Not everyone is able to visit the gym on a regular basis.
Some people are too busy working or taking care of their children and just do not have the free time necessary to go to the gym.
There are people who are too self-secure and do not feel comfortable being around others in their training state.
I personally worked out from home because I was a financially unstable student.
I didn’t want to tax my parents to pay extra for a gym membership alongside with everything else they had to support me for.
Regardless of the reason you still wish to maintain or even improve your current physique.
The good news is that you can workout from home and develop an aesthetic physique that you can be proud of.
I, for instance, spent approximately 5-6 months training at home with hope to maintain my current muscle mass and sustain a healthy and relatively low body fat percentage.
Interestingly:
I managed to gain about 2lbs and lose 2% of body fat.
Keep in mind that at that point in my life I have been training for about 4 years and I’ve was at about 11% body fat.
The point is, you can truly transform your body through proper integration of fitness knowledge and training experience even when working out at home.
Also, if you are interested in a workout to shed body fat, I recommend you check out this hardcore 10 minute workout that you can do from the comfort of your home that will deliver amazing results!
This is why I decided to share with you what I consider the 10 best exercises that you can do from home that will help you improve your physique.
1. Push-ups
Probably one of my favorite body-weight exercises.
It is a powerful compound exercise that exercises your chest, triceps, and shoulders.
Due to the fact that there is a multi-joint activation (your elbows and shoulder joints) making it a compound exercises means that it will elevated your metabolic rate.
It also targets a pretty large muscle group (your chest), which means that your body will burn more calories to train it and for it recuperate properly.
READ MORE: TOP 7 BEST CARDIO EXERCISES TO BURN FAT
There are variations of the push-up exercise that will allow you to hit those three muscle groups more specifically.
- Diamond Shape Push-ups: Allows you to target the triceps in more isolation as well as inner section of your chest.
- Wide Push-ups: Stretching the chest allowing you to hit the chest harder
- Decline Push-ups: By lifting your legs and making sure that your upper body is in a lower position than your lower body you train your lower pectoral area (lower chest).
And there many other variations that you can try out such as: Spiderman push-ups, Headstand push-ups, etc.
What I used to do to increase the weight so that I can make training a little bit harder was to lift one of my legs up in the air – this increases the weight and makes the exercise a whole lot harder to complete.
Plus, that also helps add some tension to my core muscles and work on my abs even more than usual.
I also used to fill my backpack with heavy books, luckily as a student I had a lot laying around.
If you have somebody living with you, then that makes things even better.
You can ask the other person to push you down to the ground as you are performing the exercise, or if you consider yourself strong enough, you can ask the other person to sit on your back.
2. Squats
An extremely powerful compound exercise.
Similar to the push-up it activates a lot of muscles leading to an elevated metabolic rate.
The only difference is that you are training your lower body – abs, glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and lower back.
The quadriceps is also a large muscle group, meaning that once trained you are burning a lot of calories to train it in the first place.
Your abs are trained when you doing squats. Interestingly, exercises such as lunges, squats and deadlifts train your core a whole lot more than any crunch you do.
You can use similar techniques to increase the weight when doing squats.
I used to make my girlfriend get on my shoulders (something that I would not consider doing if you are a beginner).
It was fun, but looking back on it now it was quite dangerous.
3. Inverted Rows
This is where you get to be a bit creative. Another compound exercise that trains your biceps, traps and middle back, as well as to a certain degree your abdominals.
The way that I used to do is I put two separate chairs apart of each other at about shoulder width.
You really need to make sure that the chairs are stable and that there is no danger for them to lose steadiness and put in you in a dangerous situation.
I would put a broomstick on both chairs so that it resembles a pull-up bar. A really good exercise that will help you build upper-body strength and develop back thickness.
4. Shadow Boxing
I love doing these.
If you have a punching bag and a pair of boxing gloves, even better!
There are variations to this, but one of the punches that you have to make sure you implement into your routine is uppercuts.
Uppercuts really tend to increase my heart rate and is a really powerful way tool that you can use to increase your intensity.
Shadowing boxing, or boxing in general, is a really good way to boost your metabolism and thus decrease body fat storages.
It also works your core, which helps you develop a really good looking core.
Plus, it’s extremely fun to do!
Shadow boxing is also a great way to develop an aesthetic upper body and to a certain extent help broaden your shoulders.
5. Jump Rope
OK…
I know that not everybody has the opportunity to do these at their home because they either lack space or live with neighbors who love to complain, but I would be daft if I don’t include this exercise in here.
Jumping rope is often regarded as one of the best cardio exercises in general that will truly help you burn fat a whole lot faster than any other exercise out there.
It can add some definition to the deltoids (shoulder muscles) and calves, as you work these muscle groups quite vigorously when performing the exercise.
It involves a tremendous amount of skill, focus, patience and strength.
Jumping rope has been shown to burn a higher amount of calories than rowing (over 1000) and is best used for shorter periods, as it can lead to injuries of the lower leg or hip if done for too long.
However, once mastered jumping rope is an effective way to burn a high number of calories and improve a wide range of skills such as explosive strength, stamina and speed. This is why jumping rope is an integral part of a boxer’s training.
You can make it more interesting and fun by implementing alternative techniques and styles of jumping rope.
6. Bench Dips
Bench dips are basically an alternative form of your average dips.
Another difference is that bench dips target the triceps muscle group in more isolation and focuses a whole lot less on muscle groups such as the chest and shoulders (they are still involved, but to the same degree as with regular dips).
This exercise is great for overall arm development as it really puts a strain on your triceps. You can use various techniques to make it harder and can increase your weight by placing something on your lap (something to consider when you notice that the exercise starts getting easy for you.
7. Burpees
Burpees is another great explosive exercise that will help you develop an aesthetic body by elevating your metabolic rate and promoting the production of hormones such as HGH and Testosterone.
I usually prefer implementing the push-up here (when I drop down on the ground I do a push-up and then I jump up) to make the exercise a bit harder and higher in intensity.
Something that I like to do with burpees is the so-called ‘pyramid burpee’, which is not a legitimate name just a way that I use to call my burpee training so that it sounds more cool and mysterious.
The pyramid burpee is where as I dive down and perform my push-up I increase the amount of push-ups I do with every drop. So for example:
Rep number one: from a standing position I drop down do a push-up and jump back up
Rep number two: from a standing position I drop down do two push-up and jump back up
Rep number three: from a standing position I drop down do three push-ups and jump back up. And so on.
I would usually aim for about 10 – about 55 push-ups in total.
This is something that I would really recommending trying out!
It’s a really explosive workout and will really help you burn off your stored fat as well as build a lot of strength and endurance.
However, it does require a foundation to start as it is really taxing.
8. Kettlebell Swings
I love this exercise!
It works wonders when trying to promote a fat-burning environment for your body as it really impacts your metabolic rate and it keeps it high for a long period of time.
This is because swings are basically an extreme multi-joint activation tool (knee joint, hip joint and shoulder joint).
A lot of people say that you are not suppose to use your shoulders when performing this exercise but I believe that it’s a perfect way of inviting another muscle group to join the party and help you build a good structure and general frame.
The exercise activates your lower back, abs, glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, shoulders, forearms and to a certain extent your pectorals, your middle back and lats. This muscle activation will leave you more tired than ever!
The problem here is that you would actually have to purchase a kattlebell or a dumbbell so that you can perform this exercise properly. However, they are not expensive – a whole set of 8 differently weighted kattlebells starting from 2kg (4.4lbs) and going all the way to 20kg (44lbs) for 14 quid = 20 dollars.
Once bought you can implement them to one of the previously explained exercises such as the bench dips or squats.
You can also use the weight to target your muscles with various other exercises such as chest extensions, biceps curls, triceps behind the back extensions, etc.
9. Lunges
Lunges is another compound exercise that focuses on the lower part of the body.
They are a slightly different when compared to squats as they target the glutes and hamstrings a bit more.
The main reason why I have placed them here is because lunges have a ton of variations.
For example:
There are the split lunges (where you place one foot in an elevated fashion so that you are working only one foot at a time – more of a muscle growth form), there are jumping lunges (when switching legs you make a little jump – more of a metabolic boost), there is the side lunge (which can be integrated and used with squats – when you come up from a squad you implement a side lunge), there is the high lunge (where the leg with which you are lunging is placed on a higher surface (the reversed version of a split lunge), etc.
Lunges provides you with a ton of variability allowing you to hit your lower body in various ways.
10. Jump-Ups
Not so sure if this is the proper way to call them, but it’s how I’ve been referring to this exercise all my life.
It starts from a squat – you go down and the moment you starting coming back up you jump on a higher surface (usually a stable chair or sofa) and then you go back down and repeat the whole process.
When you jump on the elevated surface you really need to make sure you remain in proper form and to a certain state make your butt pop a little bit more. This puts a lot of strain on your glutes, and for all of you girls that are interested, this will develop your butt into an amazing bombshell, you have my word for it!
Conclusion:
Just because you are working out at home doesn’t mean that you are going to lack any transformational results. By implementing these exercises into your home workout you are going to definitely start noticing results.
Something important is that you are not suppose to overtrain or anything like that. Make sure that you give your muscles enough time to rest (about 48 hours) before you train them again.
There are also various other exercises that you can implement into your home workout. These are the 10 exercises that I believe everybody who is training at home must implement into their workout as they will bring forward a lot of improvements.
Also, remember that nutrition is key! Even with these powerful exercises if your nutrition is not good, then you are not going to see much of an improvement.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief but hopefully informative article and I sincerely hope that I have assisted you somehow!
Tell me what you think
In the comments bellow let me know what you think about the exercises in the list. Do you like them, do you hate them?
Or even better, are there any other exercises that you believe would do a much better job?
Let me know!
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