Home sweet home. This is where your loved ones are, where you have familiar décor that you or your spouse have selected, where your pets live, and where you share many happy memories. Making your home more than a place to rest your head is a desire many people have in this tough economy after working long hours at the office or on the road.
Save the road trip - workout at home. While many people travel to a gym, for others working out at home makes sense in our current economy. Some people may desire the social interaction of a health club or the vast equipment options, but others may find that being able to spend more time with their family and the comfort and ease of home, particularly during the winter months is more desirable. This article will focus on using your home and items you may already have to keep your body happy and healthy through regular exercise. I will also provide detailed instruction on how to use your “home-made” equipment properly and effectively.
We will explore using items that most people have in their homes. This “equipment” will be used as the resistance training component of your home workout and is best suited for beginners.
What do you use for weights? Many people already have hand weights at home, but if you don’t, you can improvise. Milk or water jugs can be used for adjustable hand weights or dumbbells, which are ideal because the jugs have comfortable handles. Paint cans, soup cans, or other canned foods can be used as well. Basically, anything you can hold comfortably and securely makes a good weight. Using a towel to provide resistance is a great and easy method as well. If you are using canned vegetables for your workout, go ahead and eat your weights when you are done!
Canned soups weigh about 12 -16 ounces, a gallon of water or milk weighs in at 8 to 8.8 pounds. The added advantage of using water or milk jugs is you can vary your weight. Just fill the jugs with different amounts of water. Bags of food or other substances can add more weight. Potatoes come in at 5 or 10 lb. bags. Dog food is often heftier, ranging from 10 to 40 or more pounds. Don’t forget to feed the dog when you are done! Another idea is to fill a 5 gallon bucket (with handles) of water to various amounts. This can give you up to 25 lbs. without worrying too much about spills. As you can see, these items can provide a range of working weights for a sound, progressive resistance training program. What other ideas can you come up with? Just look around and use your imagination. There are many, many choices available to most.
Did you know you already have weight machines at your house? These can be items like chairs, tables, even your couch! If you have a secured overhead bar or rafters you can use them for pull-ups.
In-Home Resistance Training
Chest
Most sedentary people can manage approximately ten push-ups on the floor. If you are not yet strong enough for that, you can do modified push-ups. First, make sure you have a secure table, such as a kitchen table. Lean down to the table, and keeping your body in line do push ups off your table or kitchen counter. The reason this is easier than the floor is that much of your body weight will be reduced. This is a great chest muscle and tricep exercise that is no different than using a chest press or bench press at a gym.
Shoulders
Your shoulder muscles can be worked by using the various hand weights mentioned earlier. You can perform a shoulder press by lifting the weight over your head. Make sure you keep a slight contraction on your stomach muscles in order to help stabilize your back and spine. Keep your knees bent ever so slightly for added stability. This works your shoulder and tricep muscles. You can also hold your weights by your side and, with your elbows slightly bent, raise your arms out to your side until they are parallel to the floor. This can be done raising your arms out in front of you to the same height as well. Many female beginners at the gym should and can use around 10 lbs. for the shoulder presses and 3 to 5 lbs for the side or front raises.
Triceps
The triceps are the muscles in the back of the arm that extend the elbow. To work these muscles you can stand with your knees bent holding one arm on the back of a chair, table, or counter for back support. Lean down so that your back is straight and roughly parallel to the floor. Hang the other arm straight down holding your weight. Lift the weight so that this arm raises to the point where your elbow is facing behind you and your upper arm is parallel to the ground, with your forearm still pointed towards the floor. Keeping your upper arm stationary, extend your elbow as far back as you can. This is called a kickback. Alternately for the tricep, fill a small beach ball with water. Grasp the water ball with both hands and extend it over your head with your arms straight and your stomach slightly contracted for back stability. Your knees should be slightly bent as well (just as much as needed so they are not locked straight). Bend at the elbows toward the back of your head and back to the beginning. Another exercise is to sit on a chair and move your bottom off the front of the chair while holding your hands securely to the side. With your feet on the floor, bend at the elbows to the point that your elbows are about parallel to the ground as your bottom lowers. You can use your legs to help you but make sure that your arms are doing most of the work for about 10 to 12 repetitions. You can move your legs further away from the chair or even on another chair for added work as you progress in strength.
Biceps
Bicep muscles (the front of your upper arms) can be worked by doing curls. Make sure you extend your arm fully and bend your elbows to your shoulders. Use cans, jugs, or a water ball to supply the resistance. A towel can also be used for resistance with your biceps and triceps. Just pull enough on the towel with your other arm to act as resistance. Pull hard enough so that your muscles fatigue after 10 to 12 reps while completing the full range of motion.
Lats and Lower Back Muscles
The large muscle on your back that starts from the lower back and attaches to the back of your arm is called the “lat muscle” for short. It is the muscle used along with your bicep to pull things, such as starting a lawn mower. Get into the same position as the kickback and, using a heavier weight, lift or pull the weight with your arm hanging straight down to a point where your elbow extends behind you, like starting a mower. Provide the weight needed to fatigue your “lats” in 10 to 12 reps.
Another great method for your lats involves using a towel and a partner. Sit on the floor with a partner, feet to feet with your knees bent. Hold the ends of a bath towel firmly. Your partner holds the middle of the towel and provides you with resistance by rocking back and forth at the hips, applying enough resistance to allow you to perform 10 or 12 reps. After a few practices, your partner will know how hard to resist you. You lean forward at the hips with your arms straight out then straighten your hips so that your back is perpendicular to the floor keeping your back straight. Pull your arms into the sides of your chest and stick your chest out to help keep your lower back straight. This is also a good lower back exercise.
Legs
You can do squats with your own body weight and progress into holding weights or boxes of items you have around the house, keeping the weight close to your body. Do not extend your knees past your toes. In order to do this, your bottom has to move back and your torso must lean forward. Keep your body weight centered evenly on your feet. Lunges can also work your legs while placing a bit more emphasis on your buttocks. Standing upright, step forward with one leg far enough so that when you bend your knees, your knee does not protrude past your toes. Bend to the point that is comfortable for you, keeping your torso perpendicular to the ground. Push yourself back to the standing position with your feet next to each other to start the next rep with the other leg. You can do these stationary or walk lunges for 10 or 12 reps each leg.
Try to vary these exercises every month or so. Perform them 2 to 3 times per week with a day in between. Start out with a warm up of a light weight for one set. Then you can begin with one “normal” set fully fatiguing your muscles and eventually progress up to three sets depending on soreness levels. How much weight should you use? For healthy individuals, add enough weight so that you experience full, or nearly complete muscle fatigue after 12 reps. The weight is too light if you can do much more and is too heavy if you cannot do at least 10 reps without holding your breath, using full range of motion.
Stomach
Working the stomach area can help you with posture and stability. Many people are displeased with the amount of fat they have in the stomach area, but it is more important to focus on strength as we can’t control where we lose fat. There are three types of movements that will work all of the abdominal area. They are crunches (moving your shoulder blades and head towards your feet, knee raises (moving your buttocks and knees towards your head, and Twists (twisting your torso to the left and right while holding your shoulder blades off the floor).
In-Home Aerobics Program
This component of fitness has large implications for heart and other lifestyle diseases. People that live in the Midwest need an indoor opportunity for aerobic exercise due to our long winters. Exercise tapes can work well, but a disadvantage with many tapes is that they do not provide a progressive format. Your exercise program should allow you to do more work as you get more fit. Stepping up and down on a stair case can mimic a step class at a health club. The best answer for home aerobics is to invest in a treadmill, stationary bike, or other indoor aerobic exercise device. Treadmills can range in price from $400 to $1500 for a home quality piece. But there are always many used treadmills available online and even locally in stores and in the newspapers. Treadmills are great tools in that walking (jogging) is how we ambulate, so they are considered very functional. Make sure to place the treadmill or other equipment in a “nice” place in your home where you may be more prone to use it. For a warm up, gradually increase the speed and/or incline so that at the end of 5 to 10 minutes your heart rate is at your target zone.
A bike is great as well. They are usually cheaper than a treadmill and you can even get what is called a recumbent bike. This is a bike that has a regular chair to sit on while you ride. One drawback with a bike is that it is non-weight bearing so it does not help with osteoporosis, the bone weakening disease. When you begin your aerobics program, you want to build from 3 days per week for 30 minutes to 5 to 7 days per week lasting up to an hour.
Hopefully these ideas can begin to help you get creative with your home workouts. They will save you money while you continue to invest in your personal health and fitness at home. Enjoy, and if you need further insight, feel free to contact me for questions. Exercise your right to good health!
