This home workout strategy gets results
As many of us are, I’ve had to switch over to home workouts the past few days. The only piece of equipment I have is a pullup bar in the garage. I have implemented a strategy for these workouts and I’m honestly shocked with the results. I am extremely sore after just two days, to the point I need to take today off.
My typical gym workouts are slow controlled movements, multiple exercises and drop sets. Without the luxury of variable resistance, I’ve switched over explosive movements and the results are amazing. The ack of heavy weight can be offset by explosivity. Heavy weight stresses the type 1 muscle and fatigues it quickly. Explosive movements utilize speed as a replacement. Moving as much weight as you can (going to failure) is pretty similar to moving a weight as fast as you can. In both, the muscle is exerting maximum effort (one maxes out weight, one maxes out acceleration). The risk of this type of workout and why its not generally implemented normally (except in training sports athletes) is that it comes with a risk of injury, so that is something to be aware of. But this can be mitigated by having the first few sets and reps be controlled speed and motion until you weaken, then you can switch to full power and moving with absolute maximum acceleration. Heres a summary of the workouts I’m doing until the gyms open back up:
DAY 1) 100 total pullups: Start off with a warmup set. My goal was to get a total of 100 reps, which sounds like its not all that difficult but I fatigue quickly and after 25 or 430 or so, the sets get shorter and much more difficult. In the 70+ range I was toast. Also, doing these as explosive as possible really taxes the muscle. Overall this took me about 40 minutes…Varying the rest periods from as little as 30 seconds to as much as 2 minutes, with no real pattern between rest periods. Towards the end I was only able to do 2 or 3 reps per set. Also, switch between a wider and more narrow grip, whatever you feel like that set.
DAY 2) 500 total push ups: Same as above basic strategy, although push ups are not as difficult so I greatly increase the total reps. Again, this took about 40 minutes total. Same rest period. Also, I varied (with no particular pattern) between standard feet on ground push ups and feet elevated about 18 inches on a surface to alter the angle to more of an incline press. I used raised bricks in my back yard but this can be a folding chair, couch, or whatever.
DAY 3) 100 total Chin ups: Same as day 1 with hands reversed. I also move my grip narrower and further apart with no rhyme or reason to it to target the muscles slightly different.
DAY 4) Box Jumps: This one I haven’t done yet so I’m not sure how many total reps I’m going to do..but my initial thought is around 200. I’m going to use a raised surface of about 18” to 24” And use the same strategy as the other workouts. Bend legs significantly and explode up with as much force as possible.
DAY 5) Sit ups: 500 is a good number for these. A little less explosive on these as ans are a bit more easily pulled. 1 second up and 2 seconds down.
These isn't a complete body workout, but its complete enough to get some solid results for a few weeks until the gyms reopen. I suspect after a few weeks of this there will be some serious improvements based on the soreness and how different this is than typical workouts. Besides this I am doing some running (for me this is more of a jog/walk) for about 30 minutes. I’m honestly shocked with how sore I am from implementing these type workouts. The explosiveness is a complete shock to the system and I really learned something I had been neglecting. Even after gyms reopen I plan to use these principles going forward as an alternative way to grow the muscle.
