Home Workouts- The Right Way
Ah, the world of home workouts. A world where almost everyone with access to the Internet entered as a child, teen or even adult during the rising popularity of platforms like YouTube. ‘How to get Abs in 10 Minutes’ is probably the most iconic form of video to come out of this phase where thousands of people truly believed they could sculpt a set of six-pack abs at the age of 14, in a matter of minutes. As hilarious as that sounds, it only takes a few seconds of scrolling through the comments of these videos to see something interesting. People who constantly visited the video promoting a ‘10 Minute’ process actually ended up seeing muscle growth and eventually got what they were promised. So just through this one example we can shut down a popular and widespread claim from many. The claim of how you simply cannot do enough at home, and that without a gym you would not see any progress.
Nothing could be further from the truth, when we first look into the science of bodyweight workouts, formally known as calisthenics, where people train their muscles with little to no other equipment besides the functionalities of their own bodies. Therefore examples of calisthenic exercises are push ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, dips, burpees and of course, all forms of your favourite ab exercises. The movements mentioned actually end up hitting every single part of your body, believe it or not, and can end up helping you grow even further than you can imagine with ways to progress these movements to make them more challenging.
For Example, we lift a weight for many weeks, and when it finally stops feeling difficult, we have to move on to heavier weight which challenges us and makes us push ourselves to lift it. Using this exact same methodology with calisthenics, the variations of a push up, pull up and every other exercise mentioned, along with the fact that slowing down movements pushes your body to the limit, the possibilities of growth with calisthenics have no ceiling. Even after becoming an intermediate, you can progress to even more demanding bodyweight movements like the muscle-up, single leg pistol squats and handstands, all extreme drivers of muscle development.
As great as calisthenics is for home workouts, it is not everyone's cup of tea. Overweight people find it very difficult to get started on these body movements as they require much needed stability and control on your body. This is not a major obstacle though, as people can set aside some money for a temporary investment to order dumbbells. Picking a medium weight to start off with but also one that can challenge you for a while is the main goal when ordering dumbbells. I myself saw substantial growth when using the same pair of 5kg dumbbells for different exercises within a year (although this is not ideal and you should definitely increase the weight of what you lift gradually). Dumbbells are a surprisingly good investment because of the variety of movements you can perform with them, which is why they are also called free-weights as we are free to move them around without them being bound to any object or attachment. This very freedom of manipulation is what makes them so versatile and so useful to both beginners and professionals.
Let's step outside for a second, literally. What I mean is, home workouts aren't just the only way to pursue fitness besides the gym. In Karachi, there are a lot of parks including Nisar Shaheed Park, Rahat Park and Zamzama Park which offer mini outdoor gyms alongside the usual tracks in parks. These outdoor gyms include pull up bars, straight bars for dips, and full on functional machines on which you are able to use your own bodyweight to produce resistance. Most of these are free to use, otherwise coming with only a small fee of around 50 rupees for entry.
I decided to showcase Nisar Shaheed Park's outdoor gym in a short video, showing the variety of beginner friendly machines and how you can create a full body workout from what's provided.
To conclude, there really should be no excuse to get started on your fitness journey. Although the first step is the hardest one, what you can achieve just at home alone is fascinating. Of course we are all human, and the kind of motivation needed to take those steps is mostly never there, but that's what I hope to change with this article for anyone reading who has been on the edge but never chose to take that leap forward and get to work.
beginning my journey with the help of begin, wish me luck
ReplyDeletethank u for this
ReplyDeleteTruly shows how where there’s a will there’s a way and also did not know about Nisar Shaheed Park, love that!
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