5 Tools to Ramp Up Your At Home Workouts

Can you stay fit (or get fit), and reach your fitness goals working out at home? Absolutely! All you really need is some space and motivation. But if you are looking to step up your at home workouts, these 5 pieces of equipment are inexpensive game-changers!

Glute Bands

These are not your average workout bands. Those elastic bands you find at your local gym? Consider glute bands they’re upgraded cousin.

The knit-surface on these glute bands makes for a more comfortable, and harder, workout. They don’t slip, they don’t roll and they fit way more comfortably on your legs.

I bought one of these to experiment with and loved it so much that my husband bought me three more, in different sizes, for the Christmas.

Try it:

• Glute bridges
• Curtsy Lunges
• Pop Squats
• Glute Kickbacks
• Kneeling Get Ups

Medicine Ball

Strength, coordination, balance, power, cardio…any of those things peak your interest? I use my medicine ball for all sorts of benefits and workouts.

Medicine balls are fun to use and super versatile. You can use a medicine ball to work every major muscle group in your body. I recommend getting an 8-10 pound medicine ball to start so that you can use it for strength as well as power.

Total Body Medicine Ball Workout

Set an interval timer for 45 second intervals, with 15 seconds in between. Perform each exercise in a giant circuit, one after the other until you’ve completed each exercise. Rest 1 minute and repeat twice for a total of 3 circuits.

Medicine Ball Slams
Reverse Lunge Chops
Squat Wall Balls
Mountain Climbers with Hands on Ball
Plank Pass Push Ups
Russian Twists

*I use a free interval timer called, ironically, IntervalTimer.

https://juliahalefitness.com/tips-for-working-out-at-home/

Stability Ball

Also known as an exercise ball or physio ball, not just for bouncing. Stability balls are a great alternative to a bench or seat, especially if you have any interest in strengthening your core and improving balance.

What’s especially useful about stability balls is that you can use it to hit muscle groups that are harder to target outside of the gym…for example with the first two exercise listed you can hit your hamstrings and lower back as if you had a leg curl machine or back extension machine.

Try it:

• Hamstring Curls
• Back Extensions
• Hands to Feet Pass
• Chest Presses

And, when you’re not using the ball for your at home workouts, you can use it in replace of your desk chair to improve your posture and core strength while sitting down!

Resistance Bands

Resistance bands come in multiple strengths and tensions and are an almost complete substitute for the massive cable machine you find at your gym.

Most starter band kits come with a number of bands ranging from 15 pounds of tension to 50 pounds of tension. They’re color-coded, and most (like the one below), come with a couple of handle options so that you can wrap them around a pole or close one end in a door.

Try it:

• Standing Rows
• Tricep Kickbacks
• Oblique Twists
• Cable Curls
• Facepulls

Sliders

Sliders are small discs that you use under hand or foot to ramp up the difficulty of basic movements. Used correctly, sliders add an element of instability to your at home workouts that forces you to engage your core to stay in control.

What’s especially powerful about sliders: they don’t give you the break that a normal lunge, or mountain climber, or hamstring curl exercise does. Because you have to work to control the limb or side of your body that is forcefully moving the slider, your whole body has to work together the entire time.

The more muscles you work, the bigger the burn and the better the results.

Try my favorite Slider exercises:

• Reverse Lunges
• Curtsy Lunges
• Side Lunges
• Bridge to Hamstring Slide Outs
• Mountain Climbers