Gyms closed with no way to practice your favourite sports? It’s still possible to keep training and have fun while you’re doing it… even at home!
You can exercise at any time of day, and it’s important to remember to use the right clothes and shoes even in the home environment. Before and after a workout it’s a good idea to warm up the muscles and do some stretching with specific exercises to prevent nasty injuries.
Here are some ideas for working out easily at home.
- Jumping Jacks
Ideal as a warm-up exercise. These are the classic jumps on the spot, keeping your arms and legs coordinated: your legs are spread wide while your arms stretch upwards. When your feet are together your arms are at your sides.
2. Wall Sit
This is the famous “chair” position, with your shoulders and back against the wall. It’s a classic isometric exercise, therefore involving no movement of the joints or shortening and lengthening of the muscles. The benefit comes from a progressive and very deep stimulation of the muscle fibres.
3. Push-ups
Push-ups with the arms, which can be performed with your knees on the floor if your shoulders and arms lack muscle tone or with your feet touching the floor and pelvis raised if you’re slightly fitter. A great classic, but more than anything a complete exercise that also works the abs and the back.
4. Crunches
These work your abs while lying on the floor. The basic version sees your feet touching the floor, your knees bent, your shoulder blades coming off the floor and your hands extending over the knees.
5. Step-ups
Basically steps that can be done on the stairs, on a chair or on any similar support. An excellent exercise for strengthening the quadriceps and also a basic fitness test.
6. Squats
Much more than just an exercise for the legs. Obviously they work the legs, particularly the quadriceps and biceps, but the secret is to start with your pelvis below the level of your knees and to firstly work the glutes, the biggest muscles you have. They’re also excellent as an exercise to prepare for skiing or running.
7. Triceps workout with reverse push-ups on a chair
A triceps workout is not just a matter of aesthetics but also, for many sports, a functional exercise: think of your arm action while using ski sticks in cross-country, alpine or off-piste skiing, as well as in trekking. But you don’t need dumbbells, cables or other home fitness equipment to work your biceps: you can also do reverse push-ups using a raised surface like a simple chair.
8. The plank
Another isometric exercise, particularly for the ‘core’ but also other body areas: performed positioning the body along an ideal straight line from your ankles to your shoulders and staying in position, rising on your toes with your elbows staying on the floor. Here too there is progressive stimulation of the muscle fibres, and the aim is to hold out in the correct position for as long as possible.
9. Skips
Or running on the spot with the knees raised high: Start at a gentle pace while raising your knees up high, finishing at maximum intensity.
10. Forward lunges
Excellent for the quadriceps, for stability of the ankles and for improving stability and balance. They can be carried out alternating between the right and left leg and also while holding a weight.
11. Rotational push-ups
An exercise that combines push-ups with the arms and lateral planks: you do a push-up (see point 3), detach one hand and then, rotating slightly to one side, take it upwards by extending your arm. Then you do a press-up with the arms once more and repeat with the other arm.
12. The lateral plank
The mechanism is the same as the plank explained in point 8 but maintaining the position on your side, with your feet on the floor and your elbow supporting your body resting at a right-angle under your shoulder. Here too you need to hold the position for as long as possible.