Best Home Gym Equipment Guide
Women often wonder why they never see any results when they are dedicated to working out day after day. More often than not, the likely problem is that the individual has reached a training plateau. But, have no fear; there is an easy fix to this dilemma. It’s all about placing stress on your body. Bodies are amazing. They adapt to things very quickly. For instance, if you hop on your treadmill for 30 minutes every day and set the pace at the same speed every day, week after week, you are likely to see very little in the results department. And here is one from personal experience, if you just do the same old 2 sets of 24 walking lunges 3 times per week, every week, your legs aren’t likely to change a whole lot after the first couple of weeks or so. It is all about the stress you place on your body. If you don’t stress your body and force it into new territory, the body will adapt to your mundane routine and hardly anything will change for you. So what are the best at home workouts for women? The following are some important rules to remember regardless of whether you prefer to workout using a home gym system, or just some free weights and your own body weight in your home. Once you are able to create the best gym workouts for women, you will see your body transform before your eyes.
The Best Home Workouts for Women & Rules to Live By
Rule #1: The best home workout for women is one that includes strength training. Strength training is critical! You will never get where you want to be with cardio alone. Strength training changes the way your body burns calories, boosts your metabolism, and gives you a more toned physique. This can be done with body weight activities, free weights, or by dedicated time with your home gym system. By increasing lean muscle mass you will burn more calories all day long, working, sitting, or even sleeping.
Rule #2: The best gym exercises for women use large muscle groups rather than working out one singular muscle group at a time. Example for arms: Push-ups work several muscle groups simultaneously including biceps, triceps, back, core, glutes, and pectorals. Bicep curls however, when done alone, only work out the bicep muscle. Problem with this: Not only are you robbing yourself of a more all inclusive exercise that strengthens many muscles, you will only be burning a fraction of the calories as well.
Rule #3: The best gym routines for women are completed at least 3-5 days per week; if you can commit to 4 or more days of the week, even better. Without diminishing the importance of recovery time, it is critical to create an almost daily exercise plan. You can accomplish this and facilitate recovery by working out differing muscle groups more intensely on alternating days of the week, switch up your cardio, incorporate cross training, and even alternate high intensity cardio days with more slow-go recovery days.
Best At Home Workout for Women (Without a Home Gym System)
Once again, even without the assistance of a home gym system, the best home workout for women is going to be one that combines cardio with strength training including major muscle groups of the body.
Legs: The very best leg exercises are those that not only work on leg strength, but those that recruit other muscle groups for stabilization such as the back and core muscles. The staples that get his accomplished are primarily squats and lunges. There are many, many different variations of these exercises and it is important to mix things up a bit to prevent the plateau discussed earlier. There are walking lunges, single leg squats, double leg squats, jumping squats, scissor squats, side lunges, Bulgarian squat, Goblet squat, and the list goes on and on. All of these exercises are great at working the quads, hamstrings, back, core, and glutes. You can also kill two birds with one stone by implementing a dumbbell press or row at the top or bottom of each repetition to work the arms simultaneously and really increase the calorie burning.
Arms: When working out the arms it is very important to remember to implement both pushing and pulling exercises. By doing so, you will work not only the arm muscles, but the back and chest muscles which will help promote good posture as well. These exercises would be wall push-ups, regular push-ups, incline push-ups, dumbbell presses, dumbbell rows, etc.
Core: With core exercises it is important to choose exercises that strengthen both the lower back and the stomach. Lower back exercises include supine bridge, supermans, alternating leg/arm extensions, and plank. Abdominal exercises include crunches, reverse crunches, sit-ups, Russian twists, planks, plank twists, side planks, leg raises, alternating leg/arm or bicycle crunches, and the list goes on and on.
The Best Home Gym Exercises for Women (With a Home Gym System)
Home gym workout routines for women should include some form of cardio as well as exercises that focus on all the major muscle groups including legs, arms, shoulders, back, glutes, and core.
Legs: The following exercises can be done with many home gym systems: leg extensions (quadriceps), leg curls (hamstrings), squats (glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, hips, core), leg abduction and adduction (inner and outer thigh), leg press (quads, glutes, and calf muscles), and calf raisers (calf muscles).
Arms: Bicep Curls (bicep muscle), tricep presses (tricep muscle), various pressing exercises including bench and military press (pectorals, triceps, biceps, shoulders, upper back, core), lat pull downs (lats), cable rows (upper back, biceps), dips (shoulders, triceps), etc.
Core: Incline sit-ups or crunches (abdominal muscles), ab crunch machine, etc. Remember, the best home gym workouts for women may also include exercises done without the aid of a machine. Include exercises that can be done without a home gym as well to increase variety and to continue to stress core muscles in new and different ways.
Summing It Up
Improving your fitness level and overcoming fitness plateaus has everything to do with placing stress on the body. The best results will come with challenging your body in new and different ways on a regular basis. Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of doing the same easy workout routine day after day. Cardio and strength training together will provide the best results hands down. Cardio should include high intensity days (like high intensity interval training) intermixed with easier recovery days. Strength exercises should be comprised mainly of exercises that use large muscle groups that also recruit other muscle groups to help with stability. Another option is to incorporate smaller muscle groups during a large muscle group exercise, such as adding a bicep curl or dumbbell press at the top or bottom of each squat. Remember, whether you use a home gym system, or home gym pieces independently to accomplish your workout, the best home gym workout for women is the one that you will stick with!
