printGreat Workouts At Home
Quick and easy workouts at home
Regular exercise can be both expensive and time-consuming. An ideal solution to both problems is to develop a home-based bodyweight workout that you can do in a circuit. This provides both strength and cardiovascular benefits, and can be fitted in around a busy schedule.
Example circuit
Always remember to warm up properly as you would in the gym, and turn up the volume on some of your favourite music to get the blood pumping!
- Sit ups (feet on floor, reaching towards ceiling with chest not neck!) - 20 reps
- Press ups - as many as you can
- Lunges - 15 reps each leg
- Knees up crunches (different version of sit ups where you have your knees in towards your chest - places more demand on the core muscles) - up to 20 reps
- Squats or single leg squats (more instability provides a more effective core muscle workout) - 15 reps
A home workout circuit such as the one given would be very powerful and can be as demanding as you want it to be. Aim to take as little rest as possible while going from exercise to exercise in the circuit. At the end of the circuit rest for up to 1-2 mins. As your fitness improves, decrease your rest time.
Look to do the full circuit up to four times depending on time constraints. Even two sets would be more than enough to achieve a high intensity workout with nothing more than your bodyweight and a spare 20-30mins.
When you approach each session see how effective you can be at activating the muscles you are trying to work and always try to achieve a good intensity of heart rate.
Split shifts
Even if you can only do one circuit, three times a day - don't worry! Several 10-15 minute spells can actually be more effective than one 40-60 minute session a day!
The most important thing is the quality of what you do and the intensity achieved in that time period. If you end up doing half a workout in the morning and half at night, the way to look at it is that you achieve 2-3 bursts to your metabolic rate (fat-burning mechanism) instead of just one!
