Strength Workout with Limited Equipment

Post author:admin
Post published:January 21, 2022
Post category:Crossfit / Exercises / Health and Wellness / Strength Training

Is the “new year resolution” crowd limiting available equipment at your gym? Bad weather keeping you at home? No worries, we’re here to help you create a solid strength workout with limited to no equipment!

Coaches and instructors have begun to utilize dozens of variations and combinations of the squat, push up, and sit up to create equipment-free programming for us to do at home. Usually, this style of exercise primarily targets muscular endurance and has fantastic cardiovascular benefits. However, building strength and promoting muscular hypertrophy are difficult to achieve unless you have the means to appropriately load (e.g. have your own fully stocked home gym).

This post is meant to serve as an overview of principles to (somewhat) simulate that strength piece we’ve all been missing! In the spirit of keeping it simple, these considerations may be old news but still worth revisiting.

Basic 5 Strength Workouts You Can Do Anywhere

Squat
Hinge
Push
Pull
Corework

The above 5 components target the major muscle groups in the body. There are many options for each to continuously change up your workout. Below are just a few examples:

Squat Exercises to Try	Hinge Exercises to Try
Front/back squat Overhead squat (Have a golf club at home? Try this Overhead Squat Variation for Golfers!) Split squat Rear foot elevated Walking lunges	Deadlift (Heres a simple deadlift variation that only requires a towel!) RDL Good morning

pregnant woman doing strength training — Good Morning- Step 1: Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and your hands on the back of your head. Pull your shoulders back and activate your core muscles.

Strength training in gym — Good Morning- Step 1: Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and your hands on the back of your head. Pull your shoulders back and activate your core muscles.

Push Exercises to Try	Pull Exercises to Try	Core Work Exercises to Try
Push up Bench press Floor press	Pull up Cleans Snatch Row	Plank Dead Bugs Sit up

strength training — Dead Bugs w/ Stability Ball- Step 1: Lie on your back, holding a stability ball between your hands and knees. Keep the ball from touching your chest, forearms, or thighs

strength training with ball — Dead Bugs w/ Stability Ball- Step 1: Lie on your back, holding a stability ball between your hands and knees. Keep the ball from touching your chest, forearms, or thighs

With other variables including the use of equipment (resistance band, dumbbell, kettlebell, barbell), position (seated, standing, inverted), and muscular movement (concentric, eccentric, or isometric); there are innumerable ways to incorporate these movements into your activity.

If you need some inspiration or are wanting to learn more, reach out to FX Physical Therapy!

Importance of Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE)

What is RPE?

RPE, or Rate of Perceived Exertion, is a measure of how hard you feel like you’re physically working.

On a scale of 0-10 where 0 is a feeling of complete rest and 10 is complete exertion (e.g. you are collapsing from exhaustion), you rate your current effort to determine whether the load of exercise is appropriate based on your goals.

How does RPE help you create an effective workout?

Programming your exercise based on RPE as opposed to choosing random reps and sets is a far more effective way to ensure progress. Instead of performing arbitrary 3 sets of 10, try performing as many repetitions of an exercise as it takes to reach an RPE of 7-8.

Record that number of reps to track over time. If you are consistent, you should see that the number of repetitions you’re able to perform before reaching RPE 7-8 will increase over time. This indicates improved tissue capacity and overall fitness!

Playing with Timing: Tempo Work, Isometric Holds

The main parameters of exercise include volume (how many sets/reps are performed of a movement), resistance/load (how much weight/resistance your muscles must overcome to perform the movement), and timing/time under tension (the amount of time your muscles are actively working). If you’re working out at home, your resistance/load is confined to the equipment that you have available (e.g. you probably can’t perform a 1 Rep Max if you only have a 5# dumbbell). Changing volume is possible (just do more!) however that will generally improve your muscular endurance and not so much your muscular strength. Changing the timing of an exercise, though, can have great effects on muscular strength! Let’s provide some examples below.

Try this out:

First, perform a regular squat (start from standing, squat, and stand back up). Now, do another squat but this time, take a full three seconds to lower yourself down into a squat position, hold that squat position for 2 seconds, then take three more seconds to stand up. That feels significantly different, right? In the second version, we increased the time under tension for your leg muscles. This is an example of tempo work, and it is a nice way to promote strengthening when you can’t change the resistance component of exercise.

Ok, now this: Get yourself into a squat position and…hold… keep holding…keep holding..aim for a 10 second hold in which you are completely frozen and not moving at all. That is an example of isometric strengthening in which your muscles are holding a contraction without moving. Like tempo work, isometric work is a great way to build strength and target specific muscle groups depending on what movement is performed. There are also clever ways to use household items like a bath towel to perform isometric exercises that simulate squats, deadlifts, and even bicep curls. Reach out to your PT at FX to learn some of these tricks and more so you can continue strengthening at home and put yourself in the best position possible for when your gym reopens!