There are all sorts of reasons you might not fancy joining a gym, but, do you need to bite the bullet if you want to do resistance workouts? Do you need the equipment in the gym if you’re to make decent strength gains?
Well, with 16 years experience in designing home workout programs, I’m here to let you know that it is absolutely possible to improve your strength at home!
One of the biggest benefits of exercising at home is the convenience. Not only does the time you have to commit to your workout reduce because of not having to drive to the gym and back, but also, you can make your workouts much shorter (or even spread them across the day) when you’re not committed to travelling to a particular destination to exercise.
Better still, at least at first, you’re likely to be able to build your whole home workout program with only body weight exercises – no equipment required.
You can start with floor based exercises which teach you the base skills, and then gradually increase the complexity so the exercises begin to challenge your stability and balance while also challenging your strength. We can use your own bodyweight as well as gravity to create the tension we need.
It is absolutely possible to get fit and strong with only bodyweight exercises – but this said, at some point it’s probably worth treating yourself to a couple of small pieces of equipment in order to allow yourself some more variety in the exercises you can choose.
Resistance bands, sliders, kettlebells, dumbbells and weighted balls are great options which you can pick up pretty inexpensively. You could consider a suspension trainer system too, as well as a step, skipping rope or swiss ball…
Most people gradually accumulate a few different pieces of equipment as they go along. Remember too that you can always try some unconventional ideas to stretch your equipment further too – you could put a few of your lighter dumbbells into a sturdy rucksack for example.
Over time, you can end up with a pretty good array of things to use to build a great home workout.
So, if you prefer not to join a gym, that doesn’t mean you’re going to struggle to build a strength based workout – I’d be delighted to show you how to do it too, just get in touch.