My Tips For Home Training

Everyone is already sick and tired of quarantine. We look forward to the moment when we can go back to the gyms and put a lot of discs on the bar. But in the meantime, all we have is training at home with bodyweight, PVC or bar – here who was lucky. Not everyone has a platform, racks, and many discs at home, but there were enough fans who were able to bring into a small apartment a full Olympic bar and a couple of discs. I was literally thrown with questions: what one can do at home with a bar to keep one’s shape.

There are several things which need to be considered at home workouts:

• if you live on the 9th floor in the apartment house, you will not be able to throw the bar on the floor after lift, due to shock noise.
• similar situation with dynamic exercises: after the first set of a real snatch all neighbors of the house will come to you with complaints and confirm that you have a cool but inappropriate power position.  
• most likely you do not have the racks, so all exercises from shoulders you will have to combine with exercises from the floor.

Also, I want to offer you my tips on training with an empty bar to make it more diverse and productive:

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1. More reps

Now definitely nobody is in the stage of preparation for important competitions, so if you have a bar and a couple of light discs, do 6/12/20 reps in one set. You will definitely breathe well, burn calories and pump muscles.

2. Play with tempo

This method always works perfectly. Try performing overhead squats with a bar over your head very slowly down and up, and then very slowly down and fast up and do 10-12 reps. Even very strong athletes will cheer up from this.

3. Work from the hang

I have already said that it is “not convenient” to put the bar on the floor at home, so a large number of reps from the hang from various positions are also an additional load factor. But there’s a silver lining: slow conscious movement down with bar is a great way to work out ‘foot feel’, balance and coordination in starting position.

4. Add static

I know that 100% of athletes hate pause in any phase of the movement, but most understand how this element helps to work out the technique. One usually pauses for 2-6 seconds with heavy weights, and the pause with an empty bar in the moment of power position or an overhead half-squat with a bar on 8-15 seconds will help you both feel and work out the necessary angles.

5. Combine

Complex exercises are a great solution.  This is an involvement in a variety of muscle groups, as well as a possibility to do a lot of reps in one set and a solution to several problems.

6. Cut rest time

Everyone knows that it recommends to rest 2-3 minutes between sets during normal training in weightlifting, and in strength training even 4-5 minutes. Working with the bar even in multirepeated mode, you can reduce the rest to 30-45 seconds. Yes, it will not look like the singles at 90%, but also this training definitely will not seem easy to you.

7. Do crazy stuff

Joe Weider said, “Surprise your muscles.”. It’s possible to do even at home. As an example, a popular format of the training program for MMA fighters: the one-round fight of 8 exercises on 8 reps:

• Deadlift
• Romanian Deadlift
• Bent-over rows
• Muscles Squat Clean
• Push Press
• Front Squat 
• Overhead Push Press
• Squats+good mornings

After 3-4 rounds it won’t definitely be easy for you, and if you speed up or slow down, or at the beginning of each minute add 2-3 burpees, extra kilograms that appeared at quarantine will definitely burn. 

To sum up, I will say to progress in weightlifting, it is necessary to work in adequate conditions under the appropriate targeted weightlifting program. Yes, home workouts will not increase strength but will help to maintain muscle tone, work on some technical elements, coordination, and flexibility. And this will help to return to the full physical shape faster and move again to new results in the favorite gym!

Train together – train right!

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