Do Home Workouts Actually Work-Out?
In short — yes, and here are all the whys and the hows of making them the most efficient
A question often arises among fitness enthusiasts — especially in the past few COVID years — causing much debate and disagreement: when it comes to efficiency, are home workouts a waste of time or a clever investment in your overall fitness?
To make it all clear from the start — any exercise is efficient in and of itself if you’re intent on dedicating some time and putting effort into it. And home workouts are no exception.
Here we’re gonna delve right into all you’ve ever wanted to know about the efficiency of exercising at home.
And if you stick to the end, there are a few bonus tips on how to make the most out of your home-based workouts.
Efficiency
Home workouts are more than enough to get you toned and fit, although it might take some more time and imagination than it would if you were to hit the gym instead.
Since progressive overload is crucial to seeing progress no matter which exercise regimen you’re on, the same goes for home-based workouts. You can make any routine more challenging by making simple and subtle changes, such as:
- upping the number of sets and reps,
- increasing the time under tension
- shortening rest time in between sets and reps
- adding resistance in the form of bands, weights, or even readily available household items such as water jugs, canisters, or backpacks loaded with something heavy
- getting inventive with your furniture — chairs, couches, settees, and benches can be an incredibly handy addition to your workout
Simply put, incorporating changes that amp the difficulty of your training will help you get the results you want — and faster than if you were to stick to the same old routine for ages.
Just add something new when you feel that your routine is becoming too easy and that you’ve hit a plateau with your progress.
All in all, home workouts will not fall short in getting you where you want to be fitness-wise, far from it. You’ll just need to be patient and persistent to achieve the fitness levels — and looks — you have always aspired to.
Remember, the only exercise that isn’t effective is the one you don’t take up.
How to get optimal results from home workouts
1. Don’t allow distractions
It’s easier to get distracted when you’re doing anything from home, and it’s no different when it comes to working out. The TV blasting in one room, your children playing rather rambunctiously in the other, your dog insistent to hump your leg while you’re trying to stretch…
Yes, it can definitely get difficult to focus on that mind-to-muscle connection which is vital to getting it done properly.
You can avoid this by simple compromise and sketching a timetable of a kind, so your family or flat-mates will know when to give you some breathing space.
Creating a designated space for workouts in one of your rooms is also a plus, as having a space you know is meant for exercise will help with maintaining your focus. You won’t need anything grand, so you can just move the furniture aside just enough to be able to move freely, without risking an injury or damage to your costly property.
When exercising, concentrate completely on yourself, your body, and your movement — shut everything else off. That goes for your cell phone as well: it has to go if you’re serious about going through with a nice, hard, and productive training.
2. Consistency
As in every regimen, if you’re keen on achieving your goal, you’ll have to be consistent and persevering.
Working out every now and then is a sure way to get no results whatsoever whether you’re exercising at home, in the gym, or taking up a fitness class.
One of the benefits of working out at home is that it saves you the time you’d need to get to the gym and back, so make use of that time wisely. Be sure to make a schedule that’s sustainable in the long run and see it through to the end.
3. Motivation
One of the reasons some people spend their hard-earned money on gym memberships or spinning classes is that they need someone to push them, to keep giving them that necessary nudge so they wouldn’t give up on training the first second it gets tough.
To some, just being surrounded by other people working out is enough to drive them forwards, while others need personal trainers or an exercise buddy.
When it comes to home workouts, you’re pretty much on your own, unless your family members are keen on physical activity as well. That means you’re going to have to be your own personal trainer/motivator.
One of the ways to keep going with your routine even when you’re left to your own devices — apart from having a strong will and a burning desire to be healthy, fit and keep your mobility and suppleness well into old age — is to always keep your eyes on the prize, so to say.
Celebrate each milestone you’ve reached, every little change you notice in your body, whether it is an increase in strength, or endurance, or the moment you realize the person staring back at you from the mirror is smoking hot.
That sure ought to motivate you to keep going.
And if you really need some guidance to go that extra mile, there’s a whole variety of fitness apps, videos, and even real-time workouts online you can engage in.
On a sidenote — upbeat music that gets your whole body moving is also helpful in prompting you to go through the roughest bits of the way.
4. Include compound exercises in your training
Compound exercises are crucial to any training routine, as they work for multiple muscle groups at the same time. That means that by doing one exercise, such as a deadlift, squat, plank, and the lot, you in effect train dozens of muscles simultaneously.
In addition, each of these exercises has a whole bunch of variations that can make them more challenging, or help you target a particular muscle group a bit more.
By incorporating them in your training, not only will you see a whole lot of impressive results, such as an increase of strength, and overall improvement of coordination and flexibility, but your workouts will be more time-efficient than they’d be if you were to stick solely to isolation exercises.
Train smarter rather than longer is the main idea here.
5. Switching and stirring up your regimen is great — unless you overdo it
Changing routines from time to time is always a good idea, not only when it comes to increasing the difficulty of your exercise, but also if you opt for simply maintaining the results you’ve achieved rather than pushing yourself further.
The changes might include having a deload week, shifting the main focus from one exercise to another on different training days, doing more isolation vs compound exercise and vice versa, and so on. There are as many options as you can think of.
Have in mind that switching routines too frequently will backfire though — you want consistency and good structure in your training.
Exercising like a rabbit with ADHD and being all over the place won’t get you stronger and shredded, not now, not ever.
Set your fitness goals straight from the start and base your routines around them. For example, if you are intent on growing your glutes, doing too much HIIT and cardio instead of resistance training isn’t going to be much helpful.
Be mindful of what you want to achieve primarily, and structure your training accordingly — that goes for the changes you incorporate as well.
Make sure to give some love in the comments section if you found any of this interesting, or have your own thoughts on home workouts to share.
