Ways to workout indoors without equipment
Lots of people are asking how to find good home workouts, without any gym equipment and for free. We have put together a list of 6 exercises and routines using bodyweight exercises and household goods and items available to you during social isolation! So you can look forward to being fit for your adventures when we are allowed out to do them!
Exercising without gyms or public parks
Since gyms have shut across the world, and we are confined to our homes for the time being, we have put together some tips to help you exercise at home; in your garden, kitchen, bedroom or anywhere you have space. While most places allow people out once a day to exercise, certain parks, trails and streets are increasingly busy or in fact closed by local governments because they have become too crowded.
For running outdoors and considerate use of paths, trails and sidewalks, the Atlantic’s Elanor Barkhorn has written a good guide.
6 Workout From Home Ideas:
1. Stair Climbing
2. Free Online Workout Videos
3. Using a Towel as an Exercise Band
4. Wall Sits
5. Using Household items as Weights
6. Using Chairs and Tables
This article focuses on how to do some great home workouts that can help improve your fitness purely by using your own body weight and with the addition of some classic household items to help! With the risk of your housemates seeing your funny exercise faces, these moves are sure to see you work up a sweat.
1. Stair climbing (Anaerobic exercise at home)
Stair climbing burns more calories per minute than jogging and counts towards your recommended 150 minutes of weekly exercise. Earlier this month a team of 30 people climbed up to Everest basecamp virtually, using only their stairs, ladders and garden steps at home! Led by Rory Southworth, this group posted videos and photos online of their progress to reach the virtual 5,364 metres elevation over a week. The challenge doesn’t have to be as big as Everest, Rory began with some smaller challenges in his back yard “I did Snowdon on my bottom step; Ben Nevis on the seven stairs down to my garden; and ran up the hill at the back of my garden 29 times to scale Scafell Pike. For this challenge, I wanted to bring people with me on the journey. There was a lot of negativity among the outdoor community about being confined at home and I wanted to give people a reason to exercise indoors.
2. Free workout videos online (Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercises at home)
There are millions of workout videos online, form short 10 minute yoga cycles to the more intense hour long circuit style videos. Many previously expensive workout DVDs have, since the quarantine measures have been implemented across the globe, released their videos online, such as Tony Horton’s famous P90X beach body on demand workouts, and Shaun T’s Insanity workout series, ‘Dig Deeper’. Both are currently available on www.archive.org.
3. Using a towel as an exercise band – arm and leg workouts
You don’t actually need a yoga mat to do a yoga workout, nor patterned leggings. You could even workout in your pyjamas, because who’s going to see?!
Using towels as resistance bands, for chest presses and pulls, or as sliders when lunging or ‘mountain-climbing’ can help tone your whole body! Doubles up as a sweat band when you start working hard too! The health and fitness website, Prevention, has some great towel based exercises to help keep your body toned, all of which you can do at home and with very little space, complete with a picture guide to make sure you are doing the moves correctly.
4. Your four walls can keep you fit – wall sits
There is nothing better to for toning your leg muscles that wall sits. Find a wall with a big enough space for you to lean on. Sit against the wall like you would in a chair (in a squat) with your legs at 90 degrees, and hold. Give it time and you’ll soon feel the burn!
5. Using Household Goods as Weights
Using milk bottles, canned soup, big heavy books, plant pots and more! One great exercise recommended by ‘This Girl Can’ to tone your stomach is milk bottle Russian twists – Sit on the floor holding a milk bottle (or any bottle with liquid in). Lean back with a straight back and engage your core. Rotate your torso and try to touch the floor each side with the milk bottle. Make it harder by lifting your feet off the floor.
6. Using chairs and tables for exercise
Chair triceps dips are a great way to take a 2 minute break from working at your desk. Sit on the edge of a chair holding onto the front with your hands. Place your feet out in front of you (bent legs for easier option or straight legs to make it harder) and lower your elbows to a 90-degree angle before pushing back up.
Your desk can also be used for doing incline press ups (also your bed, your chair, or your steps). If you are using a table, put your hands on the tabletop with your legs stretched out behind you, body nice and straight. Lower your weight down keeping your elbows tight to your body, until your chest touches the table (or as close as you can comfortably go) and press back up.
With these indoor exercise ideas you can look forward to being bike, hike and watersports fit for your Autumn holidays. For trip inspiration, take a look at the cycling and walking tours we are running throughout the Cotswolds, Devon and Cornwall.