6 Ways to Make Your Home Workouts More Challenging: Without Adding Weight!
When working out from home, you might be running into a situation with your home workouts: hitting plateaus with your strength gains because the weights you have access to are no longer challenging you. While we are not seeing the same price gouging and limited stock on dumbbells, resistance bands, kettlebells and other exercise equipment that we saw during the spring of 2020 - winter of 2021, there are many reasons you might not have access to heavier weights such as limited space for equipment and the investment.
In order to become stronger, you need to progressively overload your muscles; meaning, your muscles need to be challenged and have increasing amounts of stress placed upon them each workout to improve strength as the body adapts to this stress.
In order to continue to challenge your muscles, you need to increase the stress you are placing your muscles under. As your muscles adapt, they become stronger and then you would need to again increase the stress you apply to them. Increasing the weight is just one variable that can be manipulated!
So, what is a person to do when they have outgrown their weights and do not have access to heavier weights?
1. Add More Reps
If the program says 8-10 reps and you aren’t feeling challenged, do 12-15. As a guide, your last 2 reps should be challenging, but able to complete with solid form.
2. Rest Less
This might mean you do 4-5 rounds/sets instead of 3-4 during an AMRAP or if a program you are following designates a certain amount of rest between exercises or sets, you could try reducing that rest. Always be sure your form stays solid if you do this!
3. Play with Your Speed!
SLOW DOWN! First, when you slow down each movement, you are better able to focus on your form. The better your form, the better your results! Also, when you move through a movement slowly, your muscles will be under stress or tension for longer. Focus on slowing down during the lowering or eccentric part of the exercise. For example, count to 3 as you lower down in your pushup and then press up at normal tempo. This works for step ups too! Step as normal and then slowly lower yourself to start!
PAUSE/PULSE! Pause at the bottom of your exercise for 1-2 second beat and then move back to start i.e. as in the pushup or the squat!
Move Faster! - Add power and explosiveness to your movements with plyometrics: i.e.: jump squats, plyometric pushups!
4. Add a Half Rep
This also adds additional time under tension during the movement and
therefore additional stress to your muscles, therefore more progress towards your strength goals! An example of this is in the video using the row as an example! Essentially, you row up as “normal” and then on the descent , instead of lowering to start, lower half way, and then row back up, (a half rep) and then lower to start. Another great exercise to use this for is the chest press: press up the full range of motion, then descend half way, push back up to start and then lower all the way down.
5. Increase Your Range of Motion
Take this time to focus on your form and go for that full range of motion!
Your push ups - chest to ground! Squats and lunges, get those thighs to parallel! Watching a video (or asking your coach!) to watch a video of a movement will tell you a lot of how you can improve this! Many times we think we are getting the full ROM, but we actually aren’t! You can also increase your Range of Motion by using blocks: put your hands on blocks so you can let your chest go lower than before pressing up to start! Lunges: place your front foot up on a small box to increase the depth of your lunge.
6. Reduce Your Stability
When you have less stability, your body has to work harder!
-In a plank, you can lift an arm and/or leg!
-When doing Pallof Presses, when your feet are closer together, you’re less stable.
-Try single leg or kickstand deadlifts!
We recommend picking ONE variation to start and see how that impacts your workout and progress and then you can get creative with combining variations!
