Full Body Workout at Home

Many people don’t have time to go to the gym and workout there regularly. Nonetheless, they have a desire to become and stay fit, even if that means working out at home.

Working out at home doesn’t require home gym exercise machines, barbells, adjustable dumbbells, benches, and other expensive and not so expensive exercise equipment – good will is enough for a good start.

Published: September 30, 2020.

So here are a few exercises that require most basic workout equipment that can be purchased online and it is very cheap.

Squats and Lunges

Squats are great exercise for legs – two-leg squats, single-leg squats, narrow stance, wide stance, back to the wall, etc. Lunges can be done forward and backward. Backward lunges are harder to execute properly, so be careful. Variations are endless, so be sure to include squats and lunges in your full-body routine - they will strengthen your legs and even improve cardio performance on your elliptical.

Push-ups

Push-ups increase the strength of pecks, triceps, forward delts, and indirectly a few more muscles.

They can be done with legs on the floor, on chair/wall, with handson the floor or chair, wide stance, narrow stance, and similar.

This way we vary the angle of push-ups and the load and avoid boredom - the human body adapts quickly and easily and must be stressed differently over time in order to build more strength and stamina.

 If you like rowing, various push-ups are important in avoiding imbalances between pulling and pushing motions/workouts with your upper body.

Pull-ups

For pull-ups we need a pull-up bar – door pull-up bars are cheap and reliable, so if you plan on working out at home, be sure to get one. Pull-ups and chin-ups are great exercises for lats and biceps. If you like push-ups, you NEED to work your back too, otherwise imbalances could occur.

Pull and chin-ups can be done with a narrow grip, wide grip, and with various other variations to avoid boredom and to stress muscles in a different way so that they don’t lag behind. If you are unable to do single pull-up or chin-up, position the bar relatively low and help yourself with legs – something like a squat/pull-up combination.

Pull-ups are excellent supplemental exercises for anybody who likes rowing.

Abs

Best exercise for abs is knee rises (with variations like trunk twists and similar) while hanging from the pull-up bar. Forget crunches and similar 'abs' exercises – or do them as supplemental exercises for your abs.

Note that abs are muscles just like other muscles like biceps, lats, pecks, etc. So, there is really no need to do hundreds of crunches in endless sets - they can get overtrained, too!

Burpees

Burpees are great exercise for the whole body – it builds strength, stamina, coordination, etc. and burns tons of fats from your body. It can be done as part of a daily routine or even as a standalone workout. If you get bored with your routine, just do all these 5 exercises (reps depend on your level of fitness) in a row and repeat it 5-7 times. That is a great workout :)

These 5 simple exercises are more than enough for a full-body home workout and the only piece of equipment is a pull-up bar. These exercises can be combined in a circle workout and/or worked individually, but that is a topic of another article …

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Additional Equipment

For cardio sessions, the rowing machine is highly recommended. To avoid boredom, choose one with various workout programs and with good multimedia features.

To supplement workout on the rower, rope jump is highly recommended, just be sure not to stress your joints too much with rope jumps.

Adjustable dumbbells are a great piece of equipment to have at home - their weight can be varied quickly, especially if you have a model with a 'dial in' mechanism.

However, adjustable dumbbells cost more than solid dumbbells per single unit and at the same time, only one person can use pair of adjustable dumbbells, while dumbbell sets can be used by several trainees at the same time.

Nonetheless, adjustable dumbbells are cheaper than dumbbells set of the same minimum and maximum weight and they require less space.

Adjustable dumbbells vs. dumbbells sets - for home use, go for good adjustable dumbbells.

Other equipment you might need in the home gym includes various benches, punching bags, barbells, weights, etc. If you going for a full home gym, first be sure to have a proper area for a home gym, preferably in the basement of your home.