If you’re forced to workout at home, what type of workout is going to be the best?
The short answer here is it depends. It depends on goals, equipment, and time.
Goals
Just because your gym is closed doesn’t mean that your goals need to be pushed to the side. Your goals are important to keep you moving forward and provide motivation to keep you training.
In our 416 Online program, we customize our daily WOD(Workout of the Day) based on client goals. 99% of the time client goals will fall into one of 5 categories:
1)Weightloss – When we look at our programming, adjustments towards a weightless goal will focus mostly around caloric expenditure. It’s important that adjustments to the workout will allow for a sustained high heart. This can be done by adjusting load, decreasing rest time, and/or increasing reps or sets.
2)Strength Gain – How you build strength at home will be completely dependant on available equipment. If you’re lucky enough to have a wide array of weights, working at heavy loads will provide appropriate stimulus to keep you progressing towards your goal. If your equipment is limited don’t fret. Building strength can happen in other ways than just increasing weight.
–Tempo Work – adding tempo to your movement will increase time under tension. The simple science is that if your body spends longer time under load than you will optimize muscle growth and strength.
–Isometric Holds – Using pauses at different points of a movement can also add time under tension, but further to that it will expose your body to isometric muscle contractions, which will add variance and challenge your strength.
–Unilateral training – Limited equipment/load can be your excuse to start building strength through single limb and multi-plane movements. Taking your body out of it’s comfort zone and working on weaknesses, whether thats strength imbalances or movement deficiencies.
3)General Fitness – To build general fitness, find a program that is broad, general, and inclusive. Programming that will take you through the full spectrum of training from strength, to body weight, to cardio. The 416 online program is written for this purpose.
4)Performance – If you have performance goals, this can include marathons, triathlons, golf, etc.. Your training program should exist to compliment your sport training. It should not be a detriment or negatively affect recovery. Working with a coach will always be the best path for performance training, because they will be able to individually design a program to supplement your sport training. An individual program will take into consideration the unique requirements for the sport and meshing them with personal weaknesses.
5)Injury Rehab – The best time to fix a nagging injury was 5 years ago, the second best time is now…even if you’re at home. In general, once assessed, rehabilitating nagging injuries will not require much equipment. It mostly will require time and assessment. Just like performance training, everything you do for a workout should not be a detriment to your injury rehab. This makes it essential to work with a professional to provide guidance on the rehab itself, and making necessary adjustments for workouts.
Equipment
While nice to have, all of the “bells and whistles” that are at your gym are not required to for an effective at-home workout program. Simply purchasing some dumbbells/kettlebells, bands, and a yoga mat can go a long way if you follow what was written under “goals” above. To take it a step further, using backpacks, water jugs, or even your dog can help add intensity/load. If you’re part of our 416 Online program, our members get access to our equipment loan program, and coaches will make necessary adjustments to workouts based on the equipment you have available to you.
Time
Look at our previous post in this series about how to schedule time for your workout. Beyond that, if time is limited, you want to find a program that focuses on a high intensity and full-body functional movements. When we talk about the “best bang for your buck” workouts, high intensity will win every day of the week. High intensity workouts (specifically those with weights) produce an effect known as EPOC or “Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption” which typically lasts 2 hours after the workout has ended, where your body continues to consume energy in order to restore itself to pre-exercise level. This effect provides much of the same advantages as long endurance workouts but in much less time and with less overall high impact on your joints.
If your at-home workout program aligns with helping you achieve your goals, available equipment, and will time commitment, you will be more likely to stick it out and be consistent week to week.
Next time I am going to discuss how to find motivation to work out while in lockdown.
If you’re not part of our 416 Online program, book a call with Karolina today to learn more!
