I used to go to the gym every day until lockdown began last year. With no weights at home, I didn\u2019t believe it would be possible to maintain my strength and conditioning, but I was determined to try.<\/p>\n
12 months later, I\u2019ve managed to stay in shape by doing nothing more than running and simple bodyweight exercises. That\u2019s not the outcome I was expecting and it\u2019s made me to re-evaluate a lot of the things I thought I knew about fitness.<\/p>\n
Why fitness matters to me<\/h2>\n
Fitness means more to me than just my health and appearance. It\u2019s how I turned my life around a few years ago when I was recovering from cancer. Going to the gym helped to rebuild my self confidence.<\/p>\n
It became such and important part of my life that I even got qualified as a personal trainer, got a job writing about fitness for Cult of Mac and co-created Reps & Sets.<\/p>\n
So when lockdown happened, I couldn\u2019t just let my fitness slide. It was time to put all that fitness knowledge to the test\u2014on myself.<\/p>\n
My training routine before lockdown<\/h2>\n
Running has been a core part of my training regime ever since I got into fitness. It\u2019s not just about burning calories. Running is my daily meditation and I love it.<\/p>\n
After every run, I used to spend an hour in the gym. Since I already had cardio covered, I focused on strength training,\u00a0following a classic five-day split program, targeting a different area each day: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs and Arms.\u00a0The principle of a five day split<\/a> is to increase intensity, targeting one area while allowing others to recover, and thus reducing the need for rest days.<\/p>\n I used mostly free weights, selecting heavy weights where I reached failure at around 12-15 repetitions. This is a classic bodybuilder\u2019s strategy<\/a> because it is believed to be the optimal rep range for hypertrophy, (muscle growth).<\/p>\n Fortunately I\u2019ve been able to continue outdoor running throughout the lockdown, with the minor compromise of wearing a face mask. But my strength training has been completely transformed.<\/p>\n Without access to the gym, I don\u2019t have any heavy weights to train with anymore. Which means I\u2019m limited to bodyweight exercises, like push-ups, pull-ups and squats. My body is relatively light, so this doesn\u2019t give me much to work against.<\/p>\n Also, with these types of multi-joint exercises, several large muscle group work together to perform these moves. Which means they\u2019re less targeted than isolation \u00a0exercises I used to do at the gym, like biceps curls.<\/p>\n As a result, I needed to increase the number of repetitions I did of each exercise and reduce my rest intervals to make the workout more challenging.\u00a0And since I was no longer isolating muscle groups with heavy loads, I decided to switch from a five-day split to doing a different whole-body workout every day.<\/p>\n This style of whole-body workout, with high rep ranges and short rest intervals is generally considered to be for conditioning and endurance rather than building larger muscles. I was risking becoming skinner rather than packing on more muscle, but without the gym I didn\u2019t have much choice.<\/p>\n After training at home for a few weeks, I started struggling with two areas: back and triceps, because I didn\u2019t have anything to pull against. But I couldn\u2019t afford to buy any fancy home gym equipment.\u00a0So instead I purchased a door-frame chin-up bar<\/a>, a TRX suspension system<\/a> and resistance bands<\/a>.<\/p>\n I also started to use outdoor gyms I passed during my daily run, which often have chin-up bars and dipping stations. When outdoor gyms are closed as well, due to\u00a0COVID restrictions, I found I can improvise with street furniture like bicycle stands, which are ideal for dips and inverted row.<\/p>\n I\u2019d assumed it was inevitable I\u2019d lose some muscle mass with the switch to this new lockdown training regime. But to my surprise, the opposite was the case.<\/p>\n It\u2019s actually helped me to push part a long-term plateau in my training and make my first real gains in years. My chest, upper arms and thighs have developed. And I can now do over 70 push-ups in a single set – something I could never do before.<\/p>\n I have a two theories for why this is the case:<\/p>\n Since running is my passion, maybe it\u2019s no surprise that my body is better suited to endurance rather than strength training. I feel like for the first time in a long time, I\u2019m on the right track with my training.<\/p>\n So, while I\u2019m still looking forward to getting back to the gym when this whole COVID thing is over, and I\u2019ll definitely reintroduce some heavy lifting, what I\u2019ve learned in the last 12 months has changed the way I train forever.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re interested in giving my no-gym training program a try, here it is. This is a four-day program. Each day targets the whole-body. When I\u2019ve done Day 4, I go straight back to Day 1, without taking any rest days. The only equipment required are resistance bands and a TRX.<\/p>\n On days when I use the outdoor gym, I do the Outdoor Gym Workout, which uses the chin-up bar, dipping station and a low bar.<\/p>\n You can download this workout program in Reps & Sets. If you\u2019re viewing this page on your iPhone now and you already have the app installed, just tap on the button below.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_code _builder_version=”4.9.2″]Get Program<\/a>[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text disabled_on=”on||” _builder_version=”4.9.2″ custom_margin=”||0px|” custom_padding=”||0px|” border_style=”solid”]You need an iPhone with Reps & Sets installed to download programs. Graham Bower is the co-creator of Reps & Sets and fitness writer for Cult of Mac I used to go to the gym every day until lockdown began last year. With no weights at home, I didn\u2019t believe it would be possible to maintain my strength and conditioning, but I was determined to try. 12 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-full-body"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1396,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions\/1396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Before](\"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/before-after-covid.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow lockdown forced me to change my routine<\/h2>\n
I needed something to pull on<\/h2>\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/repsandsetsapp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bike-stand.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe results: pushing past a plateau<\/h2>\n
\n
My No-Gym Training Program<\/h2>\n
\nIf you don’t have an iPhone, you can preview the program here:
\nGraham’s Home Workout – Day 1<\/a>
\nGraham’s Home Workout – Day 2<\/a>
\nGraham’s Home Workout – Day 3<\/a>
\nGraham’s Home Workout – Day 4<\/a>
\nGraham’s Outdoor Workout<\/a>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ background_position=”top_left” custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_sidebar area=”sidebar-1″ _builder_version=”3.0.74″][\/et_pb_sidebar][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"