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Hi there, I'm Graham Bower. I write about fitness for Cultimac and today we're going
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to look at how to do an effective home workout. Being stuck at home all day is great for your
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health during the quarantine, but it's not so great for your fitness, especially if you
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end up stuck on the couch all day. It also makes it really hard to close the activity
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rings on your Apple Watch. But the good news is your fitness doesn't need to suffer just
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because you can't get to the gym. In this video, we're going to look at bodyweight strength
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training exercises you can do at home without any special equipment. Bodyweight exercises
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are things like push-ups, sit-ups, squats, really any exercise where you use your own
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body as the weight instead of things like dumbbells and barbells. The problem with bodyweight
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exercises is if you're already pretty strong or if your body is quite light, then it can
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sometimes be hard to achieve enough resistance to really make your muscles work. So today
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I'm going to show you four tricks you can use to do an effective strength training workout
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at home. First things first, make sure you log it on your Apple Watch. You can pick the
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strength training option. Tip one, use one limb to double the weight. If you find an
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exercise like squats is too easy, the simple solution is to do one leg at a time instead
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of using both together. That way, your leg has to work twice as hard. This approach works
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for other things too, like calf raises, and do one leg at a time instead of both together
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Even the humble push-up gets twice as hard if you do it one-handed. Tip two, use household
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objects to target smaller muscles. When I'm doing a dumbbell tricep extension at the gym
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I usually use around a 20-pound dumbbell, and there are loads of things you can find
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around the house that weigh that much. For example, this cast iron frying pan. Tip three
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adjust the position of your hands to make the exercise harder. For some people, push-ups
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are already hard enough, but if you find you can effortlessly push out tens or even hundreds
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of push-ups, there are ways you can make it more of a challenge. Try bringing your hands together
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to do a diamond push-up. This destabilizes you, and the angle makes your triceps work harder
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Or bring your hands wider apart to make your chest take more of the strain. Or move your
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hands down a bit and keep your elbows in at the sides for a tricep push-up. Tip four
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don't forget your back. Find something to pull on. It's easy to find exercises where you push
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against your body weight, like push-ups, but there's one area of your body that that won't
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hit, your back. To make your back work, you need to find exercises that involve pulling instead of
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pushing. The classic exercises for back all involve a bar, like pull-ups and chin-ups
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but if you don't have a bar at home, all is not lost. If you have a sturdy work surface
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that can take your weight, you might be able to use it to do inverted rows. Alternatively
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you can load up a rucksack with heavy objects, like books or bottles full of water, and use it
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for a one-arm row. With these four tips, you can adapt all kinds of bodyweight exercises to help
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keep your muscles on form until we can all get back to the gym again, and more importantly
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to keep closing those all-important activity rings. If you're looking for a beginner's program which
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will tell you all the exercises you should do in what sequence, then check out our CultFit
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four-week home program. You don't need any experience, you don't need any equipment
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you can just get started on it. It's on our YouTube channel, it's called CultFit. If you
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have any questions or comments, you can find me on Twitter, I'm at Graham Bower, and I'll be posting
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my daily workouts if you're looking for some ideas. Thanks for watching, and be sure to follow
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CultMac for my regular fitness posts. Bye
