are already bodyweight movements, so as long as there is access to a field or yard nearby, we are going to be able to complete them.
Photo from: https://exrx.net/Sports/ResidualTraining
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