Bodyweight Workouts to do in the home: Day 3

This is the third blog in my series, ‘Bodyweight Workouts to do in the home’, giving you advice on the various bodyweight exercises you can do that are useful for working different muscle groups on different days giving you an all-body workout at home over the course of six days. If you completed ‘Day 1 – Shoulders, Chest and Triceps’ and ‘Day 2 – Legs’ well done you are making good progress. There are four more workouts to complete which you can then keep doing on a consistent level in your own time. Watch this space!

Day three is now focusing on working your back and biceps. Find a spacious area free of obstacles and try the following exercises. Perform as many repetitions as possible for each exercise for 30 seconds, a minimum of 10 repetitions per exercise, however we are looking to aim for much more than that! After each exercise rest for 30 seconds and then move on to the next one. Once you have completed all of these, start with the first move again.

Test yourself by keeping a track of your personal best. See how many reps you can do in the 30 second time frame and then try and do even more the next time. This encourages healthy competition and motivation where you are pushing yourself even harder each time. Complete three circuits in total (that’s all the exercises below three times). To make it even more challenging aim to complete four circuits in total.

Day 3 – Back and Biceps

1. Superman (30 seconds)

Lie flat on your stomach and extend arms out in front of you. Have your legs extended out behind, raise your upper body off the ground, keep head and neck neutral. A good exercise for strengthening the lower back and glutes. Rest for 30 seconds.

2. Bridge (30 seconds)

Lie flat on your back and rest your head on the floor. With arms by your sides, palms down and knees bent, raise your hips towards the ceiling until fully extended where your body is in line. Hold this position for several seconds, squeezing your glutes, then lower back down slowly to the ground. Repeat this movement. Rest for 30 seconds.

3. Low Plank (30 seconds)

Lie on your stomach, bend your elbows under your shoulders and rest on your forearms. Extend your legs and rest the balls of your feet on the floor. Raise your stomach off the ground, squeeze your abs and glutes and hold the position, maintaining a straight back. Rest for 30 seconds.

4. High Plank (30 seconds)

With hands shoulder-width apart directly under your shoulders, extend your legs and rest the balls of your feet on the ground. Raise your body up so you are in a straight line. Squeeze the glutes and abs and hold this position. Rest for 30 seconds.

5. Inverted Rows (30 seconds)

This is recommended at your local park where there are usually lots of bars to perform this exercise, or even strong branches from trees. You can even do this at home if you have a sturdy table. Lay on your back under a fixed bar/branch/table-top and grasp with a shoulder width underhand grip. Keeping your body in line pull your body up to the bar, hold and then lower yourself back down to the starting position where arms are extended. Repeat this movement. Rest for 30 seconds.

6. Bicep curl (optional use household items eg plastic water bottles, canned goods, bags of rice, towel) (30 seconds)

With arms by the sides of your waist raise your forearms up to your shoulders, keeping your elbows glued to your sides and exhaling as you do so. Slowly lower your arms and repeat the movement. To make it more challenging hold two items in each hand or use a towel (pulled apart by both hands at tension). This increases the resistance. You can also alternate sides with each lift, doing right arm then left arm movements so you are working your arms unilaterally, alleviating any muscular imbalances. Rest for 30 seconds.

… and repeat (3-4 circuits)

Here we have focused on a range of exercises to work your back and biceps. If you have followed the advice and attempted them all well done! Keep checking out our website https://www.elemental-fitness.com/our-blog for further blogs titled ‘Bodyweight Workouts to do in the home’ giving you more advice. The best thing about them is that because you don’t need any equipment you can do these wherever and whenever whether this is at home, work (on your break of course!) or outdoors.

If you need further advice or are thinking of taking your fitness to the next level our personal trainers at Elemental Fitness have different specialisms and are on hand to give you guidance and create an effective programme to meet your needs. For further information on what we can offer you at Elemental Fitness click on this link: https://elemental-fitness.com/training/personal-training-leeds

Find Day 1 here: https://elemental-fitness.com/our-blog/bodyweight-workouts-to-do-in-the-home-day-1

Day 2 here: https://elemental-fitness.com/our-blog/bodyweight-workouts-to-do-in-the-home-day-2