Jonathan Cooke, Edinburgh based personal trainer, Chartered Physiotherapist and founder of JC Fitness shares some top tips and key exercise principles for making the most out of your home workout so that whilst we’re on lockdown we can still benefit from our adapted exercise activity. Now, put on your sweats and go for it!
In response to coronavirus (covid-19), people have made a number of lifestyle changes to adapt to more restrictive conditions. With gym closures and even outdoor exercise restrictions, people are utilising their home environment to preserve or even improve their physical fitness or body composition. For many, lockdown offers new opportunity to allocate time towards initiating an exercise routine, time that would otherwise would have been limited by work or family duties outside the current circumstances.
For most people, adapting workouts to a home environment is completely new territory and one that requires creativity and most importantly an understanding of basic exercise principles. Why basic principles? Because regardless of the setting, exercise principles remain unchanged. Our bodies perceive exercise as a stimulus irrespective of the setting. Therefore, we can apply and manipulate this stimulus in the home environment to elicit the same desired response like increased strength, fitness, or muscle tone.
As many individuals will use home workouts to maintain or progress their body composition, here we provide six essential exercise guidelines to help anyone adapt their workouts to the home environment to help improve muscle tone and definition.
Guideline 1: Intensity of Effort
Intensity of effort describes the difficultly of an exercise, or more specifically the difficulty within a set. In the context of muscle growth, intensity of effort is arguably the most important exercise variable. When referring to intensity of effort, it’s more objectively determined in relation to absolute failure, which is the point in a set where you can’t perform another repetition. For example, say you’re performing press-ups and you perform these until you can’t complete another repetition, that point is absolute failure.
What we know from exercise research is that muscle growth is best achieve when exercises are taken close to this point of absolute failure. The reason being is that more muscle fibres (cells that make up muscles) are called upon to generate force when close to muscular failure. Why is that beneficial? Because the more muscle fibres activated, the greater the muscle growth. This can be accomplished two ways: increase the resistance (i.e. lift heavier weights, increase band tension, change body position in bodyweight exercises), or increase the repetitions performed.
Home workout tip: Gradually build up to higher intensities of effort week-to-week by making sets feel harder near the end. Do this week-to-week by either increasing the resistance used or repetitions performed.
Guideline 2: Repetitions
A repetition is one complete movement within an exercise. In the context of muscle growth, the research is clear that both higher repetitions (i.e. more than 20) and few repetitions (i.e. less than 5) can be effective for increasing muscle. The reasoning, as previously mentioned, is that muscle fibres activate relative to the amount of force placed on them. The greater the force, the more muscle fibres are activated. As the amount of resistance in exercise is inversely proportional to the number of repetitions (i.e. you can lift heavier weight for less repetitions and less weight for more repetitions), as long as you move close to muscle failure, it doesn’t really matter whether the repetitions are higher or lower.
That’s good news for home workouts as we will generally be using higher repetitions with bodyweight or home exercise equipment like resistance bands. Focus doesn’t need to be on the number of repetitions, rather working up to higher intensities of effort.
Home workout tip: Don’t worry about writing down a specific target repetition. Focus on gradually making your sets feel harder each week. You can increase the number of repetitions to make sets feel harder (increase intensity of effort).
Guideline 3: Sets
A set is a group of repetitions. The research shows that performing 2-3 sets for each major muscle (i.e. legs, back, shoulders, chest, bum) is a great starting point for those that want to improve their muscle tone. The likely reasoning is that muscle growth appears to respond more when it is stimulated more (to a certain extent). Because there is even more direct stimulus being placed on a muscle with multiple sets compared to a single set, this would explain why multiple sets are more effective. Importantly, focus should still be on building higher intensities of effort within each set.
Performing 2-3 sets is a good target for individuals fairly new to resistance exercise. However, for individuals with more experience with resistance exercise, more sets (i.e 10+ sets) per muscle, per week, can certainly be used.
Home workout tip: If you’re relatively new to resistance exercise, start with 2-3 sets per major muscle, per week. Focus on gradually building to higher intensities of effort week-to-week. If you have more experience with resistance exercise, build up the number of weekly sets for each major muscle group, just pay attention to how well you’re performing and recovering between workouts.
Guideline 4: Weight
Weight refers to the amount of resistance being lifted. For muscle growth, research shows that both heavy and light weights can be equally effective. The reasoning again goes back to muscle fibre activation in that more muscle fibres are activated when force demands go up. Heavy weights require high amounts of force to lift them. Similarly, lighter weights, when taken close to failure, require high amounts of force to lift due to increasing muscle fatigue. Therefore, the end effect is similar between levels of resistance.
More good news for home workouts as the resistance (i.e. bodyweight, resistance bands, dumbbells) is likely to be lighter. These lighter weights can used very effectively when higher intensities of effort are applied.
Home workout tip: Don’t worry about the level of resistance. If you have lights weights or resistance bands at home, gradually build intensity of effort so that it feels challenging near the end of the set. With body weight exercises, change your body position and use variations that make the exercise more challenging.
Guideline 5: Rest Intervals
Rest intervals describe the amount of rest taken between sets. To maximise muscle development, research reveals that longer rest between sets of about 2 minutes are superior to shorter rest of less than 1 minute. The reasoning is that shorter rest intervals may not allow for sufficient recovery time and can impair force production and work output (repetitions x sets x weight). Although it is common for people to link up multiple exercises, in a circuit type fashion, too little rest between exercises that work the same muscle group can negatively impact growth.
Linking different exercises together in a group works perfectly well. However, attention should be given to ensuring that larger muscles (i.e. legs, back, shoulders) have enough time to recover between exercises.
Home workout tip: You can link exercises together, but don’t chase feeling fatigued. Muscles generate more force and higher work output when given sufficient rest. Rest about 2 minutes between sets.
Guideline 6: Frequency
Frequency describes the number of times per week a major muscle group is exercised. Research shows that working a major muscle (i.e. chest, back, bum, shoulders) twice per week is superior for muscle growth compared to working them once per week. This happens because greater work output can be performed when you spread the work over multiple days. For example, if you perform 4 leg exercises on one day, chances are, with every subsequent exercise, work output will decline because of fatigue. Compare that to spreading the same exercises over 2 or 3 days. Here, your work output would be greater because you would simply feel much fresher.
If relatively new to resistance exercise, just one workout per week can lead to muscle growth. However, if you have more experience, or you decide to workout multiple times per week, working major muscle groups more than once per week can prove more even more beneficial.
Home workout tip: Aim to work major muscle groups twice a week. If you’re working out multiple times a week (i.e. more than twice), think about spreading out the exercises you perform on major muscles across your workouts.
About the Author:
Jonathan Cooke is certified personal trainer in Edinburgh and Chartered Physiotherapist. He operates an evidence-based personal training service called JC Fitness together with a team of highly skilled personal trainers that all share a common passion for helping people reach their health and fitness objectives. Their approach to personal training uses structured, results-driven and client-centred systems to help each individual fulfil their objectives. To learn more about their services, you can visit them at: www.jcfitness.co.uk
