Top 5 Methods for Better Home Workouts

As we have all been forced to be home bound, it has resulted in many people scrambling to figure out how to train at home and fitness professionals how to train people best at home. It would be easy if everyone had an awesome home gym, but for most, that isn’t reality. So, instead of just getting bored of bodyweight workouts within two or three times of doing them for endless repetitions, how can we use better strategies to have really productive home workouts? I wanted to share top 5 list that I think many tend to overlook or just not even realize!

#1 1 1/4 Repetitions

When equipment is limited (even when it isn’t) one of my absolutely favorite methods is using 1 1/4 repetitions. They can work for just about any movement (push-ups, rows, pull-ups, squats, lunges, a lot!). The 1 1/4 is relatively simple too, it is in the name. You perform a full rep with an extra 1/4 rep.

This is more than just making you tired! Using 1 1/4 repetitions can build greater muscle and works ranges of motions that most speed through to get their workout done. One of my favorite is 1 1/4 front loaded squats that really makes people appreciate this simple but HIGHLY effective movement.

#2 Multi-Planar Training

Yesterday’s post on Top 10 deadlifts (you can check out HERE) showed some examples of other planes of motion. We move in life in 3 planes, but in the gym typically get stuck just using one! I know, people use the occasional side plank or lateral lunge, but there is far more ways we can use these ideas! Unfortunately, people often randomly use these strategies so we still want to keep purpose.

Sagittal (up and down, front and back) is the easiest because it is the most stable plane. Frontal is more challenging as move into lateral patterns (frontal can also be RESISTING lateral motion). Transverse (rotation) is the MOST difficult and like frontal, can be resisting rotation as well.

Above are examples of producing rotation.

Here are drills that  have us working on resisting lateral motion. These drills actually use MORE muscles than many of your more familiar strength training exercises and allow us to really maximize our home workouts.

#3 Dynamic Planks

Planks are probably going to make up a large amount of home workouts because they are useful and also fill a lot of our needs for home training. However, just holding planks forever get boring (as well as ineffective) fast! The way we can get MORE out of our planks and have them accomplish more is making them more dynamic.

Scroll through some great progressions DVRT Master, Greg Perlaki gives us in our lateral drags that offer much better dynamic planks!

Physical therapist, Jessica Bento helps us understand side planks can come in many forms!

#4 Complexes

A complex is one exercise that goes into another. You see a lot of “flows” that would be considered complexes. Sadly, most flows really get away from offering a strength component and look more just to blow up your body. Complexes were originally designed for athletes that during their off-season could fix a lot of the imbalances that sport causes and build other qualities like mobility, muscle, and conditioning.

Complexes can be simple or complex. Filip’s complexes above and what I show seem complex.

However, some of my favorite are very simple!

#5 Ladder Workouts

While there are many ways to program, some of my favorite to build strength, conditioning, and muscle are ladders. They can really help home workouts because you don’t need a lot of different movements. Heck, sometimes just two work REALLY well (one being more upper body and one more lower body)!

What is a ladder? So, if we took squats and push-ups as our examples. If we did alternating sets of 5/4/3/2/1 reps back and forth, that is a ladder. Why would we do this? If you do the math, that is a total of 15 reps each, why not just do 15 reps? That often means we can only use a light weight, ladders allow us to use a much heavier weight while keeping quality of work high. Ladders can be higher repetitions too, depends on your goal and the exercise (kettlebell swings for example, aren’t great low rep ladder training).

The key is you don’t take a rest until the ladder is completed. So, don’t get mistaken, these are REALLY intense workouts! One of our all time favorite is our decade workout which you can easily do with just ONE Ultimate Sandbag.

We hope that these types of posts help you see a real solution to your home workouts and help make the best of a bad situation. Don’t forget that you can get our 3 FREE DVRT workout programs HERE with code “train” and we are offering 30% off all Ultimate Sandbags, workouts, and online education with code “save30” HERE. Stay safe and stay strong!