While any exercise can do this to your muscles squats, planks, deadlifts, you name it , new moves you haven't done before or haven't performed can also cause this microtrauma. Dance, running, bodyweight moves, etc. So many options! There are numerous methods for switching up your typical bodyweight workout —even small changes can lead to bigger muscle gains. But Galbraith offers a few concrete tips for challenging your body and encouraging muscle building.
These are in no particular order and the best way to incorporate these strategies is individualized. Try one or all five of these tactics in your next workout and see what tests your muscles the most:.
As with any type of exercise, there's always a risk of hitting a plateau if you keep doing it over and over again without playing around with any variables or continuing to test your muscles in new ways. That's why it's important to progress your program , adding variations to the exercises and increasing the challenge on moves with the methods Galbraith mentions above—that's how muscle building continues to happen.
Keep that in mind as a sign to switch up your routine. If you're working out at home and looking for a way to add external load, you can always try these moves with household items that trainers love. By Mallory Creveling June 18, Save FB Tweet More. Increase reps and sets; decrease rest time. The more you do an exercise, the more you'll increase the metabolic stress you put on your muscles.
Do more reps and sets of bodyweight exercises than you'd typically do at the gym with weights for similar results. You also want to limit breaks between those reps and sets, too, without sacrificing proper form. This puts more stress on the muscle, promoting growth.
In fact, research shows that low-load resistance training with a light weight or bodyweight combined with little rest may enhance metabolic stress and increase muscle size even more than lifting heavy weights and taking longer breaks. If you typically lift weights for about eight reps in the gym, try doing that same move for 20 reps at home with just your body. Change the angle or tempo of the exercise. To increase microtrauma, try taking your lunges for a walk or stepping out on a diagonal.
Or add an incline or decline to your push-ups, suggests Galbraith. Changing the angle can both incorporate other muscles into the move, but also work different parts of the same muscle group.
It's also a good idea to slow down the eccentric or downward phase of an exercise like when you lower to the bottom of a deadlift and then explode up quickly moving up from a deadlift or hinged position. Another option: Slow down the entire exercise. For example, lower into a squat on a count of three, holding at the bottom for three, then stand up on another count of three. This increases the time your muscle is under tension, meaning you're more likely to create microtraumas within your slow-twitch muscle fibers, which have more endurance capacity than fast-twitch fibers.
This can add more metabolic stress to the muscles, thus resulting in more gains. For example, if lunges feel easy, hold the bottom of the movement both knees bent 90 degrees for a few seconds before standing up. Or, step back into your lunge, lift halfway up, then drop back down before you come back up to standing.
Also, try stopping short of standing all the way up from a squat or lunge, or stop short of lowering all the way down in a glute bridge. Then move on to the next exercise. Record your time each workout and see how you do! The workout should take you mins. Be sure to do good proper reps. No cheating. That said, you can be explosive, just use a full range of motion. Day 3: HIIT 20 mins i.
Tabata style HIIT workout. You will have to gauge your capability. For the first week of workouts, see what you can do. Then, on week 2, add 5 reps unless week 1 was too easy, then you can add more. On week 3, add another 5 reps to your week 2 rep count. On week 4 another 5 reps. Now you are at 35 reps for 3 sets. Then, on week 5, add another set. So you will be doing 4 sets for every exercise. At this point, the workout plan jumps significantly in volume. If you need to, you can drop the reps down by 5 and start from there and work your way back up.
The point is you are pushing yourself a little more with each week. Record what you did and try to do even just a couple more reps the next week. You will know for sure you are pushing yourself past your limits, which is what it takes to grow when doing bodyweight training.
You could do 20 push ups in 20 seconds. However, they could be ineffective if they are basically half reps So, do 20 with slowly eccentric movement downward and explosive concentric upward motion - i.
That will make that 20 push ups a lot more difficult and effective. If you are strong enough, add those into your routine as they are one of the best core exercises you can do. Record what you did each workout, so you can track your progress.
Do the same routine each week for a minimum of 4 weeks. If you want to add another exercise into the routine or add some reps, that is perfectly fine. Each week you can increase reps. After weeks, you can change to a new routine or change the exercises you are doing. These workout plans use kettlebells, steel maces, resistance bands and bodyweight exercises.
These plans can be done for 6 to 12 weeks. After you complete one of these home workout plans, take a few days off to rest, then start another one of these plans even one of our fat loss plans, which are further below. Progressive Overload Option 1: Slightly decrease rest time between sets each week.
Note: The exercises within these workout plans are some of the best exercises you can do to target the intended muscle groups. However, the ones we added in these are truly the most effective for each of the specific fitness tools. Day 1: Lower Body. Day 2: Upper Body. Day 4: Lower Body. Day 5: Upper Body. Day 7: Active Rest. Note: Adjust rep count according to your fitness level.
Aim for higher time under tension. That is because they will be worked through the compound movements. If you want to add an isolated bicep or tricep exercise, feel free.
Day 3 : Active Rest or Cardio. Shop Steel Maces. Note: If you only have light weight steel mace and kettlebells, that is fine. Now, for the purpose of losing fat, we need to take a different approach. We are going to stick to full body workouts with low rest time.
The exercises will consist of dynamic compound movements. This will keep your heart rate up, allowing you to burn more calories. For fat loss, we simply want to aim to burn a lot of calories in the workout. So that means as we progress through a workout plan, we want to keep minimizing rest time and increasing intensity. We can also increase reps and volume of the workout if things start to get too easy.
All in all, what we really want is to sweat bullets each and every workout. HIIT workouts will be short, minutes and cardio will be around mins at a maintainable pace. Our goal for cardio is to burn fat and improve cardiovascular health, which will also increase our resistance training capacity. The following workout plans can be followed for as little as 4 weeks and as long as 8 weeks. Stick to the plan and eat a proper high protein diet and the results will follow.
Day 1: HIIT 15 mins. Day 2: Resistance Training. Details: - Aim for high reps. Ideally, each superset should have you working seconds. Day 3: Cardio mins. Day 4 : Resistance Training. Details: - Do as many reps as you can each block. Only rest when you have to. A good way to attack this is in sets i. Day 5: HIIT 15 mins. Day 6: Resistance Training. Circuit 1: Alt. Details: - Aim for high reps on each exercise - Complete the 3 exercises in each circuit without resting then rest 1 min and move to the next circuit.
Once you finish circuit 3, go back circuit 1 and repeat. Do each circuits three times. Push ups Curtsy Lunge Chin ups.
Burpees x 10 reps Squats x 1 rep. Continue until Burpees are at 1 rep and Squats are at 10 reps. Day 2: HIIT 15 mins. Day 4: Resistance Training. Day 5: Cardio mins. Incline Push Ups x 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 Pull Ups x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Squats x 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 Jumping Jacks x , 75, 50, The following two workout plan options take the same concepts from the above bodyweight-only workout plans but it includes the use of resistance bands, steel maces and kettlebells.
They are dynamic, ballistic, multiplanar compound movements. Your heart will be pumping fast during these workouts and your body will be shedding fat. Day 6: Cardio mins. Pull ups x 3 sets Kettlebell Push ups x 3 sets Kettlebell Squats x 3 sets.
Burpees x 10 reps Kettlebell Snatch x 1 rep each side. Details: - High reps, relative to your strength - min rest between rounds. Finisher : 10 Turkish Get Ups each side - As quickly as you can. Day 4: HIIT 15 mins. We'd recommend a 10LB or 15LB mace for the above workouts 7LB will be good for those who are new to mace training and fitness in general. For kettlebells, we'd recommend an LB kettlebell for women and a lb kettlebell for men. It really depends on your strength. The goal is to be able to have longer working sets with minimal rest time in-between, as this is ideal for fat loss and metabolic training.
Listen to your body and make sure you aren't overtraining. If your workouts are starting to lag, you are feeling excessive fatigue or noticing decreased performance, give yourself a rest for a couple of days.
Your body needs to recover. Make sure you are eating well and getting enough sleep if you are going to be following these plans as they require a lot of work. That being said, that's what it takes to build muscle and lose fat from home! Take a rest day if you feel you are overtraining and need more recovery. Recovery is just as essential as working out. If you want more rest days, you can add your cardio sessions to your resistance training days.
You can do them after your workout or you can do them in the morning or evening we recommend cardio in the morning and resistance training in the evening. If you do this, you can turn those cardio days into rest days. So, you have another option, and one that we personally prefer. Morning vs Night - read to see why we do cardio in morning. In a nutshell, it has to do with cortisol levels in morning and body temperature being lower in morning, which is not conducive for strength training.
BodyFit is your solution to all things fitness. Join today and unleash the power of BodyFit! Regardless of the reason you choose to work out at home, you can still make improvements to your body with basic equipment.
All you need is a flat bench or chair, a band, and a set of dumbbells and you can build muscle, burn fat, and get the body you are looking for. Here are three different workout programs, each created for a particular fitness level. Choose between a beginner full-body split, an intermediate upper and lower program, or an advanced body-part split. You can also mix and match workouts from all three programs to add variety. If you don't have a bench, you can perform many of the bench exercises on the floor.
Try to use weights that are challenging for the recommended rep ranges. If an exercise is too easy and you don't have heavier weights, slow down the tempo to increase the time under tension, or add an extra set. Already have a Bodybuilding. Sign In. Don't risk doing a workout improperly! Avoid injury and keep your form in check with in-depth instructional videos.
View our enormous library of workout photos and see exactly how each exercise should be done before you give it a shot.
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