3 full body exercises for home workout

These days all of us are trying to spend as much time home as we can (we hope you are), which might help slowing down the spread of coronavirus. Everyone takes care of himself or herself wisely, but it does not mean you should avoid staying active, you can still keep yourself fit. Thankfully there are many coaches giving us online trainings, or you can just download one from the many exciting workout plans offered from different websites. There are many opportunities; the choice is yours if you want to use them for your benefit.

While you can still find some gyms open, we recommend you to be careful and responsible and stay home instead. We’d rather show you some exercises, which can help you to keep your body in a great condition from the comfort of home. If you want to build up a complete full body workout plan, later we are going to show you 3 with the most effective exercises.

Although it is harder to always change the resistance and intensity of your training when you are at home, you still have different opportunities to maintain your muscle mass and strength. If you like tiring and sweaty trainings, you should not give up on those either, not to mention that you can try out new methods too. Just stay positive and open, you can still work on your health and who knows, maybe you will like it more than training hours in a gym.

The benefits of a home workout:

• No monthly fee
• You can save time since you do not need to leave your home
• No extra equipment is needed
• No loud and strange people around you, no one has a call next to you or reserving a machine for hours
• You have time for everything
• You can listen your favorite music
• It’s more hygienic
• You have your own buffet and it is free!

1. Burpee (squat thrust)

According to the researchers, this is the king of the no-equipment trainings. You do not need to do thousands of this, 15 reps and 4 rounds can be enough; with a short break between rounds.

The burpee is one of the best exercises for your full body, which can help to maintain or even develop your cardiovascular system, too.

First things first: Warm up as you would do in the gym before training! The exercise: Start from standing position, go down to squat and put your hands down on the floor in front of you. From here jump back with your legs into push up position plank, and perform a proper push up. Jump back behind your hands and from squat position just jump up as high as you can while performing a jumping jack.

2. Push up

During this exercise the main movements are in the elbow and shoulder joints, and the biggest load is on the chest and triceps muscles.

To perform a proper push up, first you should get into a push up position plank, start flexing your elbows moving your upper body down slowly close to the floor. From here, stretch your elbows and go back to the starting position. Focus on your chest when you are flexing, most people make the mistake of approaching the floor with hips first instead. Do not flex your neck, keep it straight and continuing your dorsal spine. When flexing your elbows keep a smaller degree than 90 in your shoulders to avoid hurting your rotator cuff. If your elbows are closer to your trunk, then there is more work on your triceps; if they are farther, then there is more work on your chest muscles and anterior deltoids. Keep your core tight and tilt your pelvis backwards!

Perform 4 rounds of 15 reps. If the first repetitions are harder, you can make the exercise easier starting with your hands at a higher position (on a chair or table, the higher the easier); or if you find it easy, you can put your feet higher to make the exercise harder.

3. Squat

Actually, this is the king of exercises for us. It also has a strong effect on the cardiovascular system and it basically targets the legs, but it can be combined with a lot of other exercises and can be varied in thousands of ways, offering a bigger benefit for the whole body. However, it is difficult to do it well, giving some people headaches trying to figure out how to perform a proper movement according to their limited range of motion in the necessary joints. For the right implementation we should also work on enhancing this range, avoiding any overstrains in the muscles (usually around the lower deep back muscles) or in the joints.

If you do not want injuries, you should pay extra attention to the execution! You might think you are “lucky” if you do not hurt yourself immediately after a single wrongly executed movement, but if you keep doing it, you can have serious problems after years. You can also mess up everything in a moment, but usually the symptoms appear after 5-10 years. After these years your body gets adapted to the wrong movements and your muscles/joints are overloaded.

Squats can be performed in narrow or wide stance, with feet looking straight forward or mildly to the sides, although there are many other opportunities. All of these have different effects on your legs, making this exercise so effective and versatile.

To get started, first move your hips backward and flex your knees getting closer to the floor, focusing on positioning your hips (imagine you want to sit down) and keeping your knees behind the line of your toes (in the lowest dead stop). Keep your core muscles tight, and your trunk vertical; it is a bit tricky, but you should avoid leaning forward as much as possible. Pull back your shoulders and look forward at eye level. During this exercise you can hold dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands, smartphones, fishing rods, books, a child, anything! You can choose what resistance you want to use. You can even add jumps into the movement, but it is only recommended if you know the technics how to perform them well. Your knees should always follow the line of your feet; make sure you do this while you are going both up and down. Do 4 rounds of 15 reps.

Be creative, use anything you find

Creative options: You just had your big shopping and forgot to buy equipment for workout? Do you think you have nothing to use? You are wrong! Your home is a gym itself; you just need to find the right tools. Almost everyone has flour, sugar, salt or anything with different weights at home; you can use them as workout equipment. They work well on their own, or you can fill a bottle. Be creative, like those people on social media these days, making workout plans with toilet papers…

Examples how to use a chair for workout:

• Step-ups
• Dips
• Push ups
• Bulgarian split squats
• Sitting exercises: Shoulder press, lateral raise, biceps curl, triceps extension, etc.

Other opportunities: If you have any chance, to buy professional equipment, you can try to get these tools:

• Resistance bands
• Suspension trainer
• Dumbbell or kettlebell
• Unstable device
• Fitball
• And so on

No matter what and how you move (of course we mean doing responsible moves), the point is to do it. During the quarantine period, our energy consumption is heavily reduced, while it is typical that we eat more than usual due to the lack of stimulus. The body needs time, until it realizes we are not that active anymore. Metabolism slows down and the hormonal system adapts, it could take 1-2 weeks depending on the level of activity you had before.