How to Improve Your At Home Workouts Fast

Let’s face it. At home workouts can be great, but there comes a point where you feel like you’re not progressing.

I know it can be frustrating when your muscles are no longer sore after a workout and you haven’t seen any changes in your body since the first few weeks. Everyone goes through this plateau at some point. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

No matter how long you’ve been working out at home there’s always a way to challenge yourself and improve your at home workouts. For someone like me, who is used to working out at the gym, switching to doing workouts at home forced me to get creative and really study how to build lean muscle without heavy weights.

And by changing up my workout style, I’ve been able to see improvements in my overall strength, balance and flexibility. Not to mention more muscle definition.

So if you’re looking for new ways to improve your at home workouts, I’ve put together these tips to help you challenge yourself, build strength, and burn some fat for more toned look and feel. Let’s get started!

How to Improve Your At Home Workouts Fast

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Learn how to recreate gym workouts at home.

Even if you don’t have actual gym equipment at home that doesn’t mean you can’t do something similar to the workouts that are normally done at the gym. You just have to get creative with the equipment that you’re using. Take the cable machine for example. You may not have that, but you might have some strong resistance bands that you can use in place of it. Here are some other examples:

 

Take your time when focusing on strength.

Normally I would say move slow and controlled, but sometimes the word “slow” can be misconstrued. What I really mean is take your time when you’re moving and actually focus your mind on the muscles that are working. Really dig deep and feel how they are moving.

It’s amazing how much more effort it takes to do a workout when you actually connect your mind to your body. You’ll feel muscle fibers twitching in places you’ve never felt them before.

And this goes for any exercise. No matter whether it’s legs, arms or abs, be aware of your body and the way that it moves.

You can make slight changes like learning to activate your glute muscles in a squat without squeezing both cheeks together (a good way to learn this is by flexing your glute muscles while you’re sitting down in a chair). Or try keeping your lower back flat on the floor when you’re doing ab crunches. Something as simple as that helps to activate more of your core when you crunch up.

Little changes can make a big differences in how effective your workouts are.

Do more timed workouts rather than using sets and reps.

Sometimes doing an exercise for a certain amount of time can actually be better than counting reps, especially when you’re at home and you don’t have many weights to work with. When you time an exercise for, let’s say 1 minute, you focus more on the muscles and feeling the burn rather than having your mind on counting numbers.

Side note, I’ve actually heard someone say that they don’t start counting until it hurts. Which sounds like torture to me but I understand the mindset. And although that’s one way to go about it, simply setting a timer may be easier for the average person who’s less motivated and just wants to get the job done.

Related Posts: 9 Killer Ab Workouts for A Powerful Core

Take shorter breaks between exercises.

If you’re working out at home and you want to make your workouts more effective, then I highly recommend taking shorter breaks in between exercises.

If you were at the gym lifting a lot of weight, your rest time in between could range anywhere from 1 minute to 5 minutes. That’s because you’ve used so much power and energy lifting heavy that you have to give yourself time to recover before you go again.

But at home, you don’t have access to the same weight and machines. So the best way to get the most out of your muscles is to take really short breaks in between. I’m talking 10 – 30 seconds. Then get back to moving. This is how you’re really going to push yourself and get the most of your at home workouts.

Use your small weights and resistance bands more efficiently.

I feel like this goes without saying, but using 5lb weights while doing squats is not going to make any difference sis. Even if you’ve never worked out a day in your life, your legs are too powerful for that. You’re better off doing body weight squats and saving those 5lbs for something smaller like your shoulders or maybe even your biceps.

It’s time to start using your weights and bands more efficiently. 

Small weights are great for your smaller upper body muscles. Using them for shoulders, biceps and triceps can be perfect. But for lower body and large muscles like your back and chest, it’s better to use some strong resistance bands if you want to make things harder.

Long resistance bands are great for squats and deadlifts. They’re also really good to put across your back when you’re doing push ups or to put under your feet when you’re doing rows for your back. Short bands are good too. I prefer to use short thick bands for my hips and glutes. My favorite type of resistance bands to get are made with fabric because they’re more comfortable to use and they don’t roll or break like some of the rubber ones.

And if you have no equipment at all? Use books. Use kids. It really doesn’t matter as long as it has some weight to it. The most important thing is that you keep moving and keep improving.

If you liked these tips, do me a huge favor and…

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