FREE Home Workout

        Now that commercial gyms are closed, perhaps you're wondering what workouts you can do from home to maintain your fitness. After all, working out and eating well are great ways to maintain a robust immune system. The great news is that fitness is a lot easier to maintain than it is to build in the first place. I've created a workout that anyone can do in their home.

Doing Something Is Better Than Nothing

        Unless you have a well-stocked home gym your workouts will have to be bodyweight only. For now, that's alright. Vladimir Issurin tells us in his book Block Periodization that different fitness qualities can be maintained for various lengths of time without training them. Flexibility needs to be trained every day, but aerobic endurance and strength can be maintained at a high level even if you miss 30 days! Anaerobic endurance -- the quality trained through high-intensity interval training -- can also be maintained for 18 days. If you're an athlete, you need to be worried about losing your speed as speed needs to be trained every five days.

Training for Speed

        You can easily train speed on the street outside your home 2-3 times per week. After a thorough warm-up that includes skipping, shuffling, and backpedalling, perform a few short runs building from 50% to 90%. Then, sprint at maximum effort for up to 5sec to develop acceleration or 5-8 sec to develop speed. Perform 3-6 sprints with rests of 2-5 min resting longer for longer sprints.

Maintaining Strength

        I've included a warm-up and short workout with several variations for each exercise depending on your fitness background. This workout can be completed 2-3 times per week.

Warm-Up

Perform each movement for 5-10 reps.
        Warm-Up

Workout

Perform these exercises in a circuit for 3-5 rounds.
        Lunge x5-10 reps per side
        Shoulder W x5 reps with 5sec hold
        Hip Thrust x10-15 reps
        Push-Up x5-10
        Side Plank x15-30sec per side

Progressing

       Option 1: Try a more difficult variation of each exercise.

       Option 2: Perform more reps per set. This has diminishing returns.

       Option 3: Increased time under tension. In addition to performing more reps, you can place the           muscles under tension for more time by slowing the movement down or adding pauses.

       Option 4: Be creative. Fill a backpack, gym bag, or suitcase with books. This will add additional         resistance to exercises like squats and lunges and allow you to perform rowing variations.

Maintaining and Building Conditioning

        Conditioning is easy to maintain and even build now that the weather is warming up. Stick with walking and running if that's what you like. If you've been getting in your cardio through low-impact activities such as rowing or cycling, build into running slowly. Start with alternating jogging with walking and build volume by 10% per week.

        Another option is the extensive tempo method. While this method was developed for track sprinters as a recovery day, most people can do it. The goal is to maintain a modest heart rate of 120-150 beats per minute through running at 60-75% effort. In other words, this is neither a jog nor a sprint. After a warm-up, run 8x15sec at 60-75% effort resting for 30sec or until your heart rate drops to 120 beats per minute. Add two reps per week.

        If you have any questions about this workout or fitness in general, please contact me through my website.

Stay fit,

Jonathan Pratt
Pratt's Pro Fitness