Exercising from Home Quickstart Guide
Build the Foundation For Your Fitness Journey
Welcome to our Quickstart Guide!
Starting your fitness journey can be a daunting hurdle. Every one of us is unique: we have different genetics, knowledge, body types, and so on. Some of us who are already more active day to day have an easier time starting their fitness journey than others who lead a less active lifestyle.
But no matter where you’re starting, simply by coming to this page, you’ve already taken the first step on your fitness journey. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back! Now let’s dig in.
Proper Form, Safety, and Rest
Before going any further, we always want to remind ourselves that whenever performing any exercise, the #1 priority is proper form and safety.
Yes, we want to challenge our bodies, but we can’t sacrifice form so we can run a mile in a certain time, lift a certain amount of weight, or stretch a way our body isn’t ready for yet. Once we sacrifice form, we not only sacrifice the quality of the exercise, but we open up our bodies to injury.
Never sacrifice form to try and achieve a goal your body hasn’t earned yet.
Performing an exercise with bad form can be one of the worst things you can do when working out because you put your own safety and the safety of those around you at risk.
Also, don’t forget your body needs to rest! Pushing your body to the brink of exhaustion may be the goal of a given workout, but doing so over a long time will inevitably lead to burnout.
Along those same lines, when strength training, muscles don’t grow when lifting weights: they grow when our body repairs the muscle while we’re resting. Listen to your body and don’t be ashamed if you need to let your body repair itself.
Why Workout from Home?
Full disclosure: at the time of me writing this, I work out from home four days each week and go to a commercial gym the other three days. Now you may be asking yourself why I’m promoting working out from home. Good question!
Like most, if not all, of us, I too have had times I’ve fallen out of my routine, sometimes longer than others. But the times I’ve really fallen off track, I’ve always been able to get back on track by spending the first month or two only working out at home. For me, starting with only working out from home has been about building a foundation of strength and endurance because if I’m not starting with much, I don’t need to spend the time and money at a gym, but here’s some other reasons home gym enthusiasts choose their home over a commercial gym:
Convenience: It’s hard getting back into a routine, so by being able to work out without leaving my home makes it easier to build the habits again.
Cost-Effective: Depending on which gym or classes you want to go to, you can see the bill starting to creep up. Working out from home, however, you can set up your home gym with limited investment and find low-cost online workout routines so you can workout as it fits your schedule.
Privacy: Especially when starting out, some of us may feel self-conscious about our appearance or our fitness level. By working out from home, you don’t have to worry about anyone else seeing you.
Personalization: When working out from home, the gym is yours, and you’re free to set it up however you see fit with whatever equipment suits your goals.
Family Connection: Working out from home is a great way to build a strong relationship with your significant other, your children, or even your neighbors. You keep each other accountable and you set great example for those around you.
Goal Setting
What do you want to achieve? Again, all of us are unique, so we don’t all have the same goals. Do you want to be able to run a mile in 8 minutes? Do you want to be able to bench press 225 lbs? Do you want to be able to do the splits? Do you want to lose (or gain) 25 lbs?
Whatever your goal is, make sure you write it down somewhere you will see it every day. This will remind you of your goal and help you stay on track.
You will also want to track your progress towards those goals. If your goal is to lose weight, measure your weight at least once per week. If your goal is to lift more weight, track your reps and weight each to you perform that lift. Seeing gradual progress can be a great motivator towards your goals.
When setting your goals, try to make them “SMART” goals, which means they are:
- Specific: Be very detailed in what your goal is. Having vague goals can subconsciously keep you from reaching tme.
- Measurable: Make the goal something you can measure. Saying “I want to look good” is not a measurable goal, but saying I want to reduce 3″ off my waist is.
- Attainable: Make the goal something you can realistically achieve. You may want to lose 100 lbs by tomorrow, but that’s not an attainable goal through diet and exercise.
- Relevant: Make sure the goal relates to your fitness routine. Having a goal of reading a world history book isn’t relevant to your fitness routine.
- Time-Bound: Set a date for when you want to achieve your goal. This way, as the date approaches, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel while staying motivated to stay on track.
Setting Up Your Workout Area
How you set up your workout area is completely up to you, but to get started with the very bare minimum, we can suggest the following three things that can be used in a variety of exercises:
- Adjustable Dumbbells
- Foam Mat
- Exercise Ball
With just these three items, you can complete plenty of full-body workouts!
Depending on your goals, you can pick and choose which pieces of equipment to add to your home gym, such as a treadmill or elliptical. However, we strongly suggest at least a set of adjustable dumbbells, a foam mat, and an exercise ball. With only these three items, you can do:
Cardio: A cardio workout by moving exercise to exercise with little to no rest. For example, you can do one exercise for 60 seconds, rest for 15 seconds, and move to the next exercise. By limiting how much rest you take, your heart rate will increase quickly.
Strength Training: By adjusting to heavier weights. Here’s a fun tip: You can use the exercise ball to do dumbbell chest presses by laying with your back on the exercise ball and pressing the dumbbells up.
Yoga: Perform yoga poses on the foam mat. The foam mat may not be as ideal as an actual yoga mat, but the foam mat provides the flexibility of being used between a strength training workout and a yoga workout.
As you continue your fitness journey, you will continue to learn and adjust your goals, so you will inevitably add a new piece of equipment here and there, but these three items alone are a good starting point because you can perform such a wide variety of workouts with them.
Visit our articles section to see our product reviews to see what other products we recommend.
Motivation vs. Discipline
I work out before I go to my job between 7 or 7:30 AM, so to get a good workout in, I have to wake up at 4:00 AM. When I tell people this, their eyes go wide and they ask “how do you have the motivation to do that!?”
Honestly, I don’t. I don’t have the motivation to wake up at 4:00 AM every day and exercise.
But what I do have is what many call the discipline to exercise every day, but I prefer to call it “my routine”. My routine is to wake up at 4:00 AM, make my bed, brush my teeth, get dressed, and go workout.
Every day. I’ve had days when I was up until almost midnight because of work, but I still woke up at 4:00 AM to work out because that’s my routine. Did I have a great workout? Probably not, to be honest, but I maintained my routine and continued progressing towards my goals.
No excuses. It’s easy to say you’re too tired or too busy or not feeling well or whatever excuse you can come up with. But as soon as you make an excuse once, it’s easier to make another excuse the next day, and the next day, and so on. Don’t cheat yourself out of your goals.
You deserve to live a happy and healthy life, but you must earn it.
You don’t feel motivated to chase your goals today? Too bad, do it anyways. Even if it’s a lackluster workout, you’re still moving forward. Once you can do that, the process becomes a whole lot easier.
Keep Learning
Now that we’ve set the groundwork – understanding the importance of proper form and the positives of working out from home, setting your goals, picking out the first set of equipment for your home gym, and accepting you won’t always be motivated to work out – it’s time for you to learn more about the type of workouts you’d like to start with.
You can read our core articles on cardio, strength training, and yoga to learn more about each type of exercise, or you can check out our article section where we provide ongoing resources, such as how-to guides, product reviews, or general fitness information.
Remember, your fitness journey is truly a journey and although your fitness goals may be focused on physical improvements, remember to always keep learning. By continuously learning, you learn new exercises or techniques that can help you continue moving towards your goals.
Time to Get Started!
Starting something new, especially a new workout routine, can be an intimidating step forward. But now that we’ve covered the basics of a good workout routine, like safety, setting goals, and continuously learning, you have the foundation to get started.
We also covered how to keep going and how discipline beats motivation every time. You won’t feel like working out every time, but even a workout at 50% is better than 0%.
We hope this guide helps set a good foundation for you as you begin your workout routine from home. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to Contact Us so we can continue to help!