Last but not least, the Corona pandemic has drawn many people's attention to strength training at home. Most of us are not equipped with professional equipment at home. This is where strength training without equipment comes into focus. What should you consider when doing strength training at home? Can a training plan to build muscle be successful at home without any equipment? Or are exercise equipment a must? We have put together the most important facts and tips for you.
Strength training without equipment at home: advantages and disadvantages
First of all, some bad news: If you want to see success in building muscle, you can't avoid regular strength training at home . This often requires even more discipline than when training in the studio. Here you are usually given ready-made training plans that you have to follow. Strength training at home means that you have to put together your own individual training plan.
You should also have some basic knowledge of muscle building, suitable exercises and motivation. Strength training at home doesn't necessarily have to be easier for you than training in the studio. But you can still plan it into the most stressful everyday life because there are no travel times. In addition, this type of training requires little effort.
Another advantage: you can lose weight with strength training .
5 tips for strength training without equipment
When doing strength training exercises without equipment, you work with your own body weight. We will get to know exemplary exercises at a later date.
It is important that you are clear about your goals for home training right from the start :
- Is it about fat burning and endurance?
- Is muscle building a priority?
- Do you want a combination of more muscles and more endurance?
Like training in the gym, training sessions at home consist of cardio and strength components. If you are primarily interested in endurance and increased fat burning, cardio units should dominate your training plan. If you want to define and build your muscles , strength units are more important.
The goal also has a background that has to do with the physiological principles of building muscle. If you concentrate intensively on building muscles, you may gain weight for a certain period of time despite exercise . Muscle is heavier than fat.
1. Lose weight & build muscle with strength training without equipment
Losing weight and building muscle in the same training phases are regularly mutually exclusive. A professional bodybuilder could describe this effect to you very well. For example, he adjusts his diet to the respective phases. Before competitions , strength athletes regularly eat a calorie-conscious diet and try to maintain a certain weight.
During the muscle building phases, they consume more calories and, above all, a lot of protein in order to be able to build more muscles. During these periods they often weigh more kilos. You should know the differences in physical reactions to certain training stimuli in order to set them correctly when training without equipment.
In connection with weight loss, you should also realize that a large part of the energy is burned in the muscles. Strengthen your muscles and increase your basal metabolic rate. In the end, this will help you achieve your desired weight. That's why you can't avoid a certain amount of strength training if your main concern is fat burning. Building muscle is part of your training plan - it always depends on the intensity.
2. Training goal and motivation
In order to maintain motivation over a longer period of time, it is important that you set small goals. At home you are missing like-minded people and trainers that you meet at the club or in the gym. Set intermediate goals for your home training and celebrate your successes with small rewards for yourself.
To detect changes, you need to measure regularly. This includes regular visits to your scale. Measurements on the arms, legs, hips, buttocks and waist are also useful. The measurement processes underline that you are taking your strength training at home without equipment seriously and are putting in the effort.
3. Proper nutrition is important
If you have set yourself a serious training goal, you have to think about your diet. It's not just about the typical questions like " Eating after exercise or eating before exercise? ". It all depends on what you consume and in what quantity. Remember that muscles need proteins as a building material .
This is about the smallest units of protein, the amino acids . Amino acids are converted into a wide variety of substances in the body, including in body tissue. We regularly consume some of these protein building blocks through food because we cannot produce them ourselves in the body. They are called essential amino acids .
4. How much protein does the human body need?
You've probably heard very controversial opinions about protein intake . The view is sometimes expressed that our modern lifestyle means we overindulge in protein. On the other hand, special life situations such as intensive training, illnesses and aging processes can cause your protein requirements to increase.
The most recommended 0.8 g/kg of body weight is not always enough to supply the body with sufficient protein. If you are serious about training without equipment at home and plan a more or less intensive workout for yourself, do not lose sight of your protein supply .
This also and especially applies to any form of a calorie-reduced diet. If your body doesn't get enough protein on this diet, the body will remove protein from the muscles. Your basal metabolic rate at rest decreases and your muscles use less energy. The yo-yo effect cannot be avoided. If you exercise regularly, consider taking an additional amino acid supplement .
5. The right time to eat
The saying “ A full stomach doesn’t like working out ” has some truth. Especially when you use your own body weight to train, you move very intensively. This can be difficult with a full stomach. That's why it's often recommended to avoid exercise for up to 2 hours after a meal .
On the other hand, bodybuilders will also explain to you that you need enough protein to build muscle intensively. They recommend, for example, drinking a protein drink - possibly with small amounts of carbohydrates - before exercising. Try out when food is good for you in connection with strength training at home .
Strength training for women
Many women fear that they are overdoing it when building muscle . They don't want muscles that make them appear too masculine. Strength training at home, in which your own body weight determines the strength points, provides ideal training stimuli for building muscle .
Women don't have to worry about having a lot of muscles here, but they can develop well-defined muscles that adorn the female body. One of the advantages of training without equipment is that there is no exaggeration or overloading with heavy weights. Strength training is also possible during pregnancy .
4 exercises for strength training without equipment
From the age of 25, the human body begins to break down muscles. Muscles not only determine the basal metabolic rate for energy consumption, they also support many areas of the body. This applies, for example, to the abdominal muscles and parts of the back muscles that support the upright posture of the spine.
Sufficiently defined muscles can do a lot to help us walk upright as we get older and to compensate for age-related deficits in various anatomical structures. For example, well-trained back and abdominal muscles can counteract problems with sliding vertebrae and instability of the spine over a long period of time.
It is therefore advisable to start regular muscle exercises early on. Exercises don't always have to take place on equipment. Very effective training sessions are possible here without any equipment. Individual areas of the body can also be specifically trained. Abdominal training, shoulder exercises or strengthening the back muscles are just a few of the examples.
Cardio and strength sessions
Jogging and walking sessions in the great outdoors as well as dance performances with music are suitable for cardio training at home. In this context, it is important that an individual pulse range is achieved in which fat burning is possible. If in doubt, the current individual stress limit can be determined together with a sports doctor.
Anyone who starts sporting activities and strength training at home again after a long break is also well advised to have their resilience tested by a sports doctor beforehand. A variety of different exercises can be considered for strength training without equipment .
The classic squats - squats and lunges
In different variations, you train the leg and buttocks muscles using only your own body weight. For strength training at home, the intensity of the training can be continually adjusted to your own performance progress, especially over several sessions with flexible sets.
Squats are very versatile, so there is hardly any chance of boredom when training at home. There are many instructions on the Internet with videos and in books that can be easily implemented at home. Related to the squats are the lunges, which are performed over a larger space than the classic squats .
Here too, there are different variations to choose from. You can combine the leg and buttocks exercises with floor exercises in which the legs or lower legs are stretched laterally as well as up and down.
Train your upper body without equipment
When putting together your muscle building training plan , remember to consider all areas of your body. You can set individual priorities, but you should always ensure that the muscles throughout your entire body are balanced . Among other things, this promotes overall energy consumption in the basal metabolic rate at rest and can help prevent weight gain despite exercise .
You can strengthen your upper body muscles with push-ups, also known as planks in the modern form , with dips and classic standing positions. Here too, a wide variety of variations are possible. Adapt the exercises to your individual progress in strength and flexibility.
Beetles, folding knives and the like for your stomach
There are also a variety of physical exercises available for the abdominal area that only work with your own body weight. Here you can borrow a lot from yoga and Pilates. These training systems provide many exercises for the abdominal muscles .
Conclusion
You can effectively build muscle, burn fat and strengthen your endurance at home using just your body and without any training equipment. Various exercises mimic weight training with your own body weight. You can find many examples of this on the internet such as curls or leg raises. With these exercises, your strength training without equipment will achieve a very similar intensity to training with weights.
Make sure you have variety in your training, pay attention to your diet and keep checking that you have achieved your training goals . Aids and small equipment such as kettlebells, elastic bands, skipping ropes and horizontal bars for the door frame can provide even more variations for strength training at home.