Despite the fact that modern fitness clubs are equipped with everything necessary for a full and diverse workout, many female fans of HLS prefer to improve their figure at home. There may be several reasons for this: remote location of the fitness center, busy and unstable work schedule, financial difficulties, discomfort of exercising in front of everyone, etc. Home fitness training was and is the most affordable and convenient way to keep fit.
Two types of exercise: aerobic and strength training
The key to success in fitness is regular exercise. Whether your goal is to lose weight, improve your health, pump up your muscles or improve your body contours, you need to train systematically to achieve the desired results. What is the optimal frequency of exercise?
- Strength training – 3-4 workouts per week;
- Aerobic (cardio) – every other day or daily.
If the basis of training is strength exercises, you should not exercise more than four times a week, otherwise the muscles will not have time to recover. Aerobic workouts can be performed daily. Their optimal duration is about an hour. Training for less than forty minutes is not advisable.
Aerobic workouts should be long, as their main goal is to lose weight, and the fat burning process starts about 30 minutes after the start of the exercise. The exception is morning fitness. If you do cardiotraining in the morning on an empty stomach, a 30-minute workout is enough.
Glycogen reserves are depleted overnight, which means that in the morning training the body starts to use fat as energy much earlier. You should allow 40 to 60 minutes for strength training. Beginners who are busy perfecting their technique and training at a low intensity can extend their workout to 1.5 hours.
Do you prefer aerobic or strength training? It depends on what goals the fitness enthusiast sets for herself. If you want to lose extra pounds, it is recommended to combine strength and aerobic exercises. They can be combined in one workout or alternate on the days of the week. It is desirable to use strength exercises that involve several muscle groups at once. When large muscle masses are reduced, glycogen reserves are exhausted faster, which means that fatty tissue begins to decompose earlier. Girls who do not need to lose weight can minimize aerobic exercises, and during strength training they can focus on working out individual muscles. In this case, you can use the split method, that is, train strictly certain muscle groups on different days of the week.
Split fitness training (split)
The first item in the strength training program is always the warm-up. Warm up with the help of simple exercises: strokes, bends, turns, rotations. You can use light aerobic loads (running on the spot, jumping), elements of stretching (bending, stretching). To perform the basic set of exercises you will need a set of dumbbells and a fitness barbell. If you exercise 4 times a week, the split-scheme will include 4 workouts for different muscle groups.
Monday is a good time to work out your lower body. For leg and glute muscle development, we usually use barbell squats (2 sets of 30 repetitions), dumbbell lunges (3 sets of 15 repetitions) and deadlifts (2 sets of 20 repetitions). If you add to this the leg swings to the side and leg lifts standing on all fours, you can consider that the lower body got a good workout on this day.
The second fitness workout (on Wednesday) can be devoted to developing the chest and arm muscles (triceps). For this purpose, reverse push-ups from a chair (3 approaches of 10 repetitions), push-ups from the floor (3 approaches of 10 repetitions), dumbbell press (2 approaches of 30 repetitions) are suitable. You can add the plank exercise (3 times for 60 seconds). It gives an effective load to the whole body.
Friday is a day of back and abdominal training. The exercises for the back muscles are deadlift (2 sets of 20 repetitions) and barbell or dumbbell bent over (2 sets of 20 repetitions). Abs are rocked by twisting (2 sets of 30 repetitions) and leg lifts in prone position (2 sets of 20 repetitions).
To train your back at home, you can also use the exercise “superman” (3 approaches of 10 times). It is performed lying on your stomach: legs straightened and connected, arms stretched forward. The upper and lower limbs are lifted off the floor at the same time, and the pose is fixed for 2-3 seconds.
On Sunday you can work the legs again and pay attention to the shoulders (deltoids). Stress on leg muscles: squats with dumbbells (3 sets of 15 repetitions), lunges with dumbbells (2 sets of 20 repetitions). The delts are also trained with dumbbell exercises: sit-ups (3 sets of 15 repetitions), side-to-side swings (2 sets of 10 repetitions).
Home fitness: basic rules
Fitness training at home can be an equivalent alternative to a gym session if the following rules are followed:
- Each workout should begin with a warm-up (at least 5 minutes) and end with a warm-up.
- The duration of one session is 50-60 minutes (cardio), 40-60 minutes (strength fitness).
- You should train regularly, without skipping classes. Several consecutive absences lead to a decrease in the results achieved.
- The body must have time to recover between workouts. You should not plan more than four strength training sessions a week.
- The first exercises should be performed in a low-intensity mode: low weight of weights, low speed of work. Subsequently, the load should be constantly progressing.
- In strength fitness the intensity is built up mainly by increasing the weight of the weights, in aerobic fitness by accelerating the pace of work.
- It is necessary to adhere to a proper eating regimen: do not eat for about two hours before training, and 1.5-2 hours after training.
When exercising, it is very important to pay attention to your diet. It should be healthy and balanced. Only in combination with a proper diet will training give fast and sustainable results.
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