Try These Easy At-Home Workouts and Skip the Gym

Your body needs regular movement to stay fit, healthy, and in shape. As gyms begin to reopen and operate at reduced capacity, many people are enjoying the flexibility of home workouts. If you like, you can build muscle, lose weight, and tone up effectively with easy at home workouts and ditch the gym membership for good. No gym equipment? No problem. Keep reading to find out how to up your home fitness game.

• Can I Really Do a No-Equipment Workout?
• What About Strength Training and Building Muscle?
• Effective No-Equipment Workouts You Can do From Home
  • Upper Body
    • Classic Push-Ups
    • Towel Lat Pulldowns
  • Lower body
    • Classic Squats
    • Jump Squats
  • Core
    • Plank
• Burn Through Fat With an Easy Burpees Exercise and Cardio Workouts at Home
• Ditch The Gym: Easy At-Home Workouts

Can I Really Do a No-Equipment Workout?

While workout machines, weights, and other fitness equipment have their uses, you don’t need any equipment to do a killer workout. One of the best things you can do to stay consistent with fitness is to make a plan. By creating a full-body workout plan, you are tackling all areas of the body. This helps develop a well-rounded physique, balancing all muscle groups. 

Push-ups may come to mind as the go-to exercise for home workouts. While effective, they are certainly not your only option. There are many variations of exercises that you have access to right now, with no equipment or gym. Performing new movements is key to motivation and seeing improvements over time. It also helps keep you on your toes and avoid boredom from repetitive workouts over weeks or months.  

What About Strength Training and Building Muscle?

Often when you think of strength training, you imagine the free weights area at the gym. But you don’t need equipment or a gym membership to strength train and build muscle. By incorporating bodyweight exercises into your home fitness routine, you can reap the benefits. If you want to light your core on fire, engage your muscles, and help prevent future injuries, bodyweight exercises are an easy and essential part of your at-home workout toolkit.  

With bodyweight exercises, you don’t need any equipment whatsoever. All you have to do is show up and be ready to work. By using your own body weight as a training tool, you can work out from anywhere with no equipment. 

Whether you want to build muscle, drop a waist size, or increase fitness levels, bodyweight exercises can help. Consistency, structure, and adequate resistance across your workouts are key to success.  

Exercise from the comfort of your home while hitting your fitness goals and building serious muscle. With no more waiting for equipment or commuting to the gym, you can see why so many people are taking the plunge into home fitness and skipping the gym. 

So why not take a look at these easy exercises below to get you started with at home workouts?

Effective No-Equipment Workouts You Can do From Home 

Upper Body

For the chest and triceps, you can always rely on the classic push-up. However, there are a ton of options that keep your workouts fresh and exciting. 

Classic Push-Ups

Push-ups are good for building upper body strength, as well as engaging your core muscles. This type of exercise is a perfect addition to any full-body or chest gains routine. 

1. Begin in a plank with your palms flat on the ground shoulder-width apart. Your wrists should be below your shoulders and your core engaged.
2. Lower your chest to the floor by bending your elbows. Your chest can touch the floor if this feels good for you. 
3. Push yourself back up, through the palms, returning to plank.

Towel Lat Pulldowns

Using items from around your house is an easy way to change up at home arm workouts to engage different muscle groups. Feel free to be creative with what you have. For this exercise, all you need is a towel.

1. First, take your towel and put one knee on the floor with the other leg bent ninety degrees at the knee.
2. Hold the towel above your head with straight arms, pulling the towel outward at each end (your arms should remain straight and shouldn’t move outwards). 
3. At a slow-moderate pace, while pulling outward on the towel, gradually move your arms down. Focus on the back muscles, concentrating on the lats.
4. Finish in the middle of the chest, stick your chest out slightly, and squeeze on the lats to help with activation.

Lower body

An effective lower body workout can include plenty of different exercises. Squat workouts are perfect for developing strength and power. Squats such as sumo squats, Bulgarian split squats, pistol squats, and the classic squat are ideal for leg day. Try these two easy squat variations in your next lower body workout at home.

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Classic Squats

1. Stand shoulder-width apart with your feet facing forward and look ahead. 
2. Drive back with the hips; imagine sitting back into a chair. Follow this motion until your legs are at ninety degrees. Your back should remain straight.
3. Follow the same action back up.

Jump Squats

These essentially follow the same principles as the squats above, but with a jump.

When you reach ninety degrees at the bottom, you press down on your feet and jump. Upon landing, allow yourself to fall gently back into a ninety-degree bend at the knees.

Core

You don’t necessarily need to do a ton of crunches to engage your abdominals and core. Even with plank workouts, you have the option to mix it up with alternative positions. The plank strengthens and targets your back and core and helps to improve posture.

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Plank

1. Lie on your front with your elbows by your ribs and toes tucked.
2. Now push yourself off the floor so that the body is parallel to the floor. You should be resting on your forearms.
3. Keep the core engaged, as well as the glutes and thighs. 
4. Ensure that you are remaining parallel and not sticking any body parts into the air.
5. Hold your plank for up to sixty seconds. 

Burn Through Fat With an Easy Burpees Exercise and Cardio Workouts at Home

For some of you, the idea of a burpees workout and cardio may sound horrifying. They can be challenging, but they are great for burning extra calories. You can include burpees in your whole-body workout for a quick but effective routine.

Burpees themselves seem to have a notorious or feared reputation. While they can be tough, they are perfect for combining in any home workout circuit. Burpees work the abs, arms, chest, quads, glutes, and hamstrings. This makes it very efficient in simultaneously working a range of muscles in the body.

Remember that you have total control over the intensity levels of your exercises. With this being a home workout, you can slot exercise into your lunch break or between Zoom meetings. 

Ditch The Gym: Easy At-Home Workouts 

You have all the tools you need to nail your next home workout. You can create your own routine or use the 1AND1 free at-home workout plan to get you started. Take full control of your exercise routine and work out from the comfort of your own home without the need for any equipment. Staying fit and healthy is more important than ever, not only for your physical health, but also for your mental well-being. By finding ways to stay active from home, you can skip the gym and still feel your best.