At-home gym

There are many reasons why people shell out for gym membership. The state-of-the-art equipment. A communal sense of shared goals. The babe-licious rock videos. But if you’ve got other plans for your pay packet and plenty of resolve, it’s time to consider leaving the weights room behind. All you need is a level area – your living room, the verandah, the local park – and your own body weight and soon you’ll see the sorts of results that’ll have your ex-gym buddies snatching sideways glances. Consider it a free gym membership – for life.

It’s not just about saving money. If there are a million excuses why you can’t make the gym on any given day – deadlines, holidays, forgetting your towel – there are no such get-out-of-jail-free cards with body-weight programs. They require no gym bag and fit around whatever schedule you have, whether it’s 20 minutes before work or an hour on a Thai beach. They go where you go, because you’re your own gym equipment.

The real clincher, however, is there in the mirror. Fact is, body-weight exercises can build strength as effectively as external resistance training. As I’ve seen during my career as a strength and conditioning coach in Australia, the UK and US – where I worked with NBA team the Houston Rockets, among others – the secret lies in training hard, training smart and making sure you’re doing the right amount of the right exercises.

Consider two groups that emphasise body-weight exercises – the armed forces and gymnasts. A study published in the Journal of Aviation, Science and Environmental Medicine showed that the US Army’s basic six-week training, big on push-ups and chin-ups, produced a 10 per cent gain in upper-body strength. That gain doubled to 20 per cent after a follow-up period of training employing the same body-weight exercises.

To find out how that stacks up against strength gains using gym-based exercises, we can turn to gymnasts. When two studies looking at lower-body power output in elite gymnasts (body-weight disciples) and elite wrestlers (gym junkies) were compared, there was hardly a split ear – er, hair – between them. The jury’s in: with the right kind of body-weight training, you can develop just as much strength-dependent power as regular weight training.

If you need further convincing, pause at the gymnastics next time you’re channel surfing.

Without a gym membership between them, these guys have developed huge arms, backs and shoulders. How strong are they? Just try holding the crucifix position next time you’re waiting to get on the bench press.

It’s all about relative strength, as opposed to absolute strength. Relative strength takes your weight into account; absolute strength is just concerned with the amount of weight lifted.

In a conventional test of strength, you keep loading the bar to see who can lift the most. This works well in theory, but doesn’t allow for differing body weights. When two of you squat 150 kilograms, it’s the lighter one who’s the stronger. With body-weight exercises – all other things being equal – the heavier guy is stronger.

Granted, bragging rights in the gym go to the guy who can bench 200kg. But what happens when you leave the free weights behind? In the real world, strength isn’t just about isolating one or two muscles with perfectly balanced equipment, it’s about all of the muscles of the body working together. Ultimately, doing 10 handstand push-ups gives you much more to crow about than benching 200kg.

So, how do you get to make like a rooster? For starters, not by duplicating the same mistakes as others when it comes to a body-weight program. Let’s be clear – it’s not about adding more reps, conventional body-weight training’s flawed equivalent of ramping up resistance in the gym.

Working out in sets of 50 repetitions or more might increase muscular endurance, but it won’t make you stronger. Truth is, doing endless sit-ups or chin-ups will only lead to boredom, staleness and, if you’re unlucky, an overuse injury.

Setting aside the temptation to go on a pizza-and-beer diet – remember, the more you weigh, the stronger you’ll become – the solution is to make the exercises themselves more challenging. It’s the body-weight equivalent of adding another 20kg to the bar, while keeping the reps and sets moderate.

To replicate gymnasts’ almost-superhuman strength and sizable muscles, you need to follow their progression from simple exercises to more complex moves, where the body is disadvantaged and has to work harder. In the following four-week program – designed to boost your strength by 10 per cent – the pay-off is that the moves become easier as you get stronger.

Drawing on aspects of yoga, pilates and gymnastics, the program is arranged in categories according to their focus, while building in terms of difficulty. If you like the results, you’ll probably never consider queuing for a lat pull-down machine again.

WEEK 1

Testing your current strength levels will give you something to rate your performance against in Week 4. Workouts during this week consist of exercises in their simplest form, allowing you to master the basics and get a taste of things to come. Rest for at least a day between the two workouts.

Basic Conditioning

Day 1
Baseline Fitness Test

Sit-ups, Push-ups, Dips, Burpees*: record the maximum number of repetitions you can do in 30 seconds. (*Start in push-up position, then hop forward towards your hands and jump straight up, extending your arms above your head.)

Plyometrics: 10 bounds (measure distance). With one leg lifted, knee bent at roughly 90º, bound up and forward, landing on the other leg and jumping immediately again. Focus on taking long strides and jumping as high as possible.

Vertical jump: stand side-on next to a wall, holding a piece of chalk in one hand. Reach straight up and mark the wall. Without a preparatory step, jump as high as you can and mark the wall. Measure the distance between the two chalk marks and record your score.

Day 2

Workout 1

Complete seven circuits of the exercises below, four at one minute per exercise (maintain a constant pace throughout) and three at 30 seconds per exercise (focusing on an all-out effort and as many quality reps as possible).

Chin-up: if you can’t find a chin-up bar or sturdy branch, use a solid door. Open the door and grasp the top, resting the front of your body against it. Perform your wide- or narrow-grip chin-up as normal – just remember to wedge the door open or you run the risk of losing several fingers!

Push-up
Squat
Sit-up
Dip
Alternating lunge
Rest

Day 3

Repeat Workout 1

WEEK 2

The exercises are a little more challenging than those in Week 1 and plyometric drills have been added for conditioning. To get the most from the workouts, make sure the lifting and lowering phase of each movement is slow and controlled. Do Workouts 1 and 2 on consecutive days, have a rest day, and then do Workouts 3 and 4 on consecutive days, followed by two rest days.

Exercise Glossary

Body-weight squat
With arms straight out in front or hands resting on your head, bend your knees (make sure that you keep your back straight) and squat until your thighs touch your calves. Slowly straighten your legs and repeat.

Chair raise and hold

Sit on a chair and grasp the sides of the seat, your palms facing you and arms extended. Lift your feet slightly off the ground, then, while supporting yourself with your arms, raise your backside off the chair.

Chair dip with feet elevated
As above, but with feet elevated on another chair.

Decline push-up
Classic push-ups, but done with feet elevated. Place them on a bench, chair or step.

Handstand prep

Begin on all fours, facing away from a wall, with the soles of your feet resting against it. Walk your feet up the wall until your hips are bent 90º, your legs straight and upper body parallel to the wall.

Incline push-up
Push-ups performed with hands elevated on a bench, chair or step.

Lying leg raise

Lying on your back, legs straight out and slightly off the ground, bend your hips and knees to 90° and lift your hips off the floor. Extend your legs and point the toes towards the ceiling. Bring your knees to your chest, lower your hips, extend your legs back to the starting position and repeat.

Overhead squat
As per body-weight squats, with arms pointing straight up.

Push-up with side twist

At the top of the push-up, transfer your weight onto your left arm and leg and turn your body until your right arm is pointing to the ceiling. Hold for one second, lower back to the starting position, perform another push-up and repeat on the right side of the body.

Side-shuffle push-up
Perform a regular push-up, then take a large step to the right with your right arm and leg, then do the same with your left arm and leg until you’re in the initial position. Alternate between shuffling to the left and right.

Squat jump
At the low point of the body-weight squat, straighten your legs explosively, jumping as high as possible; repeat as soon as your feet touch the floor.

WEEK 3

In Week 3, the exercises become more complex. The aim is to continually challenge your body to respond. Using fitness stations in the park will give you slightly different stimuli to respond to, while burpees will work on conditioning. Perform the workouts once each on separate days.

Exercise Glossary

Cross-legged raise
Sitting cross-legged, place your palms on the floor next to your hips. Support your weight with your arms and lift your legs and backside off the floor.

Depth jump
Standing on a box or raised flat surface, jump down with both feet and immediately jump up as high as possible.

Handstand prep (forearms)

Interlock your fingers and place your hands on the floor five or so centimetres from a wall. Resting on your forearms, kick with one leg, extending your body until you are resting against the wall with upper arms extended. Focus on keeping your body straight.

Hand transfer chin-ups
Grip the bar with palms facing away from you, hands 15cm to 20cm wider than shoulder width. Quickly pull up until your chin is level with your hands, letting go and transferring your hands to the neutral grip or narrow grip position. Slowly lower, extending your arms.

Quickly pull yourself up again, transferring your hands back to the wide position.

Hand-transfer push-ups

In the push-up position, lower yourself before pushing up explosively and repositioning your hands slightly narrower than shoulder-width. Perform another explosive push-up, transferring your hands back to the wide grip, then alternate between the two.

Knee jumps
From the kneeling position, explosively straighten your legs, pushing through the fronts of your feet and come to a full or half-squat standing position. Kneel and repeat.

One-legged squat
Balancing on one foot, bend your knee slowly to 45°, keeping your body straight, then push through your foot, returning to the starting position.

Push-up and up dog

In the push-up position, lower yourself until your chest is 2cm off the floor and hold for one second. Push through your feet, bringing your body weight and hips forward. Arch your back and extend your ankles so you’re resting on the tops of your feet. Lift your hips, move your body weight back, tuck your toes under and return to the starting position.

Superman push-ups

At the top of a push-up, extend your right arm in front and left leg behind, hold for one second, then return to the starting position; alternate arms and legs.

Tuck jumps
Jump straight up, bringing your knees towards your chest, but keeping your body upright. Repeat as soon as you land.

WEEK 4

The aim of the final week is to be able to perform the most complex versions of all the exercises. If you can’t manage the prescribed number of reps, finish the set doing the corresponding exercise from last week. Workouts 1 to 3 can be performed on consecutive days, but leave a day’s rest between Workouts 3 and 4.

Workout 4: Fitness testing
Complete the same fitness tests as in Week 1 to measure your gains.

Exercise Glossary

Clap chin-up
Grip the bar in either a wide or narrow position (wide being harder as the hands have further to travel to get back to the bar). Quickly pull up, releasing your grip on the bar and clapping your hands together, then grab the bar and lower and repeat.

Clap push-up
Perform an explosive push-up and clap your hands together in front of your body, placing them back on the floor in the same position. For an extra challenge, try clapping your hands behind your back.

Depth jump to box
Perform a depth jump. Upon landing, immediately jump up as high as possible, landing on another box placed a metre in front, as quietly as possible on the full area of both feet.

Frog

While squatting, place your hands on the ground between your feet, elbows resting against the insides of your knees. Then gradually lean forward and take your weight on your hands and knees, leaning them on your elbows. Continue leaning forward and you will eventually be able to remove your feet completely from the floor.

Handstand press

In either an unsupported handstand position or resting against a wall, slowly bend your arms and lower yourself towards the floor, then push through your hands and extend your arms.

Hanging leg raise

Using a chin-up bar or captain’s chair, keep your ankles pressed together and bring your knees towards your chest; hold for one second, lower and repeat.

Overhead squat jump
Squat jumps, arms overhead.

Side-to-side travel chin-ups
With hands gripping a bar 15cm to 20cm wider than shoulder width, focus on pulling with your left arm and bringing your upper chest towards your left hand. Lower slowly and repeat on the right side, then alternate between left and right for the remainder of the set.

Speed skater

Balancing on your left foot, bend your left hip and knee slowly to 45º, then quickly push through your left foot, jumping and landing on your right. Repeat, landing on your left foot; continue alternating feet. Make each squat a slow, controlled movement and try to travel a metre from side-to-side with each jump.

Tuck front lever chin-up
Take a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip with palms facing away from you, and bring your knees towards your chest. Pull up as far as your lower body will allow.