Home fitness training plan

For the vast majority of ordinary bodybuilders who have no need to prepare for competitions, a reliable home fitness plan does not require expensive equipment or a whole block of free time. Just 4 days a week, 35-45 minutes each time, and only use your own weight + daily heavy objects (such as 2L mineral water, a backpack full of books) to achieve the 150 minutes per week recommended by the WHO. The intensity exercise standard takes into account the needs of muscle gain, fat loss, and body improvement. The effect is no worse than going to the gym three times a week. This is the conclusion that I personally tested after being quarantined for 3 months and then practicing at home for more than a year. Among the 6 friends who followed the exercise, the most lost 26 pounds in 3 months, and the least relieved the shoulder and neck pain that had been bothering me for many years.

Speaking of which, I also ran into some pitfalls when I first started practicing at home. I followed the trend and bought yoga mats, adjustable dumbbells, elastic ropes, and even a small elliptical machine. In the end, the elliptical machine was used to hang thick winter coats, and the dumbbells were piled at the door as a door stop. I spent several thousand, and the total number of exercises was less than 10 times. Only later did I realize that the core of home fitness is "low starting threshold". The more props you prepare, the more delays you have to overcome, making it difficult to persist.

Regarding the topic of "can you build muscle by practicing at home?" which has been debated for many years, in fact, different fitness schools have different opinions. Many senior enthusiasts in the powerlifting circle will say, "Don't talk about building muscle without heavy weight." This is right or wrong: if you have more than 2 years of systematic training experience and the bench press can push your own body weight, then the regular load at home will really be difficult to help you break through the bottleneck. ； But if you are a newbie, or just want to practice some lines and support your shoulders in a T-shirt, the load of bodyweight is completely sufficient - YouTube fitness blogger Jeff Nyland has specially conducted a controlled test. People with no training foundation did standard bodyweight squats for 12 consecutive weeks. There was no significant difference in the circumference growth of the quadriceps compared with the control group trained with a 30kg barbell. If you really feel that your weight is too light, wouldn’t it increase the load if you carry a backpack full of teaching materials and two 5L bottles of cooking oil in your hands? I used to practice bent-over rowing with two unopened barrels of peanut oil at home. After practicing for half a year, the lines on my back can now be seen even when wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt.

I know that the biggest headache for many people when they first start training is that they don’t know what to train every day. In fact, you don’t need to follow the five-point training set in the gym. You are not going to compete, you can just adjust according to your physical condition that day. My legs were sore after standing all day at work, so I did more lunges and glute bridges. ； Yesterday I lowered my head and changed my plan for the day because my neck hurt, so I arranged more movements to open my shoulders and flex my thoracic spine. I would do whatever makes me feel comfortable. If you are really too lazy to think about arrangements, you can just use my commonly used template: spend 5 minutes warming up before each exercise. It doesn’t need to be too complicated. You can jump on the spot with your legs high for a minute, make a few rounds of shoulder, hip, and knee joints, and then do 3 sets of cat-cow poses to open the spine. This can avoid 80% of sports strains. Leave about 25 minutes for formal training, and choose 3-4 movements each time, half of which are upper and lower limbs, such as squats, kneeling push-ups, bent over rows, and planks. Do 4 groups of each movement. You don’t need to wait for 30 seconds between groups. Just breathe well before doing the next group. Leave 10 minutes for stretching at the end, stretching wherever there is soreness. There is no need to follow the video to deadlift those parts that you don't feel. It's a waste of time.

I used to have a colleague who worked in the design industry. After sitting for a long time, her lumbar protrusion was so painful that even sitting for half an hour was so painful. The doctor asked her to practice more core strength. She would lie on the bed and do dead bugs for 10 minutes every night while her children were asleep. She also practiced glute bridge for an extra 20 minutes on weekends. She didn’t buy any equipment. After practicing for three months, she never had a lumbar prolapse again. Before, she had to take two breaks even when walking for half an hour. Now she can climb the entire Xiangshan Mountain with her friends on weekends.

There are also many people asking whether they want to live broadcast with fitness. Everyone has their own opinions on this. Some people say that Liu Genghong's exercise is too bouncy and hurts his knees, and some say that Pamela's intensity is too intense for novices to keep up with. In fact, the standard is never what others say, but how you feel in your own body. I had been with Liu Genghong for two months before. After jumping on his knees, nothing happened. I sweated every time. ； My best friend had an old injury and fluid accumulation in her knees, so she followed Pamela's low-impact aerobics routine. She didn't have to jump during the whole process, and her T-shirt was soaked through after the dance. If your joints hurt the next day after a workout, then switch to a low-intensity workout. Don’t push yourself too hard. The purpose of fitness is to make yourself comfortable, not to find fault in completing KPIs.

One last word of caution, don’t rush into it right after you start training. When I first started training, I heard someone said that I had to do 20 squats in one group. I gritted my teeth and did 5 groups. The next day, my legs were so weak that I almost fell down when I went down the stairs. It hurt for 4 days. For beginners, just do 10 push-ups per group in the first week. Once you can do 15 standard push-ups, you can then increase the number or weight. The standard of movement is always more important than the quantity. Doing 10 core-tightening push-ups is 10 times more effective than doing 20 push-ups with a slumped waist and buttocks. Also, don’t just train the abdominal muscles and chest muscles in the front. Many people have been practicing at home for two months and their rounded shoulders are more serious. They just forget to train the back. After each training, they add two groups of angels against the wall, or hold the door frame to expand the chest. Do 5 groups for 10 seconds each time. Not only will the shoulders and neck be comfortable, but the posture will look much better when wearing clothes.

To be honest, I rarely go to the gym unless I want to hit a heavy weight to break through the bottleneck. The biggest advantage of home fitness is freedom. If you want to wear pajamas to practice, you can wear pajamas to practice, and if you want to take a half-hour break after eating, you don’t have to spend half an hour changing clothes on the road, and you don’t have to worry about others in the gym lifting heavier weights than you. You don’t have to pursue any perfect plan. If you think about it and move for 10 minutes today, it will be better than lying down and scrolling through your phone to envy other people’s figures. Most of those who say that practicing at home is useless have not persisted for more than a week. If you move first, it will be better than anything else.