Home workouts have been dominated by P90X, tae-bo and whatever other DVD driven workout you can think of. Contrary to popular belief, kenesthetics have been around since before DVD players and sweatbands. You don’t need a video series to work out at home, just an understanding of human movement. These workouts are great, because you can do them with your kids around and even include them if needed. These kind of workouts are especially good for active recovery days.

The Exercises:

Push-Ups: these in my opinion are one the best body weight movements you can do. You can vary them in near endless ways, to add difficulty or to regress and work on form.

Push-up

Triangle push up/ Close grip

Wide Push up

Spider man Push up

Alternating Push up

Explosive Push up

Push up to Mountain Climber

Burped Push up

Squats: There are an essential lower body movement you can mix up and add to your workouts.

Body Squats

Squat jumps

Single leg Squat

Split Squat

Gorilla Squats

Box Squats to jump

Planks:  One of the best Isometric holds you can do, Planks. These don’t feel like they are doing much for you until you hold them for over a minute or so. These are great to work on core stability which will transfer to your other lifts and workouts.

Traditional Plank

Side Plank

Banana Hold

Front Leaning Rest (hold)

Foam Roller Body Saw + Plank

Sit Ups: Another traditional movement you can mix up and add into your home routine. There are many variations of the sit up.

Traditional Sit up:

Sit Up w/ Twist

Crunches

V-ups

lunges: The lunge can be a grueling addition to your home workouts. These will work your quads, glutes, and hamstrings.

Traditional Lunge

Lunge jumps

Reverse Lunge

Side Lunge

 

Now we know what exercises we can do at home without any equipment. But, what systems can we use these in to get the best workout? Ideally these done in a circuit fashion will yield the best results for the amount of time you have. You can chose 5-6 different exercises and perform a number of reps for each one, moving through with little down time. My favorite circuit is a modified Tabata drill. Tabata is traditionally done in 20 second work phases followed by 5 second rest and each round includes 8 different movements. You can start with 20 seconds of work followed by 5 seconds rest and eventually graduate to 1 minute work with 10 seconds rest and complete 3 rounds. In about 25 minutes you can get a very effective workout. Get yourself a Tabata timer, you can find these for free on the app store.