Top 5 At-Home Strength Accessories
If you’ve had ANY conversation about health & fitness with me, you already know how I feel about building strength. IMO building strength is one of the most (if not THE most) empowering & rewarding things we can accomplish in life.
Now you may be thinking, “Shelter-in-place is going to ruin my GAINZ!” And while this anxious thought process has popped into all of our heads, it’s just not that black & white when it comes to GAINZ.
The cool part about strength is that it takes a long time to build, but it also takes a long time (plus inactivity) to lose. Below are my TOP 5 strength accessories that will maintain (maybe even improve) your strength during shelter-in-place.
SLE + PU + OOR + S + SH = GAINZ
Disclaimer: These exercises are in no particular order of importance and ALL of these should be present to maintain and improve strength during at-home workouts. And for the purposes of this list when I reference maintaining “strength” I am referring to the traditional strength lifts (back squat, deadlift, press) & the pull-up.
Single-Leg Exercises (SLE)
In order for your two legs to work as ONE-UNIT they must function well by themselves.
SLEs are unmatched when it comes to building the leg muscles necessary to create a strong body: glutes, hamstrings, adductors, quads, and the smaller muscles that stabilize your hip/knee/ankle joints.
At-Home Favorites: bulgarian split squat, pistol, SL deadlift, glute bridge, and all lunge variations.
Push-Up (PU)
The OG of building upper body strength, building a strong push-up pattern is essential to creating a strong body. By moving through the full range of motion through this exercise you will improve your chest, tricep, and core strength.
At-Home Favorites: traditional chest-2-floor, knee push-up, handstand push-up, elevated push-up, weighted push-up.
Odd Object Row (OOR)
Building the backsides includes the upper back. And the best way to do this at home is by incorporating row patterns. These exercises help maintain/improve pulling strength by allowing you to place larger volumes in this pulling pattern.
At-Home Favorites: Odd object bent-over row, odd object single-arm row, inverted row (table/chair), renegade row.
Sprints (S)
Sprints? That’s not a strength accessory…BUT it is! Sprints are one of the best exercises to improve your “fast twitch” muscles needed for max strength. Warm-up properly with some dynamic movements and let the horses out!
At-Home Favorites: Repeats – pick a distance between 50-200m to run at 80-95% exertion. Rest 2-3 minutes and repeat for 3-6 rounds.
Static Holds (SH)
Your muscles work in three main ways: concentrically (shortening of the muscle), eccentrically (lengthening of the muscle), and statically (holding in place). And the muscle activation that gets neglected the most is the static function. By filling in this gap, you’ll improve your overall strength AND the health of your muscles.
At-Home Favorites: Wall sit, plank variations, sky dive, hollow hold, glute bridge variations.
HONORABLE MENTION
- Awkward Carries
- Tempo Squats
- ALL Core & Mobility Work
IF you are going to make it out of shelter-in-place leaner, stronger, faster – utilize the above in your routine to ENHANCE your fitness.
