Stuck at home and training without weights? If you have heard about the benefits of strength training but don’t have the budget to invest in a gym membership or home gym equipment, the good news is that you’re in luck – you really don’t have to.
While training with weights does tend to be the most effective way to strengthen the body and get in shape quickly, it is definitely not the only way. Let’s go over what you should know about training without weights.
Plan On Bodyweight Movements
First, to help provide the strengthening benefits that you would get with regular weight training, you’ll need to turn to bodyweight exercises. Push-ups, lunges, squats, pull-ups, chair dips, and so forth are all excellent moves for strengthening the key muscles in the body and helping you see the results you’re after.
When doing bodyweight exercises, since you won’t be able to progress by adding more and more weight to the picture, simply increase the reps you perform higher and higher to see similar results.
Add Cardio Intervals
Next, to help keep the intensity of the workout session up and deliver excellent calorie burning results, add in some cardio intervals. These, again using your own body weight, will help to torch fat and may also help build a little more strength as well.
Great exercises to consider for your cardio intervals include burpees, mountain climbers, squat jumps, lunge jumps, side to side shuffles, along with jumping jacks.
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Perform these for one minute between each bodyweight strength training exercises you do and you’ll be all set. By setting up your routine like this, you will show greater improvements in body composition, fitness level, and your acute resting metabolic rate, as was demonstrated in a study published by Jeffry W. King in 2001.
Another great form of cardio interval to do is skipping if you can get ahold of a rope and have sufficient space to do this in. Skipping is good because not only will it torch calories quickly, but it’ll help to strengthen both the upper and lower body as well.
Keep The Intensity High
Another important thing that you need to know and remember is that the intensity of your training needs to be high. You can achieve this through proper exercise selection as noted above, but then also minimizing the total rest time taken between each exercise you do.
Rather than doing a set, resting for a minute and doing another set, alternate back and forth between two or three exercises, with little to no down time.
This will help to keep your heart rate up higher, providing the necessary conditioning needed to reach improved fitness levels.
Obviously you don’t want to ever let too short of rest cause you to sacrifice good form, but just note that the shorter the rest intervals you use, the faster you will progress.
Aim for just 15-30 seconds between each exercise that you perform.
Use Props
Finally, don’t overlook using props as well. You may not have actual exercise weights at home, but if you have water or soda bottles you can use, definitely do make use of them. Any form of resistance that you can comfortably hold and lift up while performing your exercises will help to add more of a challenging and provide the strengthening benefits you are looking for.
You can also utilize chairs or benches as you go about your routine, performing step-ups, chair dips, and incline or decline push-ups off them.
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Get creative and see what you can come up with. Most women have at least one or two items they can use at home to make their workout that much more intense.
So don’t get discouraged if you don’t have free weights at home. Using a bit of creativity and a lot of determination, you can still get yourself into great shape with both cardiovascular and bodyweight strengthening training.
