Home Workouts 101: How to Keep Your Gains While Self-Quarantining

With everyone self-quarantining lately, it seems that we’ve all got the same concerns. How do you stay in shape when you can’t go to the gym?

While a home workout isn’t as good as a full gym workout, it’s still a nice way to keep your gains—and that’s what we’ll be covering today.

You definitely won’t get jacked from a home workout plan, but you can still get lean and shredded, and at least keep much of your gains.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to share the workout routine I’ve been doing from home, in order to keep myself in shape. Let’s go.

Best Home Workout Exercises

Like I said, there’s nothing like hitting the gym. Being able to lift heavy ass weights is the only way to truly get jacked.

That being said, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got. So, with that in mind, here’s some of the best exercises you can do at home.

Best home exercises without equipment:

• Push Ups
• Leg Raises
• Air Squats
• Burpees
• Sit Ups

There’s obviously different variations of these exercises which we will cover, that you can throw in to work different muscle groups.

Best home exercises with equipment:

• Dumbbell Curls
• Tricep Extensions
• Pull Ups
• Weighted Squats

I’ll be covering how to do a full body workout at home both with and without equipment, but I recommend you get some equipment.

Home Workout Equipment

While you can certainly get a decent workout in with calisthenics, you’re going to lose a lot of muscle mass if you’re used to hitting the gym.

Like I said, you can still get fairly shredded with calisthenics, but if you want to maintain your size and strength, equipment is a must.

Here’s the equipment I use:

• 15 Pound Dumbbells (Buy on Amazon)
• Door Way Pull Up Bar (Buy on Amazon)

Just these two pieces of home gym equipment will allow you to do an endless amount of exercises, so I urge you to buy them both.

If you can’t find them online, then that’s fine—you can just do the calisthenics home workout routine, so don’t sweat it.

How to Make Your Own Dumbbells

If you can’t find dumbbells for sale online, then you can actually make your own dumbbells to hit biceps and shoulders at home.

All you do is get two gallon jugs of milk, and use those to do curls and shoulder presses instead. Personally I would recommend this.

It’s hard to hit shoulders and biceps without equipment, so I’d get two gallon jugs, fill them up with sand, and voila—you’ve got 12.5 dumbbells.

Bodyweight Workout Routine

If you can’t get your hands on the home workout equipment I mentioned before, your options for working out will be seriously limited.

That being said, you can still get pretty shredded by just focusing on the sheer volume of calisthenics exercises done at home.

The home workout that you can use without equipment focuses primarily on three different exercises: pushups, air squats, and sit ups.

These three exercises will work your chest, triceps, abs, and leg muscles, and thankfully, you can do them at home without any equipment.

Here’s the routine:

• 20 Push Ups
• 20 Air Squats
• 20 Sit Ups

That’s one set. Depending on how fit you are, you could do up to 15-20 sets per day, but I’d say at least 5 sets per day is a good number to aim for.

This routine is obviously more cardio-intensive, since it’s focusing on volume rather than high weights, so you’ll get a good sweat in.

Full Body Home Workout

Like I said, if you’re just doing calisthenics your options for a full body home workout are extremely limited. Some muscles won’t be hit.

Without equipment, it’s extremely difficult to hit your biceps, for example, without resorting to weird and awkward movements that don’t work.

As I said previously, if you want to hit shoulders and biceps at home, you should get some gallon jugs to substitute as 12.5 dumbbells.

Here’s the full body home workout routine I use:

• Day 1: Back & Shoulders
  • Dumbbell Press: 20×10
  • Pull Ups: 10×10
• Day 2: Legs & Abs
  • Dumbbell Squats: 20×10
  • Dumbbell Lunges: 10×20
  • Leg Raises: 20×10
• Day 3: Chest & Arms
  • Push Ups: 20×10
  • Dumbbell Curls: 30×10
  • Dumbbell Tricep Extensions: 30×10

You should do each of these days in a row, and then on “Day 4” you take a rest day. Then, just rinse, wash, and repeat for as long as you want.

You can also rest for as long as you want in-between sets. Personally, I do the sets throughout the day (maybe 1-2 per hour).

If you want more intensity, just do the sets closer together.

Other Workouts & Exercises

The beauty of this, is that once you have a little bit of fitness knowledge, you can start making your own home workouts to suit your own needs.

There’s a ton of different exercises you can add and subtract from my routine, so you can make one that’s specifically just right for you.

At Home Cardio Exercises

If you want to do HIIT workouts at home, you’ve got plenty of exercises to choose from. The idea is to not use weight, and just focus on volume.

Here’s a list of cardio exercises you can do at home:

• Jumping Jacks
• Burpees
• Air Squats
• High Knees

If you wanted to do an at home cardio workout, for example, you could just do jumping jacks for 2 minutes on, 1 minute off, for half an hour.

The possibilities are endless, and while this may require some creativity, anybody can create a personalized cardio home workout.

At Home Chest Exercises

Most of the chest workouts you’ll be doing at home will revolve around doing push ups, and for obvious reasons—it hits your chest.

Thankfully, there’s a ton of different pushup variations you can do, to spice things up, and focus on different muscle groups, as well.

Here’s a list of push up variations:

• Wide Stance (Hits Chest More)
• Diamond (Hits Triceps More)
• Clapping (Advanced Variation)
• One Arm (Extremely Advanced)

There’s a ton of other variations, but these are the main types of pushups I use. For chest day, I focus on having a wide stance, to isolate the pecs.

At Home Tricep Exercises

Hitting triceps is fairly easy, because there’s a ton of exercises you can do at home to hit them, while also hitting other important muscles.

Here’s a list of tricep exercises you can do at home:

• Tricep Dumbbell Extensions
• Diamond Push Ups
• Clapping Push Ups
• One-Armed Pushups

Most of my home tricep workouts are varied around doing different types of pushups, and tricep dumbbell extensions. These are more than enough.

Summary

In conclusion, not being able to hit the gym is definitely a setback, but it’s nothing that you can’t get around by doing a good home workout.

If you follow the workout I gave you, I can guarantee you’ll stay in shape—hell, you can even make your own home workout if you want, too.

As always, if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments section down below. These are trying times, but we’ll get through it.

I hope you guys enjoyed the article, and more importantly, I hope you all keep your gains while staying safe and self-quarantining. Take care!