While many people think the only way to build muscle or lose weight is to go to the gym, there are many other ways to achieve your fitness goals.
Of course, the gym offers a variety of equipment you’ll hardly find anywhere else. Still, it’s possible to transform your body by working out at home – with an appropriate strategy, intensity and consistency.
This article’s primary purpose is to offer insights about home workouts and affordable equipment options for anyone, so we won’t mention anything expensive. You can buy all the suggested gear for under $350 and be assured that you will have a complete full-body workout.
Check other Fitness Articles below!
- How To Create A Workout Plan
- Are Home Workouts Effective? The Truth about Working Out at Home
- What are Isolation and Compound Exercises?
- 7 Core Exercises that Improve your Posture
- 6 Good Exercises To Build A Strong Chest
- 6 Compound Exercises to Build Bigger Legs: It’s Leg Day!
Is it Effective to Workout at Home?
Yes, it is. Like in the gym, the results you achieve will depend on the intensity of your workout, the way you eat, adequate rest interval, good nights sleep, and more.
There are several compound exercises that you can incorporate into your home workout plan, making it as challenging as your gym workout. Your results will depend on three things: consistency, hard (and efficient) work, and time.
This means that you should also be concerned about executing every movement correctly so that you can get the most out of each workout – and avoid injury.
As always, we recommend that you see your doctor or a personal trainer to understand how you can plan an effective workout routine for your body – and avoid injuries. Remember that each organism is unique, so easy exercises for me can be difficult or more uncomfortable for you – and vice versa.
How do I Create a Home Workout Plan?
1. Choose the Right Strategy
First of all, you need to have a home workout in line with your goals. If your goal is to gain muscle mass, you must divide your workout to work all the muscles, focusing on strength and hypertrophy training. Therefore, your focus should be on increasing the load or difficulty of the exercises over time – in a continuous progression.
If your goal is to lose weight, you can focus more on aerobic, cardiovascular, HIIT workouts, among others. The premise of these types of physical activity is to raise your heart rate so that your metabolism stays high and you burn more calories.
Regardless of your goals, the best strategy would be to combine aerobic and anaerobic exercises to improve your overall fitness. By focusing only on weight lifting, you’re giving up your cardiovascular health. In contrast, aerobic exercise will improve your endurance, but it won’t be as effective for maintaining and building muscle.
2. Focus on your Weaknesses
You must identify your weaknesses, whether they are strength, endurance, muscle asymmetries, or whatever you believe you can improve.
Many people end up not training specific muscles for not having the patience or simply finding the workout boring. If you’ve ever skipped a leg or abdominal workout because you were lazy, you know what I’m talking about!
Keep in mind that all your muscles play an essential role in your body, so you should exercise all of them.
Imagine that you could be consistent with your workout for a year, improving your fitness, but not training your legs as you should. Now, you have a fit upper body, but your legs are underdeveloped – in terms of performance and even aesthetics. To solve this problem, you will have to focus all your training on your legs – sooner or later. It’s just not worth it!
3. How Often Will You Do your Workouts?
The next step is to stipulate how many days you will work out per week. Be realistic, accept your limitations and set a training frequency you can stick to.
Most beginners end up focusing on unattainable goals, and when faced with the reality that they won’t be able to stick to the plan, they feel discouraged and give up.
If you are already at a more advanced level and have the discipline to train 5 times a week, great! If you are starting out, have a reasonable goal and believe that you will get there over time.
When you realize you are executing what you planned, you will feel more motivated and, as a result, will be more consistent – regardless of how often or how intensely you work out.
4. Creating a Home Workout Plan
Now that you have the right mindset to progress on your fitness journey, it’s time to create a full-body home workout plan.
As we mentioned earlier, how you work your muscles will depend on your goals, so keep in mind that there is no magic formula for your workout. Each body is unique, and only you – and a qualified professional – will be able to say which is the best strategy.
Here’s an example of my current home workout routine:
| Day | Activities |
| Monday | Legs Workout |
| Tuesday | Abs Workout + Running |
| Wednesday | Chest and Deltoids/Chest and Triceps |
| Thursday | Off |
| Friday | Back and Biceps Workout |
| Saturday | Running |
| Sunday | Legs Workout |
As you can see, I currently work out 6 times a week, dividing muscle groups into 4 days – which are repeated at the end of the routine.
Right now, I’m focusing more on the chest, legs and back, so I do fewer triceps and biceps exercises. My shoulder workout is focused on lateral and rear deltoids, as I do 160 push-ups (with different variations), which recruit a lot of the anterior deltoid.
It’s precisely because I focus on compound exercises – such as pull-ups and push-ups – that I do fewer shoulder, biceps and triceps exercises. These muscles are already recruited naturally during some compound exercises.
It is important to remember that you will need to work with different variations and angles to build muscle symmetrically with equal strength. A chest workout should focus on the upper chest, mid-chest and lower chest, for example.
If you want to go deeper, check out this other workout routine I created a short while ago. You will understand better what I mean!
Cheap Workout Equipment for Home
Now that you understand some of the theory let’s get down to business. The equipment you’ll see below are items I’m currently using, and they’re doing the job perfectly. Therefore, we will focus on good quality, well-reviewed and low-priced products.
I currently live in Ireland, and since the beginning of the pandemic, I have not been able to maintain my workout at the gym in almost two years. The gyms opened and closed several times, and 4 months ago, I moved to a small town in the countryside – that doesn’t have a single gym. The only solution to maintain my conditioning was training at home, so it’s been almost 2 years of experience – testing every single exercise possible.
1. Pull-Up Bar
In short, pull-ups are one of the most complete bodyweight compound exercises. A single pull-up recruits so many muscles, it’s hard to think of another exercise as effective for a back workout.
Pull-ups help to develop your back, core, arms and shoulders. It’s definitely a must for your home workout.
2. Gymnastics Rings
Gymnastic rings can be considered secondary items, so you don’t have to buy them now – especially if you’re just starting your fitness journey. You can attach the rings to your pull-up bar to make exercises even more challenging.
Some of the exercises I usually do with gymnastic rings are:
- Ring Dip: A great exercise to build a stronger chest and shoulders.
- Ring Press-Up: Another chest exercise variation that also recruits your posterior deltoids.
- Ring Inverse Row: This is an excellent exercise for your back workout that will help you build strength, especially if you still can’t do your first pull-up.
- L-Sit: A great core exercise that will strengthen your abs. You will definitely feel your abs burning!
3. Push-Up Board or Push-Up Stand Bars
Although you can do push-ups on the ground without any equipment, push-up boards are great for giving you ideas of variations and different grips.
Also, as your hands are slightly higher than the ground, it gives you more range of motion to target the chest more efficiently. You will definitely feel a greater stretch during the lowering phase of the push-up (negative).
If you want to spend a little less, you can also use push-up stand-bars to provide a heavy chest workout.
I’ve mentioned this in other articles, but I still feel that my chest has developed a lot more with push-ups than with the exercises I did at the gym. It’s a particular experience, but I’ve definitely gained more strength doing push-ups in the last few months than years of bench press.
4. Resistance Bands
Resistance bands are a must, as they are the ones that will help you create more resistance and increase the load during your workouts – without having to spend a lot of money on weight.
You can attach them anywhere, so you can create mechanisms similar to gym equipment in your own home. With resistance bands, you can do full-body workouts with the intensity you need in your training.
5. Dumbbels or Kettlebells
This is where prices tend to go up a bit. The truth is, sooner or later, you will need dumbbells or kettlebells to progress with your workout routine.
The price of these equipment varies according to their weight – the heavier, the more expensive – so if you intend to permanently replace your gym with a home workout, you will need to buy some dumbbells or kettlebells to improve your training.
I do most resistance bands or bodyweight exercises, but for me, the legs workout simply demands dumbbells or kettlebells. If you’ve done some squats or deadlifts with resistance bands, you know what I’m talking about. It’s just not the same thing, and you’ll need to do a lot more reps to fatigue your muscles – prolonging your workout.
6. Adjustable Bench
This is also a secondary item, but it will make all the difference to your workout – especially if you’re not a beginner. When I started training at home, I used regular chairs, my couch, or anything I could sit on, but it’s definitely not the same thing.
In addition to the bench ensuring proper posture during the execution of the movement, it will allow you to do numerous variations of exercises, with different angles, stably and safely.
If you have an adjustable bench and some dumbbells, you can do most of the movements you would do in a gym!
Founder and Editor of TheLifesty. Passionate about Health & Fitness and enthusiast about changes. Interested in everything that improves the quality of life.