Guys and girls pursue different goals when playing sports. If it is important for men to pump up their muscles by gaining the maximum amount of mass, then for girls it is enough to make their figure slim and tighten their muscles. In modern life, each of us has a lot of worries and problems, which negatively affects the amount of free time. As a result, not everyone has the opportunity to visit the gym and decides to train at home. To achieve positive results, you need to correctly create a training program, choosing the best exercises and optimal load. It is also necessary to create a training schedule at home. We will pay attention to all these aspects today.
How to organize home workouts?
The most important difference between training at home and training in the gym is the small variety of sports equipment and equipment.
This fact, in turn, limits the athlete’s choice of exercises, and can also complicate the progression of the load, without which progress is impossible. If you decide to practice at home, then you will need to purchase some equipment, without which you will not be able to practice. The first thing you should think about is purchasing dumbbells. Thanks to this, you can expand the list of movements available to you and effectively pump all muscle groups. Surely you know that dumbbells can be either collapsible or solid. Men are recommended to purchase the first type of this sports equipment, as it makes it easier to progress the load. Solid dumbbells are also quite suitable for girls.
If you want to train with maximum efficiency and create the right training schedule at home, then you will need a horizontal bar. If you decide to install it at home, you can use a spacer or wall-mounted one. The first type of horizontal bar is designed for installation in a doorway, and the wall type is designed to be mounted on the wall. Men also need parallel bars. If you do not have space in your apartment to install a horizontal bar and bars, then you can use the equipment that is located at school stadiums.
Choosing a home workout goal
To conduct effective classes, you first need to decide on your task.
This largely determines the home workout schedule that you will have to adhere to in the future. If you want to gain weight, we will immediately warn you that doing this at home will not be very easy. To gain muscle mass, you need to have not only a large number of sports equipment and equipment, but also various attributes, for example, benches. To accommodate at least the minimum required equipment, you will need a lot of space. In our opinion, the optimal tasks that you can set for yourself and solve them are the following:
- Losing weight.
- Opportunity to pump up muscles.
- Improve physical fitness.
- Increase endurance.
- Improve health.
Basic principles of training at home
When you decide on the task of your studies, you need to remember the basic principles. These will then form the basis of your home workout schedule. By following these principles, you can avoid a large number of mistakes common to beginners.
- Planning.
It doesn't matter where you train. Your attitude towards your studies is much more important. You must understand that at first it will be quite difficult for you to integrate into the new routine of life. Often household chores turn out to be a higher priority for a person, and he is forced to ignore his activities. Once you create a schedule for training at home and decide on the time for it, you must strictly adhere to it. It is also worth training at the same time every day. - Diversity.
Your workouts should be varied. To do this, you will have to periodically make changes to the lesson program. Introduce new movements and combine them with those already mastered. This will not only allow you to get rid of boredom during monotonous training, but will also prevent your body from getting used to the load. It is also important to ensure that all muscle groups are loaded evenly. - High-quality sports equipment.
If you have firmly decided to train at home and achieve your goals, then you do not need to skimp on sports equipment. First, familiarize yourself with the products offered to you, read reviews and choose the best option for yourself. To be in good physical shape, you need to exercise regularly, and you buy sports equipment for a long time. - Regularity.
Many novice athletes jump at everything right away. They are sure that this way they can quickly achieve their goals, but in practice everything turns out to be completely different. Do not start training using heavy dumbbell weights. The load should increase gradually. You must be able to listen to your body, which will always tell you when you need to add or, on the contrary, stop. If you often experience pain after exercise, then most likely you overloaded yourself or violated your movement technique. - Nutrition.
The effectiveness of your workouts largely depends on nutrition. Even if you have created an ideal workout schedule at home, if your diet contains few essential nutrients, you will not be able to achieve a positive result. If you are working out to eliminate excess body fat, reduce your calorie intake and limit your fat and carbohydrate intake. If the goal of the training is to gain weight, then the energy value of the nutrition program should be high, and the amount of protein compounds consumed should also be controlled.
Weekly activity plan for your child
At the request of the girls, I want to tell you in more detail how I create a weekly lesson plan for my child. I’ll say right away that I tried many times to make plans or use checklists, but somehow nothing stuck with me, I was constantly thinking in a hurry about what to play today, something always didn’t work for me, or the plan wasn’t specific enough. As a result, through trial and failure, I have been sticking to a plan for several weeks now, which I draw up on Sunday, spending literally 5-10 minutes, attaching it to the refrigerator with magnets, and every day I see exactly what we will do today. My table looks like this:
As you can see, the categories of activities are indicated in the top line, and the days of the week in the left column. I decided that I wanted to pay at least a little attention to each category every day. Previously, we worked on one category on a certain day of the week, but it was a bit boring for me, so I changed the system. The table is ready now all that remains is to fill it out. In order to easily and quickly fill out this table, I have prepared for myself a basic list of activity options in each category, here is an example:
This list is approximate, more precisely what game we will play or what topic we will study, I already indicate directly in the table itself, for example, in the list in the category “Speech development and reading” there is an item “learning poetry”, in the table I write under in this category which verse we will teach, or in the “Creativity” category, applique item, in the table under the “Creativity” category I write what kind of application we will make, and so on. This list helps us quickly decide what we will do every day, and not sit and remember what games and educational activities are in each category, and thus not miss important topics and skills for the child. Ideally, I thought of making a list of all the games and activities for my daughter. I have it, but I realized that in fact it’s not real, it changes quickly, interests and topics themselves change, so the best option for us is a basic list that can be adjusted to different ages and topics and played 100 times from all sides . Therefore, I think that my table and list can be suitable for children of different ages. I organize the material for classes using the “7 folders” system, which saves a lot of time. Thus, we conduct full-fledged classes every day without spending a lot of time on preparation. You can learn more about the “7 folders” system here If you liked my planning method, you can download both the table and list here Weekly lesson plan Lesson options If you have any questions, write - I’ll be happy to answer in the comments
What exercises should you do at home?
Before you create a workout schedule at home, you need to decide on the most effective movements.
- Push ups.
Depending on your fitness level, you can perform different variations of this exercise. Push-ups will help you strengthen your triceps, deltoids, and pectoral muscles. - Squats.
An excellent exercise for training legs. When performing it, the buttocks, quadriceps and thigh muscles are involved. For girls, this movement will help tighten their buttocks and make their legs slender. - Twisting.
There are several types of this movement that will help you effectively develop your abdominal muscles. - Pull-ups.
This movement perfectly strengthens the muscles of the arms and back. It must be included in your curriculum. When creating a workout schedule at home, keep this in mind.
Training schedule for women
The goal of women's training programs is to lose weight and create sexy volume in the buttocks, as well as tighten the muscles in the triceps, back and other parts of the body in order to look young, lean and sexy. For girls, unlike guys, there is no point in dividing their training schedule into the stage of gaining weight, working on strength indicators and “drying”. It is best to find your equilibrium point of caloric balance and manipulate your nutrition depending on the goal that you currently set for yourself. Finding such a point is not difficult! You must create a nutrition schedule for yourself, and it can be absolutely anything, after which you must adhere to it every day, gradually reducing or increasing the caloric intake so as to reach a caloric intake at which your weight will remain unchanged. When you find this point, it will be very easy for you to slightly reduce the amount of your diet to start losing weight, or increase it to start gaining weight.
The duration of women's training depends on the level of fitness of the athlete; if you have just started playing sports, then circuit training, which takes about 70-80 minutes, is suitable for you. If you are already a fairly experienced athlete, then you need to train at a more intense pace and split your training schedule into muscle groups, in which case training should not last more than an hour. You can see an example of a training split here. Of course, you are unlikely to care about muscle hypertrophy, but the point is not that by training longer, you will destroy more contractile proteins during training than your body will be able to restore, but that you will do this systematically, which will eventually lead to overtraining. Therefore, it is better to go a little at a time towards the goal for a long time than to make a breakthrough and then stop.
The best time to workout depends on what you do. We are, of course, discussing anaerobic exercise with iron here, but girls are creatures that can do many things at once, so let's look at the different types of physical activity. 6 am is the ideal time to do yoga because at this time the body temperature is very low, especially for girls. 8 am is the best time for cardio training, since you have not eaten anything yet, glycogen reserves are depleted, as a result of which the body will actively utilize subcutaneous fat. 14.00-16.00 is the ideal time for aerobic exercise. 19.00 is the best time to work out in the gym, since the body temperature is high, the risk of injury is low, and the hormonal background is most favorable for weight training. From 20.00 to 21.00 you can swim in the pool for an hour, but not too intensely.
schedules depend on the physical fitness of the athlete. If you give your muscles a fairly serious load during each individual workout, then they need to recover longer. In this regard, at the initial stage, girls can train the entire body each workout, giving preference to training the lower body. For example, you can do 3 exercises for the bottom and 2 for the top, adding 1 abdominal exercise at the end of the workout. You can train like this every other day. At a more advanced stage, you should split your workouts into working out the lower and upper body. In this case, you can train your lower body on one day, your upper body on the second day, rest on the third day, and then repeat the program again. At the most advanced stage, you split up your workouts by muscle group, training each muscle group once a week.
Other useful materials
Home Study Program
We will now present to your attention an indicative training program.
You can use it completely, or use it as a basis when creating your own training schedule at home. This program is suitable not only for beginner athletes, but also for those with experience. For girls, we recommend halving the number of sets and then gradually increasing them. You must remember that each session should begin with a warm-up.
This will warm up your muscles and reduce the risk of injury. During this period, use jumping rope, swinging movements with your arms and legs, running in place, squats and jumping. 1st training day
- Pull-ups - If you can do multiple pull-ups, it's worth using additional weights. Perform five sets, and the number of repetitions in each will be from 3 to 4.
- Dumbbell Curls - Make sure to keep your arms close to your body as you perform the movement. Perform three sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 10.
- Squats - Make sure to keep your heels pressed into the ground at all times. Perform five sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 20.
2nd training day
- Dips - Perform three sets of 10 reps each.
- Squats - Perform five sets of 20 reps each.
- Pull-ups - perform three sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 5.
- Dumbbell overhead curls—perform four sets of 10 reps each.
3rd training day
- Pull-ups - perform three sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 4.
- Push-ups - perform three sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 10.
- Calf raises with weights (dumbbells) - perform four sets, and the number of repetitions in each is 15.
- Squats - Perform five sets of 20 reps each.
After training, you should do a cardio session if your goal is to lose weight. Girls can safely use a skipping rope for this. If your financial capabilities allow, you can buy an exercise bike or treadmill.
Training schedule for beginners
The most important factor regulating the quantity, quality, duration and volume of training is the goal. The most important goal of novice athletes is to prepare their body for future training in the gym. The first 3-4 months should be devoted to building the foundation! If you immediately start chasing weights, jumping at different training programs and exercises without creating a preliminary base, then the period of adaptation of the body will take a very long time. Most likely, you will not see results in the first six months, and after a year, you will stop playing sports altogether. The reason for this is incorrectly set priorities! Therefore, do not run ahead of the locomotive, making mistakes that can be avoided.
The muscles, central nervous system, neuromuscular connection , as well as the respiratory, cardiovascular and other systems of the body are still completely unprepared, so it is optimal during this period to exercise often, but not much. The schedule should consist of circuit training every other day. During this period, large muscle groups should be trained with basic exercises. You can find the optimal training program here . The duration of each workout should not exceed 40 minutes, so you should rest no more than 60 seconds between sets. It is strictly forbidden to progress the load! Moreover, you should work with a weight that is light for you. The technique of performing the exercises is ideal. You can find the rest of the training principles here.
Diary of class schedule
To make it easier for you to control and progress the load, we recommend starting to keep a diary of your exercises.
After each training, you need to write down the number of sets and approaches in them, as well as the working weights in all exercises. It is also worth tracking the appearance of your body, recording the results in a diary. Depending on the rate of your progress, you will need to make changes to your home workout schedule. You can find a training program online, but it is better to create one yourself. It is very important to adhere to the principles that we talked about above.
How to build muscles by training at home, watch this video:
Weight training schedule
The goal of training during this period is hypertrophy of muscle fibers, so the training system must create adequate muscle stress and allow the body to restore it. On the other hand, in addition to contractile proteins, you also train energy, the central nervous system, the cardiovascular system and, in general, force the body to comprehensively adapt to your training program. In this regard, the training schedule requires mandatory microperiodization, and at a more advanced level, even macroperiodization. In practice, this is expressed in the alternation of “light”, “medium” and “heavy” training, as well as training complexes. The difficulty of workouts varies based on the muscle and non-muscle qualities they train.
The duration of training should not exceed 60 minutes, but this time does not include warm-up. That is, you come to the gym, warm up, stretch, warm up, all this takes about 10-20 minutes. After this, you place an empty bar on the rack and begin to perform the first approach at a very slow pace - from this moment you count down 60 minutes. You can often hear that this time is not enough, that “you can’t do anything in 60 minutes.” Is it so? Let's count!
Let's say you train two muscle groups during a workout and perform 15 working approaches for each, in total you do as many as 30 approaches. Before each exercise, you do 2 warm-up approaches, between which, of course, there is no rest. Each approach takes you from 30 to 50 seconds. So, 30 sets of 50 seconds is 25 minutes, rest between each set of 60 seconds is another 30 minutes, warm-up sets take from 5 to 10 minutes. In total , we get a maximum of 65 minutes of training.
The best time to train depends on what type of muscle fiber you are training. Since by mass training we mean training both oxidative and fast muscle fibers, it is optimal to conduct such training in the evening. The bottom line is that in the afternoon the body temperature is higher than in the morning, and this has a beneficial effect on the work of high-threshold fast muscle fibers. In addition, in the evening the hormonal background is more favorable: there is more testosterone and less cortisol. However, if you are a “morning person”, that is, you are used to being awake during the day, then, most likely, the optimal training time for you will be 3-4 o’clock in the afternoon, while for a “night owl” - 7-8 o’clock in the evening.
The training schedule in the gym for gaining muscle mass may vary depending on how you split up the training of different muscle groups. If you train 1 large and 1 small muscle group per workout, and use microperiodization of large muscle groups, then you can train every other day. It is recommended to group the chest with the biceps, the back with the triceps, and the legs with the shoulders, since these muscles are antagonistic.
If your training schedule involves training large muscle groups separately from small ones, then you will have to train more often, so it is important to group consecutive workouts so that training the previous muscle group does not interfere with training the next one. For example , you can train your legs on Monday, your chest on Tuesday, rest on Wednesday, train your back on Thursday, shoulders on Friday, and arms on Saturday. You can combine arm and shoulder training, or add middle and rear delt training to your chest workout, and front delt training to your back workout.
Strength training schedule
The goal of strength training is the development of glycolytic and high-threshold fast muscle fibers, as well as a method of energy supply to muscles due to the breakdown of creatine phosphate. You can train both muscle fibers on average once every two weeks, so between such workouts you should also pay attention to oxidative fibers. In other words, a strength training schedule also involves microperiodization, and more complex than the one you use when gaining muscle mass. Since power schemes differ in specialization, we will not consider a specific scheme here; you can familiarize yourself with them in the training programs .
The duration of training should also not exceed 60 minutes, since after this time the level of testosterone begins to decrease and cortisol increases, so catabolic processes prevail over anabolic ones. In this regard, the strength training schedule ideally involves splitting the training into 2 days. The bottom line is that to restore creatine phosphate, you need 5 to 10 minutes of rest between sets, so 5-6 sets of a basic exercise can take up the entire workout. If you are not a professional powerlifter, then this is of no use to you; you can perform one basic exercise and two auxiliary exercises per workout, although the effectiveness of such training, of course, will be lower.
The best time for training , of course, is in the evening for the reasons stated above. But, in addition to increased testosterone levels and increased strength indicators, by training in the evening, you also reduce the likelihood of injury. The reduced risk of injury is again associated with body temperature. If your biorhythms do not allow you to train in the evening, then, of course, it is much better to train in the morning, since lethargy neutralizes all the benefits that evening training provides. In addition, neuromuscular communication is better in the morning, since the brain is not yet clogged from sleep. If you have a flexible schedule, then this is not a problem, since bad training is better than no training!
scheme looks something like this: training the glycolytic muscle fibers of one large muscle group, then training the oxidative muscle fibers of another, followed by a third training of the high-threshold fast muscle fibers of the third. Between these workouts there may be other auxiliary workouts. In fact, strength programs are really very different from each other; there are a lot of techniques that allow you to achieve results in different exercises. There are athletes whose chest lags behind, then they pay more attention to it, others have a weak point - their back, so we will analyze specific training programs separately. Now it is important to understand that training for strength is training very special muscle qualities that allow you to develop the maximum speed of contraction of muscle fibers in a very short time, and there are many of these qualities, and their recovery time varies, so the strength training schedule necessarily includes microperiodization .
Drying training schedule
The goal of training in this case is to reduce subcutaneous fat and preserve muscle tissue. In fact, it is not training that is responsible for fat reduction, but diet, since the body utilizes fat when it does not have enough calories to cover its energy costs. If you are planning to lose weight, then we recommend you a carbohydrate diet , since, in addition to the fat-burning effect, it also helps maintain strength indicators. Exercise can really help you lose weight, but it can only help because fat is broken down during exercise. Moreover, there are methods to speed up fat reduction at a certain point, which you can read more about here. As for the training schedule, it should be divided into anaerobic and aerobic training.
The duration of both aerobic and anaerobic training should not exceed 40 minutes. The bottom line is that in conditions of a lack of nutrients, catabolic processes begin faster, and if, while gaining muscle mass, you can level them out by eating fast carbohydrates, then in this case you are very limited in your capabilities. So don't take unnecessary risks! In general, we recommend using training to maintain muscle mass rather than to break down fat. If you are counting on the reduction of fat deposits from sports, then this is not effective. Dietary restrictions will have a much greater effect, since whether you will lose weight or not depends on the ratio of calories and energy consumption, and increasing energy consumption is more difficult than reducing calorie intake. For example, 100g of rice contains 290 Kcal, and in 1 hour of jogging you will spend 600 Kcal. It’s clear that running for an hour is more difficult than eating 200 grams of rice per day less.
The best time to exercise depends on whether it is anaerobic or aerobic. If your training schedule includes both types of training, then there should be at least 6 hours of rest between them. It is best to run in the morning and train in the evening. Don’t be surprised by this advice, because although sport does not burn fat, it breaks it down, as a result of which lipid metabolism occurs more easily. In addition, we are talking about the fact that diet is the main thing in losing weight, but when you combine diet with sports, the process is much more fun. However, if you are ready to lose weight over a longer period of time and want to preserve muscle mass as much as possible, then you should abandon aerobic training, leaving only anaerobic training in your training schedule.
schemes for “cutting”: 1 – for natural bodybuilders, 2 – for athletes who indulge in pills. If you do not take any androgenic drugs, then you should leave your usual training split for weight, slightly reducing its volume in order to destroy muscle cells less, because it will be more difficult for the body to restore them in conditions of caloric deficiency. If you indulge in anabolic steroids, then you can allow yourself to perform exercises in a large number of repetitions of 15-20, use supersets and stuff like that. However, even if you use steroids, then by exercising according to the classical scheme, you will still preserve your muscles better. You can also add jogging or race walking to your training schedule.
