As we are all at home working out currently, I wanted to give some new advice on making it work. How to make sure you stay committed and get your workouts done. Then how to tailor your workouts to your goals.

Set yourself up for success.

Set yourself up for success by having a designated home gym. It doesn’t have be a full home gym but an area you always use that has open space and your equipment available and easy to grab. You want to avoid finding a room in the house to workout and dragging your equipment around last minute. Being able to just pop into the room and get started is ideal and will make it more likely that you will get your workouts in consistently.

Have a plan in place. Just winging your workouts will not last long. You need to have structure and a plan in front of you to follow or else you will cut it short and stop when you feel like it, not when the workout is done. Either attend an online class or have a structured workout in front of you to follow and complete the entire workout.

Strategies to increase strength and gain muscle at home.

Negatives

The majority of muscle breakdown occurs in the eccentric portion of movements. Try using three counts, five counts, ten counts, etc. to maximize time under tension. In other words, when squatting do a slower 5 count on the way down to increase the time under tension.

Pauses

Pausing kills momentum and forces you to stay under tension. At home with limited access to weights you will benefit from the explosiveness developed from coming out of a pause.

Increase Volume

Like negatives, adding volume will increase your time under tension, which will maximize muscle breakdown. You can do this by doing five sets instead of three.

Strategies for weight loss.

Strength workouts

Strength workouts are important for weight loss. You can use all the above strategies. They key is to build more muscle which in turn will help you burn more body fat.

Conditioning Workouts

Conditioning workouts are simply workouts where you still use weight or body weight, but you create a metabolic demand from your body. These are workouts such as circuits, HIIT workouts etc. The goal is to maintain your lean muscle mass as well as strengthening your lungs and heart all while burning extra calories. You should be breathing heavy during these workouts.

Cardio

Cardio is a great supplement to the days between your strength workouts. A great way to increase your lung capacity and strengthen the heart while burning some extra calories. You can do activities such as cycle, run, row or swim. If cardio is your main form of exercise, then you should strongly consider adding in some strength work as well.

General Fitness

For general fitness you can use a combination of the above strategies!

Now, take one of these strategies and implement it into your workouts today!

Ryan

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