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Build muscle – at home!
A vigorous home workout using your own body-weight can be as effective as any strength-training routine
You can build muscle mass and strength, increase muscular endurance, promote fat loss, improve your health, and (we know you care) make yourself more desirable – all in the comfort of your home and all without weights.
Well, almost. While most of the exercises you’ll do in your no-equipment home workout require only your body-weight for resistance, there are a few props that will come in handy. For example, a few of the exercises require a pull-up bar.
But you won’t have to go out and buy one. You can make a pull-up bar by hanging a piece of piping from the crossbeams of your garage. Or, if your kids have a sturdy climbing frame, you already have one in your garden.
A towel, plastic containers and a chair are also useful, but we suspect you have this stuff lying around at home already. If not, you need to buy a chair anyway. To take into account the fact that you can’t control the amount of resistance you use, we’ve selected exercises focusing on a range of muscle groups and levels.
There is something for everyone. Beginners will find some tough challenges, intermediate and advanced exercisers will find interesting moves to add to their workouts.
Circuit workouts
No-equipment exercise facilitates a valuable workout technique called circuit training. In circuits, you do one set of each exercise in the routine before doing a second set of any exercise.
The idea is to do more work in less time, moving quickly from exercise to exercise – easier when there’s no weight to adjust or station to set up. Circuits also give each muscle-group several minutes to recover before working again, letting you work more intensely each time you move through the circuit.
We’ve planned the circuit for you and described each exercise. Start with five to 10 minutes of continuous large muscle-group activity
* jumping jacks, running up stairs or skipping. Then do each exercise on your circuit-list in succession, pausing only long enough to get ready for the next one. Start with 12 repetitions of each exercise, eventually working your way up to 20. When you’ve completed the circuit – when you’ve done all the exercises on your list
* cool down for several minutes or do another three to five minutes of cardio work. Then go through the circuit again.
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# MID-SECTION
If you’re a beginner, do one set of 10 to 15 repetitions per exercise – except while doing the vacuum, when you should do six to 10 repetitions. If you’re more experienced, do two or three sets of eight to 10 repetitions of each chosen exercise.
Vacuum
1. Get down on your hands and knees, keeping your back flat.
2. Take a deep breath, allowing your stomach to bulge out. Then forcibly exhale and round your back like an angry cat as you lift your navel up towards your spine.
When you can’t exhale anymore, keep your back rounded and your navel in as you purse your lips and take shallow breaths through your nose for several seconds. That’s one repetition. It should take 20 to 30 seconds. Inhale as you flatten your back to the starting position.
Reverse crunch
1. Lie with your arms at your sides. Hold your legs off the floor with your knees bent at a 90-degree angle so your thighs point straight up and your lower legs point straight ahead, parallel to the floor.
2. Crunch your pelvis towards your ribcage. Your tailbone should rise five to eight centimetres off the floor as your knees move towards your chin. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
Crunch
1. Lie with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Fold your arms across your chest or hold your hands behind your ears. (Don’t interlock your fingers behind your head.)
2. Use your abs to lift your head and upper torso while keeping your lower back pressed firmly against the floor. Pause with your shoulder blades at least five centimetres off the floor, then slowly return to the starting position using a controlled movement.
Prone Superman
1. Lie face-down with your legs straight and your arms stretched straight in front of you, with your hands on the floor.
2. Lift your arms, head, chest and lower legs off the floor simultaneously. Hold this position for one to five seconds, keeping your head and neck at the same height as your shoulders throughout the movement. Return to the starting position.
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# CHEST AND UPPER BACK
Beginners should do two sets of 10 to 15 reps of each of these exercises. Intermediate and advanced lifters should do two to three sets of the normalpush-ups, consisting of eight to 10 reps. Then, do two or three sets of eight to 10 reps per exercise of the upper back exercises.
Push-up
1. Support your body with the balls of your feet and with your hands, positioning your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, palms flat on the floor. Straighten your arms without locking your elbows.
2. Lower your torso until your chest is just off the floor. Push yourself back to the starting position.
Chin-up
1. Assisted chin-up: if you find it hard to do even one chin-up from the hanging position (which is usual among beginner and even intermediate exercisers), stand on a chair and push off slightly with your legs.
Supinated reverse push-up
1. Fix your pull-up in a doorway, about one metre above the floor. Lie down so the bar is directly over your chest. Use an underhand grip that’s slightly narrower than shoulder-width to shift more work to your biceps and lats and away from your scapular retractors (middle traps and rhomboids).
2. Lift your torso and legs off the floor so that only the backs of your heels remain planted. Pull in your abs and hold your body in a straight line from head to heels.
One-arm row, elbow out
1. Grab a full plastic bottle with your weaker or non-dominant hand, and place your other hand and knee on a sturdy bench or chair. Plant your dominant foot flat on the floor and hold your working arm out away from your body, your palm facing behind you. Keep your back straight.
2. Pull the weight straight up (not back) until your elbow is slightly higher than your back. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
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# SHOULDERS AND ARMS
Beginners should do one or two sets of 10 to 15 reps of the external rotation and the lateral raise. Also, do one or two sets of 10 to 15 reps of the chair-dip exercise. For your biceps, do one or two sets of 10 to 12 reps of the towel curl.
At the intermediate and advanced levels, do two or three sets of eight to 10 reps of the external rotation. Do the same for the lateral raise and chair-dip. Do two or three sets of six to 10 reps of the towel curl.
Chair-dip
1. Hold on to the seat of a sturdy chair behind you, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor – as if you were seated on another, invisible chair.
2. Keep your back arched close to the chair as you slowly lower your body until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Your torso should remain straight. Pause, and then press back up to the starting position.
Lateral raise
1. Grab a pair of water bottles filled with sand (or two full paint cans) and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, your knees slightly bent and your arms at your sides.
2. Maintaining a slight bend in your elbows, lift your arms up and out to the sides until they’re parallel to the floor. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
External rotation
1. With a soup tin or similar light object in each hand, hold your arms out to your sides with your elbows bent at 90 degrees so your upper arms are just two to five centimetres below your shoulders and almost parallel to the floor, and your forearms are pointed in towards your torso.
2. Keep your upper arms still and use your elbows to rotate your forearms up until they are as close to perpendicular to the floor as possible. Return to the starting position.
Towel curl
1. Fold a large towel lengthways a few times and hold it at either end, your palms facing each other, as you stand with your back against a wall. Move your feet out about 30 centimetres in front of you, and place one of them in the middle of the towel (at the bottom of the U that the towel makes as you hold it). Start with both knees slightly bent.
2. With your arms straight down, curl your fists upwards towards your shoulders while using your foot to resist the movement. Keep your upper arms against your body so all the pulling power comes from your elbow joints. Pause at the top, using your arms to resist your leg’s attempt to push the towel back down to the floor. Return to the starting position.
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# LOWER BODY
Beginners should do one or two sets of 12 to 15 reps of each. Advanced and intermediate lifters should do two or three sets of each. The recommended rep count is 12 to 15 for the calf raises.
Split squat
1. Stand with one leg 90 to 120 centimetres in front of the other, with your toes pointed forwards. Your front foot should be flat on the floor, but only the ball of your back foot should be planted. To help yourself balance, line up each foot with its corresponding buttock, not with the other foot. Keep your torso erect. Rest your hands behind your head.
2. Bend both knees to lower your body straight down until your back knee is five to eight centimetres off the floor and your front leg is bent at a 90-degree angle – with the thigh parallel to the floor and the lower leg perpendicular to the floor.
3. Your torso and rear thigh should form a straight line. Return to the starting position. Finish the set, then switch your front and back legs and repeat.
One-leg calf raise
1. Stand with the ball of your non-dominant foot on the edge of a step or wooden block that is five to eight centimetres high. Hook your other foot around the back of your non-dominant heel. Hold on to the banister or something sturdy to stay balanced.
2. Let your non-dominant heel drop as low as it’ll go off the step. Then change direction and push off the ball of that foot until the heel is five to eight centimetres above the step.
Ski squat
1. Lean back against a wall with your feet 60 centimetres in front of you.
2. Bend your knees and descend five to eight centimetres. Freeze there for 10 seconds. Slide down another few centimetres and stop again for another 10 seconds. Stop two or three more times as you work your way down until your butt almost touches the floor. That’s the end of the first set.
Lying hip extension
1. Lie on the floor with your arms at your sides and both heels up on a chair or bench with your knees bent.
2. Pushing with your gluteals and hamstrings, dig your heels down into the seat of the chair and lift your hips until your body forms a ramp that descends from your knees to your shoulders. Pause, then return to the starting position.
A vigorous home workout using your own body-weight can be as effective as any strength-training routine
You can build muscle mass and strength, increase muscular endurance, promote fat loss, improve your health, and (we know you care) make yourself more desirable – all in the comfort of your home and all without weights.
Well, almost. While most of the exercises you’ll do in your no-equipment home workout require only your body-weight for resistance, there are a few props that will come in handy. For example, a few of the exercises require a pull-up bar.
But you won’t have to go out and buy one. You can make a pull-up bar by hanging a piece of piping from the crossbeams of your garage. Or, if your kids have a sturdy climbing frame, you already have one in your garden.
A towel, plastic containers and a chair are also useful, but we suspect you have this stuff lying around at home already. If not, you need to buy a chair anyway. To take into account the fact that you can’t control the amount of resistance you use, we’ve selected exercises focusing on a range of muscle groups and levels.
There is something for everyone. Beginners will find some tough challenges, intermediate and advanced exercisers will find interesting moves to add to their workouts.
Circuit workouts
No-equipment exercise facilitates a valuable workout technique called circuit training. In circuits, you do one set of each exercise in the routine before doing a second set of any exercise.
The idea is to do more work in less time, moving quickly from exercise to exercise – easier when there’s no weight to adjust or station to set up. Circuits also give each muscle-group several minutes to recover before working again, letting you work more intensely each time you move through the circuit.
We’ve planned the circuit for you and described each exercise. Start with five to 10 minutes of continuous large muscle-group activity
* jumping jacks, running up stairs or skipping. Then do each exercise on your circuit-list in succession, pausing only long enough to get ready for the next one. Start with 12 repetitions of each exercise, eventually working your way up to 20. When you’ve completed the circuit – when you’ve done all the exercises on your list
* cool down for several minutes or do another three to five minutes of cardio work. Then go through the circuit again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# MID-SECTION
If you’re a beginner, do one set of 10 to 15 repetitions per exercise – except while doing the vacuum, when you should do six to 10 repetitions. If you’re more experienced, do two or three sets of eight to 10 repetitions of each chosen exercise.
Vacuum
1. Get down on your hands and knees, keeping your back flat.
2. Take a deep breath, allowing your stomach to bulge out. Then forcibly exhale and round your back like an angry cat as you lift your navel up towards your spine.
When you can’t exhale anymore, keep your back rounded and your navel in as you purse your lips and take shallow breaths through your nose for several seconds. That’s one repetition. It should take 20 to 30 seconds. Inhale as you flatten your back to the starting position.
Reverse crunch
1. Lie with your arms at your sides. Hold your legs off the floor with your knees bent at a 90-degree angle so your thighs point straight up and your lower legs point straight ahead, parallel to the floor.
2. Crunch your pelvis towards your ribcage. Your tailbone should rise five to eight centimetres off the floor as your knees move towards your chin. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
Crunch
1. Lie with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Fold your arms across your chest or hold your hands behind your ears. (Don’t interlock your fingers behind your head.)
2. Use your abs to lift your head and upper torso while keeping your lower back pressed firmly against the floor. Pause with your shoulder blades at least five centimetres off the floor, then slowly return to the starting position using a controlled movement.
Prone Superman
1. Lie face-down with your legs straight and your arms stretched straight in front of you, with your hands on the floor.
2. Lift your arms, head, chest and lower legs off the floor simultaneously. Hold this position for one to five seconds, keeping your head and neck at the same height as your shoulders throughout the movement. Return to the starting position.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# CHEST AND UPPER BACK
Beginners should do two sets of 10 to 15 reps of each of these exercises. Intermediate and advanced lifters should do two to three sets of the normalpush-ups, consisting of eight to 10 reps. Then, do two or three sets of eight to 10 reps per exercise of the upper back exercises.
Push-up
1. Support your body with the balls of your feet and with your hands, positioning your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, palms flat on the floor. Straighten your arms without locking your elbows.
2. Lower your torso until your chest is just off the floor. Push yourself back to the starting position.
Chin-up
1. Assisted chin-up: if you find it hard to do even one chin-up from the hanging position (which is usual among beginner and even intermediate exercisers), stand on a chair and push off slightly with your legs.
Supinated reverse push-up
1. Fix your pull-up in a doorway, about one metre above the floor. Lie down so the bar is directly over your chest. Use an underhand grip that’s slightly narrower than shoulder-width to shift more work to your biceps and lats and away from your scapular retractors (middle traps and rhomboids).
2. Lift your torso and legs off the floor so that only the backs of your heels remain planted. Pull in your abs and hold your body in a straight line from head to heels.
One-arm row, elbow out
1. Grab a full plastic bottle with your weaker or non-dominant hand, and place your other hand and knee on a sturdy bench or chair. Plant your dominant foot flat on the floor and hold your working arm out away from your body, your palm facing behind you. Keep your back straight.
2. Pull the weight straight up (not back) until your elbow is slightly higher than your back. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# SHOULDERS AND ARMS
Beginners should do one or two sets of 10 to 15 reps of the external rotation and the lateral raise. Also, do one or two sets of 10 to 15 reps of the chair-dip exercise. For your biceps, do one or two sets of 10 to 12 reps of the towel curl.
At the intermediate and advanced levels, do two or three sets of eight to 10 reps of the external rotation. Do the same for the lateral raise and chair-dip. Do two or three sets of six to 10 reps of the towel curl.
Chair-dip
1. Hold on to the seat of a sturdy chair behind you, with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor – as if you were seated on another, invisible chair.
2. Keep your back arched close to the chair as you slowly lower your body until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Your torso should remain straight. Pause, and then press back up to the starting position.
Lateral raise
1. Grab a pair of water bottles filled with sand (or two full paint cans) and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, your knees slightly bent and your arms at your sides.
2. Maintaining a slight bend in your elbows, lift your arms up and out to the sides until they’re parallel to the floor. Pause, then slowly return to the starting position.
External rotation
1. With a soup tin or similar light object in each hand, hold your arms out to your sides with your elbows bent at 90 degrees so your upper arms are just two to five centimetres below your shoulders and almost parallel to the floor, and your forearms are pointed in towards your torso.
2. Keep your upper arms still and use your elbows to rotate your forearms up until they are as close to perpendicular to the floor as possible. Return to the starting position.
Towel curl
1. Fold a large towel lengthways a few times and hold it at either end, your palms facing each other, as you stand with your back against a wall. Move your feet out about 30 centimetres in front of you, and place one of them in the middle of the towel (at the bottom of the U that the towel makes as you hold it). Start with both knees slightly bent.
2. With your arms straight down, curl your fists upwards towards your shoulders while using your foot to resist the movement. Keep your upper arms against your body so all the pulling power comes from your elbow joints. Pause at the top, using your arms to resist your leg’s attempt to push the towel back down to the floor. Return to the starting position.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# LOWER BODY
Beginners should do one or two sets of 12 to 15 reps of each. Advanced and intermediate lifters should do two or three sets of each. The recommended rep count is 12 to 15 for the calf raises.
Split squat
1. Stand with one leg 90 to 120 centimetres in front of the other, with your toes pointed forwards. Your front foot should be flat on the floor, but only the ball of your back foot should be planted. To help yourself balance, line up each foot with its corresponding buttock, not with the other foot. Keep your torso erect. Rest your hands behind your head.
2. Bend both knees to lower your body straight down until your back knee is five to eight centimetres off the floor and your front leg is bent at a 90-degree angle – with the thigh parallel to the floor and the lower leg perpendicular to the floor.
3. Your torso and rear thigh should form a straight line. Return to the starting position. Finish the set, then switch your front and back legs and repeat.
One-leg calf raise
1. Stand with the ball of your non-dominant foot on the edge of a step or wooden block that is five to eight centimetres high. Hook your other foot around the back of your non-dominant heel. Hold on to the banister or something sturdy to stay balanced.
2. Let your non-dominant heel drop as low as it’ll go off the step. Then change direction and push off the ball of that foot until the heel is five to eight centimetres above the step.
Ski squat
1. Lean back against a wall with your feet 60 centimetres in front of you.
2. Bend your knees and descend five to eight centimetres. Freeze there for 10 seconds. Slide down another few centimetres and stop again for another 10 seconds. Stop two or three more times as you work your way down until your butt almost touches the floor. That’s the end of the first set.
Lying hip extension
1. Lie on the floor with your arms at your sides and both heels up on a chair or bench with your knees bent.
2. Pushing with your gluteals and hamstrings, dig your heels down into the seat of the chair and lift your hips until your body forms a ramp that descends from your knees to your shoulders. Pause, then return to the starting position.