The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends strength-training every major muscle group at least twice a week. This type of regular exercise helps build the muscular strength and endurance you need to perform everyday activities with greater ease and to stay independent later in life. But you don't have to join a gym to enjoy the benefits of strength training; you can work every major muscle group at home.
Body-weight Exercises
Body-weight exercises like push-ups, squats and lunges are among the most convenient, least expensive ways of building strength and endurance at home. You don't need any special equipment to perform these exercises, and as you get stronger you can do more difficult variations to provide greater challenge. Examples include single-leg squats, pendulum lunges or doing push-ups with one leg off the ground.
If you're not strong enough to do a full set of push-ups or other body-weight exercises yet, you can adapt them to suit your current ability level. Try doing push-ups on your knees, or standing between two chairs that you can use to help press yourself back up during squats or lunges.
Equipment
Investing in weight-training equipment allows you greater workout variety than doing body-weight exercises alone. Inexpensive options that don't take up a lot of space include a few dumbbells, a basic barbell set, elastic resistance bands or a pull-up bar. Adjustable dumbbells are more expensive, but offer you the variety of a full dumbbell set without taking up much space. If you have both space and money to work with, consider purchasing a full dumbbell set or a home gym.
You can also create your own weight in a pinch. Try filling milk jugs with water, sand or cement to create hand weights. For heavier weights, fill 5-gallon buckets with sand or cement. The buckets aren't ideal for most dumbbell exercises, but you can use them for extra resistance during squats and lunges.
Other Exercises
Unless you're bodybuilding or training to overcome muscular imbalance, you don't need to worry about doing exercises that isolate one muscle at a time. Instead, focus on multi-joint movements that give you the greatest calorie burn and work the most muscle in the least amount of time. These include the body-weight exercises described above, plus exercise that make use of your weight equipment such as leg presses, shoulder presses, seated rows, upright rows, pull-ups and lat pulldowns.
Basic Principles
The same basic strength-training principles you'd follow in the gym apply when you work out at home. Aim for eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise, exhaling as the weight goes up and inhaling as it goes down. Once you can complete 12 repetitions with clean form, increase the amount of resistance by 5 to 10 percent. Always keep the weight under control, and aim for a cadence of a slow count of two during the lift up, and a count of two to four as you lower the weight.
Member Comments