7 Proven Methods To Getting Jacked at Home
Ahhh shit, here we go again.
Like most people, I didn’t like Lockdown 1.0.
Quarantining sucks.
I hate this as much as the next person, however, this doesn’t mean you’ll lose your hard-earned gains.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a garage gym in their home. However, you can 100% still make progress during Lockdown 2.0, even when life is presenting you with suboptimal circumstances. You can still effectively train while at home - it just requires a more intelligent approach to your training.
Obviously, there are hundreds, if not thousands of different variations for each basic bodyweight foundational movement out there, yet it comes back to doing the basics well. Strength tools, such as kettlebells, resistance bands, dumbbells, barbells, and sandbags are all useless if you cannot properly execute the fundamentals - mastering your own body.
I’m writing this article because I want to let you know that you still can still make progress while training at home.
How To Effective Build Muscle Under Lockdown
When it comes to building muscle and maximizing your progress, you have to understand that muscles are dumb. Muscles only understand tension, not the equipment used to generate said tension. So, if you can sufficiently challenge a muscle, you can absolutely maintain or even build muscle, even if all you have are some resistance bands, light dumbbells, and (obviously) your bodyweight.
This is known as progressive overload, and this is essential to maximizing your at-home progress. Progressive overload is simply “doing more overtime” and it’s the main driver for both gaining strength and muscle while continuously making progress. In fact, it is one of the oldest, most researched, and well-established training principles.
The first thing people usually associate with progressive overload is adding more weight to the bar. Since your under lockdown, your access to more weight (aka load) will be significantly limited. The truth is adding weight (aka load) to the bar is only one method of adhering to progressive overload and maximizing your progress. There are many different ways to progressively challenge your body at home.
Below, you’ll find 6 intense ways to maximize your muscle growth using basic bodyweight exercises and/or light-ish dumbbells/kettlebells. As a bonus, a lot of these methods will dramatically improve your mind-muscle connection. Not only these methods help you enjoy at-home training they will also immediately pay dividends upon returning to the gym.
1) Isometric Hold Combos
Without question, this is one of my favorite methods for making at-home exercises more challenging WHILE stimulating muscle growth. In addition, these are excellent at building the mind-muscle connection, which is the simple act of consciously feeling your muscle work to enhance muscle growth and activation. The more full and effectively you engage your muscles, the more they’ll grow.
Overall, these are pretty simple and straightforward. You’ll start each set with an isometric hold, then perform a full range of motion reps.
Coaching Notes: Start your sets with an isometric hold. These holds should last anywhere between 10-30 seconds depending on how strong you are. Upon completion, you’ll immediately ascend to perform as many quality reps as possible (or prescribed reps)
2) Interset Holds
For these, you’ll do multiple holds during your set (the same position as for the previous position. Here’s an example:
Hold the bottom position of a push up for 10 seconds, then do 5 push-ups
Hold the position again for 10 seconds, then do 5 reps.
Hold the bottom position for one more time,, then do any many reps as possible.
That is one set and you cannot stop between reps and sets. You need to perform these all in one continuous move. You can play around with the amount of time per hold, yet you want this to be pretty challenging. Just to be clear, the holds don’t all have to be at the same time. You can do 15 seconds for the first, 10 seconds for the second, and 5 seconds for the last one.
The following videos is my favorite upper body finisher utilizing this method as we’ll be using the same principles listed to maximize your muscle growth. If done correctly, these is absolutely BRUTAL!
3) Slow Eccentrics Combo
There are two specific ways for this method. For the first method, you’ll start with a slow eccentric, or negative rep, by slowly lowering yourself down for 10-15 seconds and accent as fast as possible. You’ll do as many reps like this as you possibly can.
These are fairly straightforward and if you can endure the discomfort, this will be very effective for you.
The second method is including both eccentric and isometric holds within the set. You’ll start with both a predetermined eccentric and isometric times and perform as many quality reps as possible. For example, you’ll do a 5 second eccentric and 3 second hold for push ups, and repeat for as many quality reps as possible.
4) Adding Creative Resistance
All the previously mentioned methods can be improved by adding resistance. By adding resistance, will make the most basic bodyweight movement a lot more demanding and effective at building muscle. Just because you may not have access to a ton of dumbbells, kettlebells, or other gym recruitment doesn’t mean you cannot add resistance aka weight. You just need to be a bit creative. The easiest ways to add at-home resistance would be a loaded backpack for squats, split squats, chin-ups, push-ups, and even dips.
Any fairly light object not too cumbersome can be used to add resistance. Just remember, it doesn’t matter if you cannot progress in 5 pound increments like you’ve done in the gym. This isn’t a life long solution here, but a temporary one to help you keep building muscle until you can get back into the gym once this whole global pandemic thing is over.
5) Adding additional Movement
Another one of my favorites. Don’t settle for one rep of an exercise when you can do one-and-a-half reps. By adding an extra half rep to any movement increases muscle tension, one of the main drivers for muscle growth, by overloading the mid-ranges of the exercise.
This method can quickly boost your strength and confidence at key sticking points, like the bottom portion of a squat or bench press.
6) Change the Angle
We all want that balanced physique. Nobody likes a lagging body part that glaringly appears disproportional. Being symmetrical is crucial not just for looking good, but also for strength, performance, balance, and stability. In order to keepo your body balanced, you’ll want to regularly change up your angles.
Muscles are only capable of contracting in the direction of their fibers. If you work a muscle at the angle, then you’ll build the most strength within that range of motion. Working different angles will stimulate additional strength and muscle growth.
7) Adding Resistance Bands
Resistance bands are a simple and inexpensive way to quickly improve at home workouts. These are very effective for curls, tricep pushdowns, lateral raises, shoulder presses, and pulldowns. Additionally, you can use these to make push ups, squats, deadlifts, and split squats harder.
At Home Training Obstacles and Solutions
Without question, there are some issues with at home training, yet these are usually psychological issues.
With everyone being home more, it actually requires more discipline to workout at home than to go to the gym. You may be thinking, “ How could that be since the equipment is in my home rather than taking the time to go to the gym?
Well, that’s the exact reason! When training at home, you can literally do it any time. It’s extremely easy to think, “ I’ll do it after this meeting, or “I’ll do it after work,” or “I’ll do it later” yet in reality most people reach the end of their day without training or being too tired to get after it.
The second reason is that bodyweight training isn’t motivating, especially with the easier, foundational exercises. We love lifting weight, seeing the load increasing, and the feeling of heavy resistance training. I get it..
However, with everything going on within this global pandemic, I’ve learned how to appreciate proper bodyweight training.
I won’t lie to you, I’ll still take resistance training with heavy weights over bodyweight any day, but you can still make progress and build muscle with only bodyweight training. It’s unique, yet if you want to maintain your gains, then you’ll need to do it.