Working out from home makes a lot of sense and allows you to save money and time that would otherwise be wasted by heading to the gym. For some people working from home will be the only option available if they don’t have a local gym near them or if they can’t afford the ones that are available.
Luckily there just so happen to be plenty of bodyweight exercises you can use to build muscle and tone up that don’t require any kind of equipment at all. If you have equipment like dumbbells/a pull up bar then even better!
But that said, there are limitations to training at home and some areas of your body are actually very difficult to train if you don’t have access to a gym. And especially if you have no equipment. The legs are a perfect example of this seeing as you will probably normally train them using resistance machines like the hamstring curls, leg extensions or leg press. You can squat with free-weights, but if you don’t have any weights at home then you’re in trouble…
Fortunately though, there are still a few things you can do…
Bodyweight Leg Exercises
Calf Raises: Calf raises are particularly easy exercises if you have no weights, all you have to do is stand on the edge of a step or a big book and then go through the usual range of motion. If you do this on one foot, then you’ll find that your bodyweight is actually enough to make it into a difficult exercise. If you have dumbbells then holding them will make this even harder.
Seated Calf Raises: Seated calf raises involve sitting down on a chair/bench with your foot flat on the floor and then raising it up onto your tip toes. The reason this is difficult is that you’re going to push down on your knee to provide the opposing force.
One-Legged Squats: Most bodybuilders are going to be too developed to get much benefit from performing squats without weights. If you perform those squats on a single leg though, then things become more difficult and more useful. Just be careful on the knees.
Sissy Squats: Another way to make squats more difficult is to use ‘sissy squats’. Here you will bend your knees forward slightly by going up on tip toes, lean backwards, and then perform squats by bending your knees and lowering your back. Again this isn’t advised if you have bad knees though.
Lunge Walking: Likewise, lunges aren’t much of a challenge without weights, but if you lunge deeply enough and then step through with the other leg straight into a lunge on that side, then time-under-tension increases and things become significantly more difficult. If you have a garden, then lunge walking laps around there will do a great deal for you.
Jack-in-the-Boxes: Jack in the boxes are star-jumps where you squat all the way down and grab your knees before leaping up into the star shape. This is actually a great workout for your hamstrings and quads that targets your fast-twitch muscle fibre and also burns fat. Tuck jumps are also very useful.
