Training Home

Whether you prefer training from home or not other option due to lockdown, you can still train a few exercises at home and be progressive while extremely effective. The question arises, what if you had lifted weights before? Can you still be progressive, then?

Before answering this Q, let´s get to actual training plan. To find more about the exercises, simply check youtube video here. The chosen exercises in the video simulate big five exercises hitting biggest muscle groups at same time making it extremely effective when shifting your whole energy to these movements. This approach also brought great results at gym when shaping efficient bodybuilding where demonstrated “5 exercises twice a week”.

What makes it even more effective and safe to progress is that, is harder to overload your muscles when using more muscle groups at the same time while you also use the movements that are being used the most during your daily activities which means, the stronger you get on these exercises the better you will move and perform during your day. One might say, you are training everyday since those movements we do everyday and basically, we are preparing for them to make it harder in your training process.

Although, it is no longer the issue and it pleases me there are more guys out there thinking same (check a great ebook on exercising in attachments bellow). The real challenge remains, how to constantly progress when conditions are not optimal.

In the video is stated your goal is to do 3 sets of 6 reps and make it to 4 sets and 10 reps per exercise, except the plank which is measured by seconds. If you are new to exercising this is what you want to reach before thinking too ahead. Some might even struggle to do these exercises and would be wise to find some easier variations to build up like push ups on the knees before doing full push up. The goal would be pretty same (3 sets of 6 rep til 4 sets of 10 reps).

Once you manage to do 4 sets of 10 repetitions you could focus on intensity 30s pauses between sets which will stimulate more muscle growth and fat loss. If that is no longer a challenge, you are prepared for the next phase. In training terminology there is this statement that gets stuck with you as long as you train – you either increase the weight or add more reps. There is no other way, except life is about breaking the rules not the laws. Otherwise, there would be no efficient bodybuilding.

The other option is finding variations or adding more exercises specially tailored to your goal. In the beginning your only worry should be focusing on the process and later you can invest more in your goals with your training. Whatever you decide to do your priority remains – getting stronger on these big five movements until you get satisfied and start thinking of maintaining your acquired fitness.

So your options are to invest in weights or weighted vest or doing more sets with more reps. You could also advance to one limb training but eventually, you need to add weights too. My point is, you need to stay constantly progressive until you get fit or reach your goal and the Q you ask yourself should be what could be done better in your lifestyle and how much stronger do you need to get in your training process? From my experience, you need to work your ass off to even start looking fit and way more to remain so.

In the end of the video, you can see which complementary exercises would be great to choose but not why. Mainly, its for their nature to improve your overall strength on big muscle groups and would also add dumbbells deadlifts and biceps curl once you also have dumbbells but no more. Focus on few exercises and get as strong and intense as possible because other exercises not really matter.

Honestly, you could stay with 5 exercises forever just figure out how to do it progressively. If it was up to me, I would stay training at gym for its the most effective way to do one thing over and over just raise the weight, add reps or implement small changes like doing max. 10 exercises, training twice a week but giving it your all (no thinking just doing). The reality, there is corona going on so just roll with it.

Adding more exercise, 2-3 sets would be enough where training twice a week still remains for the goal is to achieve as heavy and intense training as possible to be rewarded to train twice a week even once a week to remain your fitness once satisfied.

Training from home requires more complexity for you cannot really raise the weights all the time and be on your own plus there are more energy involved to execute, especially when planing more than just getting fit. You can get some feel for it in this video but more on that and further progressions later. So far we got from beginner stage to intermediate (adding more exercises, doing 4 sets for 10 reps).

In the end, to answer the Q above on whether experienced lifters could be still progressive when training home is definitely Yes from me. There are real facts on that coming from gymnasts who never lifted weights and did outstanding in terms of strength. Above all, recently have experienced the same. In the video, you can see watching from 1 minute on that tried to focus on lifting deadlifts with one hand where plates and weighted vests could not get me further than 120kg which is 50kg behind full deadlift before corona. So, rationally could do 200kg without much strain once gyms get opened again which will be put to test.

Based on current evidence and experience, I believe that, doing one limb weighted training with core training is a way to remain progressive even when gyms are locked and you are nowhere close to your normal sets. If you want to have a peace of mind and just keep your body functional, do only 3 exercises twice a week from this post here.