Workouts you can do from the comfort of your room

Puneet Bansal, Staff Reporter

With the winter now in full swing, many of us can no longer go on early morning runs or casual bike rides. Furthermore, the recent surges in COVID-19 cases across the country have also forced local and state governments to impose restrictions on indoor gatherings. Now, millions of people can no longer attend group fitness classes or pump iron at the local gym.

Luckily, there are a number of exercises and workouts you can do right inside your home. These exercises don’t require any weight-training machines or dumbbells since they use your bodyweight as resistance. 

I’ll walk you through two unique types of workouts that will help you work up a sweat from the comfort of your home!

 

Full Body HIIT

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves workouts that alternate between intense bursts of exercises and fixed periods of rest. These types of workouts generally last around 30 minutes and are designed to raise your heart rate to 80-95% of its maximum rate.

HIIT improves both cardiovascular fitness and insulin resistance. Researchers have also determined that engaging consistently in HIIT can result in fat loss.

Though warmups are essential for any workout, they are especially important for HIIT. These workouts put enormous stress on your cardiovascular and muscular systems in a short amount of time. Warming up raises your body temperature, increases blood flow to the muscles and prepares your cardio system for the workout. Doing a proper warmup also decreases the risk of injuring yourself during your workout.

Before starting the HIIT workout, do this warmup:

        30 high knees (per leg)

        15 squats

        20 mountain climbers

        15 glute bridges

Perform this circuit twice.

HIIT Sequence:

        Burpees (40 seconds)

        Rest (20 seconds)

        Reverse crunches (40 seconds)

        Rest (20 seconds)

        Reverse lunges (40 seconds)

        Rest (20 seconds)

        One pushup followed by five mountain climbers, repeat (40 seconds)

        Rest (20 seconds)

        Sprint in place (40 seconds)

        Rest (20 seconds)

Repeat the circuit above three times to complete the workout.

 

Pyramid Workout

A full body pyramid workout involves sets of multiple exercises. You start with one exercise and perform a certain number of repetitions. As you move from one exercise to another, the number of repetitions decreases.

Pyramid training has many benefits. It’s time-efficient and quickly fatigues your muscles. As you become used to the workouts and you need to make things harder, you can increase the duration of exercises, increase the number of sets or repetitions, and decrease the rest time between sets to maintain a high level of intensity. This will help build muscle since the increased time under tension causes more microtears in muscle fibers.

Before starting the workout, include a warmup of light aerobic exercise (ex. jumping jacks, mountain climbers, running on treadmill) and stretching (ex. toe touches, side lunges, calf stretches) for about 10 minutes.

Pyramid Exercises:

This workout includes six exercises, starting with 60 repetitions and decreasing reps by 10 with each exercise:

        60-second wall sit

        50 squats

        40 crunches

        30 pushups

        20 lunges (both legs)

        10 burpees

Going through that sequence is one set. Do two to three sets for the workout, which will take between 30-40 minutes.

Exercising is incredibly important for maintaining your physical and mental health. This is especially true as we continue to endure the pandemic. So, while you’re stuck inside during these winter months, make sure you stay safe, healthy and active!