Living Room Workout
The time is now! Here’s some simple exercises to get you moving, no gym needed.
Simple home exercises with body weight and free weights can really make a difference over time. You’ll change your body composition, loose fat and add muscle and also be able to maintain a healthy calorie balance.
The beauty of these exercises is that you can do them at home with body weight, gravity, and a few simple resistance items like free weights and a resistance band. To improve muscle tone and strength, exercises should be done to fatigue. This uses the overload principle, meaning you must do more than a regular days amount of activity to build the muscle. Do each exercise to fatigue of the muscle with excellent technique and form. Don’t worry so much about the number of reps, think about the mind body connection, where your body is in space and what your form looks. Ideally exercising in front of a mirror to check form is the best. You can count your repetitions (reps) to keep track, so that you aren’t performing greater than 20 reps to fatigue in each exercise. If you could still continue beyond 20 reps, it’s better to add in another set and/or add resistance such as a free weight or resistance band.
There is no magic number of reps, that number is really different for everyone based on ability and endurance, as well as tolerance for DOMS (delayed onset muscles soreness). A general rule to follow, if you are a beginner – is to start with 10 reps. Complete each exercise and then see how you feel that night or the next day. If you have minimal or no DOMS, then you should increase the reps to truly fatigue the muscle. A beginner can then build the set to 15 reps then 20. Remember, if you get to 13 and you’re fatigued that is okay, it’s better to push to fatigue that try to hit a specific number of reps. Keep your focus on your form, not the reps. If you are more advanced, perhaps doing two or three rounds of each exercise will get you to overload the muscle and gain endurance. You can also add resistance by holding the exercise longer – in the instance of a plank, or adding more weight/a heavy resistance tube to a wall sit with a biceps curl.
A day of rest between identical workouts is required, so that you muscle can rebuild. If you do the same thing every day, tearing up the muscle and not letting it rebuild, you will hit a wall after 2 weeks and feel exhausted because you didn’t give your body adequate time to re-cooperate.
Try to be active every day, not just doing the same activity every day…make your goal to be active at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular work and stretching/yoga. Work into a daily sweat doing something. Resistance workouts should occur 3 times a week for change, and twice a week to maintain muscle mass. The days when you do cardio, stretching and resistance work should be over an hour long. Balance should also be a component of an exercise program to completely round it out.
Start with a 30-minute cardiovascular warm up, to get your sweat on! This will rev your metabolism and get your body ready for exercise by increasing circulation.
· Do 20 jumping jacks (standing or on the ball)
· 20 push-ups (floor – bent knee or military style, from a wall, over a ball)
· 20 squats to a chair – use arms for balance
· 20 chair push ups
· Four sets of five lunges
· Air chair position– DBL triceps extension 20 reps
· Wall sit with biceps curls (palm up) – 20 to 25 reps
· Sidelying on floor Hip ABDuction or raising the leg towards the ceiling – 20 reps
· Side half planks or plank – 10 to 15 reps – 10 second holds to start
· Clams – with or without band 20 to 25 reps
· Wall sits biceps curls (thumb up) – 20 to 25 reps (make harder stand on one foot for balance)
· Bridges 10 and 25 pulses
End with 10 minutes of stretching! It’s a great time to affirm that you did a great thing for your body. Feel how strong you are, thank God that you were able to move and let your brain know, that wasn’t so hard, it actually felt good to be active!