If your gym is closed and you are stuck a home with no exercise equipment, there are always bodyweight exercises. The challenge, however, is progression. Granted, we might be gaining weight during self-quarantine (let’s try not to—restaurants are closed, after all), but the downside of bodyweight exercise is that volume progression can come only by increasing the repetitions. Thus, workouts have to get increasingly longer. The alternative is to make the exercise harder.
One certain way to make the exercise harder is to take advantage of gravity—to change the position of the body to make the exercise more difficult. For example, progressing from a pushup with the hands elevated to a standard pushup to a pushup with the feet elevated.
One can also get creative in using household items (or housemates) to add external resistance. With a willing partner, one can do a pretty good “manual resistance” workout by simply having someone act in lieu of weights to add the resistance to the movement. These are quick and effective workouts. Progression just requires more effort on the part of both partners—so, it is double the workout.
Other ways to increase the intensity of the workout are to try:
Twenty-ones. These involve performing seven repetitions of an exercise through the full range-of-motion (ROM), seven repetitions through the first half of the ROM, and seven repetitions through the second half of the ROM. These can be performed in any sequence to vary the overall intensity. They also don’t have to be performed in sevens. They can be 24s, 27s, 30s, etc.
One-and-one-quarters. These involve repetitions though a full ROM plus an additional quarter ROM. For example, squat a full (yes, a full) ROM, pause, return to the starting position, squat a quarter of the way down, pause, and return to the start for the completion of one repetition. Increase the repetitions, the pause times, and/or decrease the tempo of the movement to increase the intensity.
Unilateral Movements. Moving from bilateral points of contact to a unilateral point of contact raised the level of difficulty by challenge balance, as well as by increasing the load on the body part. Try pushups with one foot elevated. Try lunges, Bulgarian split squats, or one-legged squats instead of air squats. Try single-legged Romanian deadlifts.
Negative-accentuated. Slow the tempo of the movement, particularly on the lowering phase. Increasing time-under-tension without adding resistance can promote hypertrophy. This can make an otherwise easy exercise quite hard. Frankly, most of us do pushups way too fast as we target AMRAP. Slow down! Take full advantage of gravity.
Compensatory acceleration training (sort of). Compensatory acceleration training (CAT), popularized by Dr. Fred Hatfield (Dr. Squat), is a technique of accelerating the squat through the concentric phase to maintain an increased force of contraction. In performing bodyweight exercises, try lowering at a moderate-to-slow tempo and accelerate through the concentric phase. These may take the form of jump squats or plyo-pushups (hence , sort of CAT) for a variation, though such (plyometric) exercises require a rapid stretch at the bottom and develop power more than they promote hypertrophy. So, consider the goals. A CAT squat should result with a moderate elevation of the heels upon completion, rather than a jump.
Quite a lot can be done with bodyweight, partners, and household items. Be creative! Don’t let the lack of a gym prohibit you from exercising.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!
