Home fitness muscle building exercises

Ordinary people do not need thousands of home fitness equipment to build muscle at home. They only need a pair of adjustable weight dumbbells, a non-slip yoga mat, and an optional door frame horizontal bar that is easy to install. Covering 6 types of core movements, you can train all major muscle groups in your body. If a novice insists on systematic training for 6 months, the increase in muscle circumference and strength will not be inferior to that of someone who has an annual gym membership and goes around twice a week, and is even more efficient.

Let’s talk about the most controversial leg training first. The Internet has been arguing for almost ten years. One group says that bodyweight leg training is completely useless. You won’t be able to grow muscles unless you add tens of kilograms of weight to your knees.； The other school of thought says that single-leg movements using body weight are enough, and novices may injure their knees by blindly carrying weight. I rented a house in Lao Po Junior School for the past two years and didn’t even have a place to put a barbell. I just stuffed 10 hardcover books into my backpack and did weight-bearing Bulgarian split squats. I did 4 sets of 12 times on each side. My leg circumference increased from 52cm to 54cm in 3 months. Most likely it won't work because you didn't do the movements correctly - don't let your knees go too far beyond your toes, put your weight on the soles of your front feet, squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground, stop at the top, pause for 1 second and then slowly get up. The feeling of soreness is really not much different from barbell squats in the gym. If you have been training for more than a year, you really need to load some weights. Hold adjustable dumbbells in your arms to do cup squats, or put them on your thighs to do glute bridges. This will fully stimulate your buttocks and quadriceps.

After talking about legs, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite chest exercise. Don’t just do standard push-ups when you think of chest exercises. Novices with weak strength can start with kneeling push-ups. Once they can do 20 standard push-ups at one breath, they can change the style: a wide stance focuses on the outside of the chest muscles, and a narrow stance focuses on the middle seam and triceps. If you want to practice the upper edge, just put your feet on a chair and do decline push-ups. I once had a colleague who had been doing 100 push-ups at home every day for three months. His chest was not much bigger and his shoulders hurt so much that he couldn't lift them up. This was because his elbows were opened too hard and he had to rely on his shoulders to compensate. No matter how many moves he did not practice, it would be in vain and he would be easily injured. Oh, by the way, I was lazy in the winter and didn’t want to lay out a yoga mat, so I leaned on the edge of the bed with two pillows and did incline dumbbell bench presses. I opened my elbows at 90 degrees and pulled them in toward the body about 30 degrees. When I reached the top of the push, I consciously pinched my chest. The soreness lasted until the next day when I struggled to put on clothes and lift my arms. Some people say that limiting the range of the floor bench press is not effective. In fact, for novices, short strokes can avoid shoulder compensation injuries. If you really pursue the range, just put two yoga blocks under your back. You don’t have to buy a bench press worth thousands of dollars just for this.

Many people say that they cannot practice back training at home, but in fact they have not found the right method. If you have a door frame horizontal bar, you should first practice pull-ups. Even if you can only do 2 pull-ups at the beginning, you can pull 10 pull-ups in 3 months, and the dimensions of your latissimus dorsi will become visible to the naked eye. It doesn't matter if you can't install a horizontal bar at home. Just do bent over rowing with a pair of dumbbells. Bend your knees slightly and flatten your back. Don't slump or arch your back. When you pull the dumbbells, feel the contraction of your latissimus dorsi, not the force of your arms. When I was at home during the lockdown last year, I didn’t even have dumbbells, so I hung an old bath towel on the door handle, closed the door tightly, leaned back, and did reverse rowing. Every time I finished the exercise, my latissimus dorsi was so sore that I couldn’t lean back on the chair. The effect was not bad at all. Here is a different point of view: People in the bodybuilding circle prefer dumbbell rowing, which has good isolation and can accurately stimulate different positions on the back. ； Jiejiandang believes that the compound benefits of pull-ups are higher, and you can even train the core and arms. My own experience is that the effect of doing two pull-ups is much better than practicing one alone.

As for the shoulders and core, you really don’t need to do all those fancy movements. Practice dumbbell press + lateral raise on your shoulders. Do not shake your arms for lateral raises. Do it in front of a mirror or with your back against the wall. Keep your forearms a little lower than your elbows. Lift them until they are parallel to your shoulders and stop. Release them slowly. Don’t rely on inertia. Do 4 sets of 15 times in one group. You will find it difficult to lift your arms to pick up a cup the next day after practicing. Don’t do hundreds of crunches every day for your core. It’s useless. Practice plank support from 30 seconds until you can hold it for 2 minutes. Add some weight on your back, or do hanging leg raises with a horizontal bar. It’s more than 10 times more efficient than crunches. Oh, by the way, there is another amazing move that many people ignore: the farmer's walk, carrying two of the heaviest dumbbells you can carry, walking back and forth at home for 10 minutes. It can train the core, grip strength, legs, and shoulders. When I am in a hurry, I rely on this to make up the training volume. It is very enjoyable.

Oh, by the way, don’t worry about whether to buy elastic bands. I bought several in my early days. It’s really useful for novices to do assisted pull-ups and lateral raises when their strength is weak. But when your strength increases, the resistance of the elastic bands is not enough, and you have to return to dumbbells in the end. Some people also say that the variable resistance of the elastic band better fits the muscle force curve, and each has its own benefits, so there is no need to step on each one.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there is not so much to pay attention to when building muscle at home. There is no standard answer to what movements are best. If you can do the movements well, slowly increase the weight and increase the number of sets, and persist, you can build a good figure even if you just rely on push-ups and squats. After all, when it comes to fitness, action has always been much more important than the equipment or exercises you choose.