(Credit: Bryant Tay)
With the current circuit breaker measures in place, most gyms and exercise studios are temporarily closed. But being confined within your four walls doesn’t mean that you cannot get a workout in. Get through the circuit breaker and exercise at home with some easy home workout routines! To help you get started, we’ve designed an easy 15 minute Tabata home workout plan with fitness enthusiast @weikiatteo.
So what does a Tabata workout routine consist of? This means working out for 20 seconds and resting for 10 seconds each time. Do this three times and you’ll complete a set. Finish three sets and you’ll complete a cycle! After finishing each cycle, reward yourself with a quick 30-second break. In total, three cycles will take around 15 minutes to complete.
Regardless of how regularly you exercise at home, remember the following essentials:
Chest workouts can be difficult without any equipment. Thankfully, we can rely on good ol’ bodyweight exercises. As a starting point when you exercise at home, basic push ups should suffice! Simply place your palms on the ground, shoulder-width apart and lower your upper body until your elbows are perpendicular to the ground.
Then, raise yourself by exerting force and pushing yourself away from the ground. For an added challenge, place your legs on an elevated platform while performing the same upper body motions. This bodyweight exercise at home might seem like a simple workout but it’s an effective routine that works everything from your core and chest to your triceps and deltoids!
Contrary to popular belief, sit ups do more harm than good by placing unnecessary pressure on your spine. Instead, do ab exercises like leg raises which allow for a neutral spine position! Start by laying on your back, placing your palms flat down beside you. Then, using your abdominal strength, lift your straightened legs until your feet are pointed toward the ceiling.
Next, lower your legs while keeping your back flat against the ground until your heels are almost touching the ground. Slow down your leg movement to add further difficulty to the exercise!
Don’t skip leg day. While it’s a running joke among the fitness community, it happens often because we underestimate the importance of having a strong lower body. With easy bodyweight exercises like alternating lunges, you too can start building stronger leg muscles and core today! First, take a step forward and lower yourself towards the floor until both legs are bent at 90 degrees.
Next, push off on the front leg to propel yourself back to the starting position and repeat the same motion with the other leg. For added difficulty, carry dumbbells to place further pressure on your leg muscles.
For those of you with knee pains and are worried about doing this exercise at home, do reverse lunges instead! Instead of stepping forward, step backwards so you’ll relieve pressure off the knee.
For the Day 2’s push ups, focus on variation so that the body experiences balanced muscle growth. By placing your palms beyond shoulder widths apart, you’ll be activating your shoulder muscles. Additionally, wide arm push ups will put more strain on your outer chest muscles! Do note that you won’t be able to lower yourself as far as a basic push up so take care not to hyper-extend your arms when doing this exercise at home.
As the go-to exercise at home for many fitness enthusiasts, what’s not to love about the effectiveness and simplicity of planks? Simply adopt the push up position and lower yourself down to your forearms while making sure your back and abs are tightened. Then hold that position to test your abdominal strength.
Besides being an essential abs exercise for any easy home workout plan, planks can be easily modified to increase the intensity. Bring up your knees to your sides to do a Spiderman Plank or tilt to your side to work on your obliques.
Doubling as a cardio bodyweight exercise, the sumo squat combination activates the quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves while supporting your entire body weight. Starting with your legs spread out wide, lower your body to do a sumo squat and push back up to your original position. Then, transition into a basic squat by bringing your legs together to lower your body once again. Repeat this to give your lower body a good workout!
With no one to guide you when you’re doing this exercise at home, it can be dangerous when you’re not aware of any bad posture habits. To aid with this, keep that back straight and ensure you push your hips back to prevent long-term spinal damage.
For our final round of push ups, bring those hands closer together so your tricep muscles will be targeted. Close arm push ups are infamous for being bodyweight exercises because they’re significantly harder than normal push ups. Ultimately, they require a larger range of muscle activation and greater joint flexibility. Always ensure your wrists aren’t sprained and your elbows aren’t flared outwards!
To push your limits while doing this exercise at home, try forming a diamond sign with your thumb and index fingers while doing the push up to really maximise the strain on your triceps and inner chest muscles.
It’s the final day of abs exercises at home! Go all out with the toe-touch crunch that combines movements of a crunch and a leg raise. Similar to a leg raise, instead of placing your hands by your sides, extend your arms straight behind your head.
Next, lift your arms and legs concurrently, letting both meet at a mid-point. Finally, lower both your arms and legs without letting them rest on the ground so your abs are always tightened. Repeat this motion to get a firm abdominal squeeze!
If you’re seeking a greater challenge, grab a weighted object and use it to touch your toes as you lift your body up for the crunch.
Star jumps are feared by many because of their high intensity and difficulty! Being a plyometric bodyweight exercise (anything that involves jumping), your athleticism will be tested as you extend your limbs and struggle to maintain your balance. To do this exercise at home, start by bending your knees and positioning them at shoulder-width distance.
Next, go as low as you can and get into a squatting position. Finally, jump vertically with as much might as possible and stretch your limbs to form a star shape in mid-air. Take extra precaution to gently land on the balls of your feet so you protect your knees from the impact.
Looking for more advanced techniques when you exercise at home? Take your workouts to the next level with these free fitness apps and Stay Home Work Out Essentials! Who says exercising is boring? Grab these Nintendo switch exercise games that’ll let you sweat it out AND have fun at the same time, all from the comfort of your home. ]]>
Time to jingle his bells!
‘Tis the season to be jolly and a little competitive!
For a-meow-zing staycays.
Ending the year with a blast (of fireworks).
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