At Home Fitness Results

Hello! I was just wondering if anyone has had success with at home workouts, particularly with strength training and toning. My gym membership has recently run out but I still have a lot of toning to do .

Would doing daily push-ups, lunges, squats, ab twists and planks be enough to tone up? Or would I just be wasting my time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I would love to hear your experience and opinion.

Some of you have been curious about my workout that I used to lose the initial 35+lbs at home. Well, it was 100% bodyweight based, no weights. I'll lay it out here:

This is your basic 5 x 5 template. (To clarify, 5x5 is 5 reps x 5 sets. The idea is to work at a difficulty level where you could only do maybe 7-8 reps on the first set, and are struggling to finish 5 reps on the last set). You would do strength training 3 times a week, say Monday-Wednesday-Friday with the weekends off. These are done "lazy circuits" style, with about 1 minute rest between each set (I use a FT7 HRM and keep my heart rate over 140). The explanations of the exercises you'll use for each group are farther below.

Workout A
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Horizontal push - 5 x 5
1C. Horizontal pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - flexion - 3 x 5
2B. Ab - static 3 x 30 seconds

Workout B
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Vertical push - 5 x 5
1C. Hip dominant - 5 x 5
1D. Vertical pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - rotation - 3 x 5
2B. Grip and neck training - 3 x varies

Exercise Progressions - with regular weight training you can just add weight to the bar. With bodyweight progression is mostly about changing your leverage. These are just a few examples, I'm sure we could come up with dozens more if needed. You can always add resistance in the form of a weighted vest or backpack or resistance bands.

Explanations of exercise in order of difficulty (easy-hard)
1. Knee Dominant -- squats, lunges, step-ups, bulgarian split squats, unilateral bent leg deadlift, partial one leg squat, one leg squat, box or stair pistols, full pistols.
2. Horizontal Push -- pushups, decline pushups, resistance pushups, side to side pushups, stair one arm pushups, negative one arm pushups, full one arm pushups.
3. Horizontal Pull -- body row, resistance body row, negative one hand row, incline one hand row, full one hand row.
4. Ab - flexion -- crunches, situps, resistance or incline situps, reverse situp, resistance or incline reverse situps, hanging knee or leg raise, hanging pikes, rollout from knees, rollout from feet, dragon flag. Also included are oblique moves like side lying crunches with or without resistance and side lying two leg raise.
5. Abs- static -- 4 point prone bridge, 3 point prone bridge, 2 point prone bridge, 4 point supine bridge, 3 point supine bridge.
6. Vertical Push -- pike pushup, hindu pushup, divebomber pushup, decline pike pushup, decline hindu pushup, decline divebomber pushup, one arm pike pushup, negative handstand pushup, handstand pushup with head touching floor, full handstand pushup.
7. Hip Dominant -- supine hip extension, good morning, one leg stiff leg deadlift, split one leg good morning, one leg supine hip extension, hyperextension, one leg hyperextension, natural glute-ham raise.
8. Vertical Pull -- jumping or assisted pullups, pullups, resistance pullups, side to side pullups, negative one hand pullups, one hand pullups. All these can refer to chinups or neutral grip pullups as well.
9. Ab - rotation -- twist crunches or situps, resistance or incline twist crunches or situps, russian twists, lying windshield wipers, standing rope rotations, hanging windshield wipers.
10. Grip and Neck Training -- for grip you can use handgrippers, deadhangs from a pullup bar (especially a fatbar or gripping a towel). For neck nothing beats wrestlers bridges. If you are involved in a striking martial art or sport, finger and fist pushups are very important also.

None of these lists have to end here. If you get strong enough you can always add resistance to your full range of motion one limb exercise. Or if you can do more than 5 one hand pushups do decline one hand pushups, or start working on one hand hindu and then eventually one hand dive bombers, and so on.

The nice thing about this routine is it scales dramatically depending on your fitness level. If you can't do even ONE regular pull up, you can scale it down and do assisted pull ups (legs on a chair), or ballistic pullups (where you jump to provide the initial momentum). It's actually easier to do properly when you're very unfit...because once you're healthy and strong...you're going to be searching for challenging enough exercises to only allow you 5 reps max by the finish of the 5 sets.

Definitely. I lost 40lbs in 3mos doing nothing more than a bodyweight strength training program.

Definitely. I lost 40lbs in 3mos doing nothing more than a bodyweight strength training program.

Lots of good stuff, but why no static strength or static/dynamic combos (like lever-rows or planche pushups).

Granted static strength is a little different, but it is extremely effective, and the resistance goes really high.

Definitely. I lost 40lbs in 3mos doing nothing more than a bodyweight strength training program.

Lots of good stuff, but why no static strength or static/dynamic combos (like lever-rows or planche pushups).

Granted static strength is a little different, but it is extremely effective, and the resistance goes really high.

Mostly because they weren't on the program when I got it. I've made some very small changes to it for myself...but in overall, it's the same one setup by Cheesedog over at bodyweight culture. I figured that if I got the results I did from it, and others the results they've had since I shared it...there wasn't much reason to change it up.

You're definitely right though.

Well I'm about to embark on straight up bulking with bodyweight alone. Just taking a calorie pause at maintenence at the moment and about to take a week strength training break (or serious volume reduction) first.

2x a week I'm going to focus on legs with pistols, 100m hill sprints, and lunges (which has thus far proven to be an extremely effective combo for me).

1x a week I'm going to work dynamic strength with one arm pushups, one arm emphasized chins, lever rows, headstand pushups, and dragon flags.

1x a week I'm going to work static strength with front lever, back lever, planches, and handstands. (Working on the progressions, I can't hold the full version of any (but handstands)).