When you workout at home – you are your own trainer. You get to decide what type of exercise you want to do and for how long you want to workout. Based on your preferences, you can adjust your workouts and only do exercises you like and replace one if you don’t like.
Don’t like to jump while exercising? You don’t have to. You can replace that exercise with a similar exercise where you don’t need to jump.
This may look like a simple change. But it will help you enjoy your home workouts more. And most likely you will exercise more often.
In this post, I’ll share some important home workout secrets & tweaks that will help you modify your workouts and make them more effective and enjoyable.
Let’s begin.
If you haven’t checked out our previous article on the advantages of home workouts over gym workouts then you should give it a read after this.
1. Multiple workouts per week are better than One.
It’s a secret that not many people know. When you workout from home and most of your exercises are body-weight exercises then you can get better results if you workout multiple times per week.
Wait a minute.
It’s so obvious – that if you exercise more, naturally you will get better results. Then how does it become a home workout secret?
Well, let me explain.
Let’s pick 2 weekly home workout routines, where a person exercises at home for 90 minutes in both cases. But the only difference is – in routine 1, he exercises for 90 minutes (in one session). And in routine 2 – he exercises for the same amount of time in 4 sessions(30+20+20+20 = 90 minutes) on different days.
As you may have already guessed, routine 2 or exercising multiple times during a week will outperform routine 1 and it’s much more efficient & manageable.
The reason some people get better results from exercising at home is that they work out multiple times a week.
2. Focus on one specific muscle group for better results.
In general, people love full-body workouts. Especially, when they work out at home and exercise for 15-30 minutes.
There’s nothing wrong with full-body workouts. In fact – full-body workouts can help you burn more calories, train major muscle groups, improve your flexibility & mobility…
But if you want to tone your body or build muscle while exercising at home then you can get better results – if you focus & train one body part more than others.
In different sessions, you can pick different muscle groups.
Let’s say you want your hands to look toned and you exercise for 20 minutes. Then you should spend 7-12 minutes on exercises that mostly engage your hand muscles. And spend the remaining time for warm-up, stretching and other exercises.
It becomes easier when you exercise for 4+ days. So that in one session you can do a full-body workout and in other sessions, you can focus more on specific body parts.
3. Exercise in the morning if you don’t like exercising that much.
So, if you have read this far then you already know that exercising multiple times during a week makes your home workouts more effective and you also reach your fitness goals faster.
But let’s be real. Everyone doesn’t enjoy exercising because of many reasons. And some people don’t hate exercising but love being lazy. So, they tend to workout 1 or hardly 2 sessions per week.
Exercising 1-2 times per week for 20-25 minutes isn’t that efficient if you truly want to achieve your fitness goals. And even if you eat healthy – that much exercise will take a long time before you see any substantial change in your body shape.
This can demotivate you and you may feel like – ‘exercising is not doing anything for me’ and you may stop exercising altogether.
So, the key lesson here is – if you want to get better results from exercising at home; you have to exercise more often.
The best thing you can do is – complete your workout in the morning.
Some people prefer to workout 10-15 minutes after they leave their bed and some like to exercise in the morning after drinking their tea/coffee. Both are fine. You should give both a try and you will know what works best for you.
Completing your workout in the morning can help you better start your day and you don’t need to worry about exercising for the rest of the day. Read all the benefits of exercising in the morning.
4. Setting a goal makes things more clear & manageable.
On most days activities like – work, sleep, eating, spending time with your family/friends/partner, commuting, social media and entertainment eats more than 90% of the day.
You only get less than 10% of a day (2.4 hours) to do things that will help you relax, grow and improve yourself. You can only do a handful of things within this time.
Setting a measurable home workout goal can help you know better about the results you want to get out of your home workouts. And you can measure your progress as you go.
The benefits of having a clear idea about these 2 things are – you don’t need to try or do a bunch of exercises at the same time. You can focus more on doing & learning only those exercises that are essential to hit your goals.
5. Follow a workout routine for at least a month.
To get the most out of your 20-30 minute home workout session – you should follow a workout routine.
Now, many people do follow a workout routine while they exercise. But the problem is – they don’t stick with it for an adequate amount of time. They always want to try a new thing or want to add an exercise they just saw someone doing.
The point of changing your workout routine is so that your body doesn’t get comfortable doing the same exercises again and again. A new set of exercises or training methods also surprises your body with new challenges. This provides you with better results and you can optimize your workout, diet and daily activities to hit different goals for x amount of time.
For example, you can optimize your workouts and diet to burn more fat for 30-40 days. After that, you can focus on gaining some lean muscle or improving your body flexibility for the next 30-40 days.
Following a workout routine for 30+ days helps you crash specific goals like gaining muscle, reducing body fat, getting toned, improving strength etc.
6. Including weights in your home workout makes it more efficient.
Bodyweight exercises are great but adding some weight makes your home workouts more efficient.
When you look at the most common home workout routines – you can see most of the exercises are bodyweight exercises. It’s a good thing because to follow that workout routine you don’t need any fitness equipment.
But the thing is – including some weights can help you increase the intensity of your home workouts. And it can give you better results in terms of muscle building and toning.
Just a pair of dumbbells can help you better train your biceps, shoulders and many other muscle groups at home. Dumbbells or a kettlebell are also useful to build strong legs.
Squats are one of the best exercises to train your leg muscles. And adding some weights while you do squats can literally change the game.
When you have less time to exercise at home (25-30 minutes) and you are mainly exercising to look more muscular or for toning then you will see better results if you do some exercises with weights.
7. Replace an exercise if you don’t like it.
It’s ok if you don’t like to do an exercise. You can replace it with another exercise that works out similar muscle groups.
A few days ago, I was looking for some new topics to write about. I found out that – some people don’t like to jump while exercising. Well, a list of exercises without any jumping would make an interesting post… I’ll publish it here.
If you are not enjoying your workouts for 1-2 exercises, you can replace those with similar exercises. Especially, if you just started to exercise from home. This can help you not to skip your workouts and it will be easier for you to make it a daily habit.
Once you have been exercising for some time – you will see improvements in your strength & stamina. This will boost your self-confidence. Then, it will be easier for you to pick a difficult exercise and challenge your body. And who knows you might also start to like those exercises you didn’t want to do before.
Is there any specific type of exercise you don’t like? You can tell me about it in the comment section.
8. Don’t jump to advanced stuff early on.
I don’t know if I can call this a home workout secret. You can consider this as a tweak that can help you avoid injuries and build your body the right way.
It’s really tempting to try some advanced stuff early on.
But if you are a beginner then you shouldn’t jump to any advanced exercises without building some muscle strength and stamina.
To get better results and for your safety, you should gradually raise the difficulty level.
9. Stay focused while exercising.
Your home workouts will become more effective if you stay focused while you exercise.
Concentrating more on the exercises not only increases your performance – it also helps you to squeeze in more exercises in short workout sessions.
One of the best ways to focus more on the workout is by limiting your distractions. If you decide to work out for 20 minutes then make sure you exercise for 20 minutes without any interruption.
If you get distracted while you exercise, then the amount of time you don’t exercise gets deducted from your workout session. So, if you get distracted multiple times then you may feel like a workout session of 30 minutes isn’t enough.
The point I want to make here is – in the end, what matters is how much time you are actually exercising in your workout session. And how you are doing those exercises matters even more. These factors hugely affect what kind of results you will get out of your workout sessions. So, try to improve the quality of your workout and for it – you don’t need a lot of time.
10. Do what you can with available resources.
One last thing you can do to improve your home workout habits and get better results from it – don’t listen to your excuses.
There’s one popular quote about this.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Chinese Proverb
For different individuals, the situation or challenges for completing a home workout can vary.
Some may think that they don’t have enough time to exercise because of the type of their job, busy personal life…
Some may think that they need some more equipment to get better results. So, they wait and don’t make the best use of their available resources.
The best thing you can do is to just start.
If you can only manage 10 minutes then exercise for 10 minutes. I know 10 minutes isn’t that much. But far better than doing nothing. And if you can make yourself exercise for 10 minutes EVERY DAY, you will see its positive effects.
Maybe it won’t help you lose lots of fat. But it can indirectly motivate you to make better decisions like – limiting your fast food intake and gradually starting to consume healthy foods…
Maintaining healthy lifestyle practices like this can help you improve your body shape over time. And you will feel satisfied knowing that you did your best to create the best version of yourself.
You have more time than you need to complete a gratifying home workout session.
Here’s a 10-minute home workout video that you can follow along.
One last thing – if you found this post useful give it a share.
