4 Tips for How to Workout Without Equipment
We get it, you’ve finally worked up the motivation to workout, and you want to get after it right away! You don’t want to deal with a gym membership, commuting to the gym, and aren't ready to invest in home equipment just yet. So you may be asking yourself, how do I workout without equipment? You have come to the right place!When it comes to getting a good workout at home without equipment, there are a few steps you should think about, but most important for getting started is to eliminate distractions! When you’re at home, you’re one request from a spouse or child away from a premature end to the workout or at least an extended break. Plan ahead and keep the distractions at bay so you can get after it uninterrupted!Here’s the deal: you may not think about it like this yet, but you already have a whole gym with you right now! That’s right, your own body weight is an excellent solution to help you workout at home without equipment. Not only that, but putting yourself in a new environment will force you to come up with new, creative ways to use what you have already, helping you work your creativity muscles too!
How to Workout at Home Without Equipment
So how do you keep progressing as you workout at home without any equipment? Easy! Focus on how you can make the exercise harder, or easier, as needed. Here are four of the best ways to do just that:
#1 - Change Elevation
When you think about doing a push-up, you may be thinking, “I can’t do any of those!” but that’s just if you think about doing a pushup flat on the floor. If you raise your hands up to the edge of your sofa, or to your kitchen countertop, you’re making the movement easier while still keeping the movement the same: a horizontal press with a sturdy core. By changing your body’s angle to the ground, you’re reducing how much of your body weight is directly felt through the movement.
#2 - Reduce Stability
Want to make an exercise harder? Shake it up! By reducing the stability of an exercise, our bodies need to work harder to stabilize. This can be achieved by going from both legs and/or arms in contact with the ground to just one, such as from a squat to a single leg squat. Performing many core exercises, you can reduce stability by lifting a limb, such as in a plank with one arm or foot raised off the ground. Additionally, you can use a piece of equipment like a stability ball or Bosu ball to create instability where you have to work hard to stay put! Performing a plank on a stability ball is an excellent example of this.
#3 - Modify Speed
Got a need for speed? Slow it down first! By increasing the time that it takes to complete reps, you’re putting your muscles under greater strain to complete the same exercise. Let’s take a bodyweight squat for example, now instead of jumping down and up haphazardly, count to four seconds on the way down, pause for two seconds at the bottom, then stand back up over four seconds! Seem easy? Give it a try and get back to us! Once you can do something really slow, then you can progress by adding speed, such as doing jump squats or jumping up on a step.
#4 - Increase Distance
How low can you go? Limbo and musical references aside, how far you go in an exercise will make it harder! Once you can safely perform the full range of motion of an exercise, you can increase the distance for each rep. Ways to do this include elevating your front foot on a lunge so your back knee can drop even further, putting greater demand on your front leg to remain strong throughout. For a push-up, you can go all the way to the floor if you’ve been stopping a few inches higher, or you can elevate your hands on books or yoga blocks to challenge your shoulders and chest muscles even more. By testing yourself through these greater ranges, when you’re forced into a potential injury causing position in daily life, you’ll have prepared your body to handle these extremes and will be more resilient!