Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2417: How to Workout at Home and Still Get in Great Shape

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

The myths surrounding working out from home. (1:20) The barriers people encounter. (4:40) Important things to consider when starting your fitness journey. (7:00) Strategies on How to Workout at Home and Still Get in Great Shape #1 - Workout most days but do so appropriately. (12:18) #2 – It’s ok to split up your workouts. (13:54) #2 - Start the day off with a workout. (16:09) #3 - Consider home friendly equipment (bands and bodyweight). (18:52) #4 - Adjust intensity based on how you feel. (23:31) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Use code MINDPUMP to get $350 off Pod 4 Ultra. Currently ship to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia ** Special Promotion: MAPS Anywhere 50% off! ** Code ATHOME50 at checkout ** Mind Pump #1990: Nine Reasons People Stop Working Out (& What to Do About It) Mind Pump #1447: How to Start Your Fitness Journey Mind Pump #1262: Why Fitness Assessments are Important Mind Pump #2080: Get Jacked With Bands! Mind Pump #1357: The Single Most Effective At-Home Workout Tool Mind Pump #2315: Five Signs You’re Doing the Wrong Workout Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, we talk about how to work out at home and still get in great shape. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, 8 Sleep. This is the most sophisticated AI program ever. It goes on your bed and it cools and warms your bed

and it matches your body's wavelengths as you sleep. To give you the best night of sleep of your entire life, there's nothing like it on the market. Go check them out. It's called 8 Sleep. 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code MINDPUMP. Get $350 off the pod for Ultra.

By the way, it's shipping the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Also, in today's episode, we're talking about working out at home. So what we did is we put our at home anywhere workout 50% off just for you. So Maps Anywhere, you can do this program anywhere. All you need are bands and your body. It's half off. Here's what you do if

you're interested. Go to mapsfitnessproducts.com, click on Maps Anywhere, use the code ATHOME50 so at home five zero and get yourself 50% off. Alright, here comes the show. Home workouts. Are they better or worse for you? In today's episode we're going to talk about how to work out at home and still get in great shape. Home workouts. Big home workout guy. Yeah, you are now. You used to not be.

We're kind of flitter options these days. You've been in the gym lately. You used to be like only home workout guy. And now you've flip flopped. I mean, I definitely think there's, I think, where I am today is that I see tremendous value in both. I think it really depends on either your goals, also what you can do, right?

Because not everybody has the luxury to work out from home, or not everybody has the luxury to be able to go to a gym too, so. Well, I think when you look at the data on what prevents people from working out, at least the gym data, because we worked in the gym industry, and they would show you, this is what keeps people from coming.

Convenience was at the top. Cleanliness was number two. But convenience was number one. Yeah, if it was too far for them to drive, that was a huge barrier. Well, when you think about it, home actually addresses all three of the best. It does.

So convenience, obviously, cleanliness. It's your house. As long as you take care of your shit, it's pretty clean. And cost, it's free, because it's your home. And the cost is the other one. So I mean.

Yeah, it was convenience, cleanliness, and cost. And so home workouts, the odds of you being successful and consistent are actually higher. In my experience, I find this to be true, uh, as well. I think there's a bit of a bias, uh, when you look at the data for gyms, because a lot of people think you can't have an effective workout at home.

Like a lot of people think that you need lots of different equipment, um, you'd need machines and treadmills and ellipticals, uh, but no, you don't need much equipment at all. I mean, when I owned a studio, when I had a personal training studio, so this was a business, this was a fitness business. I had very basic equipment, the kind of equipment you could probably outfit a garage with I had in my studio. Um, and I've grand opened gyms.

When, when we grand opened, uh, one of the clubs that I ran here in San Jose, there was no strength training area for a while because it was under construction. So my trainers had to train people with bands and body weight. The worry was we're not going to sell any personal training, people aren't going to want to become members. The members loved it. Absolutely.

Now why they love it? Because it's effective. It's just as effective. So that's like one of the number one myths around fitness is that you need lots of equipment to get anywhere with your fitness. Nothing can be further from the truth. Yeah, I could make the case too that for most people,

it's probably a better place to start for that reason. Sure. In fact, I think that, I mean, one of the most common things that we see where people have setbacks is if one, they don't injure themselves, because a large percentage of people injure themselves in the first three months. But this idea of that more is technically better.

And so, you know, is simplifying it to a home workout that seems probably very basic to the average person is probably a better place for most all people to start anyways. And so to get the most out of, again, you hear say all the time, the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change. If you are just getting started in your fitness journey, starting at home is probably one of the best strategies.

Well, I think if you wanna talk about a real true beginner as well, there's an intimidation factor to that, like showing up to a gym and not knowing where, what to do, how to begin, and to have like a plan and have it all kind of like conveniently located at your house and you can kind of set this up and really start chipping away at it and feeling confident in what you're doing and your skills of lifting weights. I think that'd help a lot.

Well, the truth is there's a lot of barriers between you and working out when you have to go somewhere else to do it. There just is. You have to get in the car, you have to drive there. You house traffic, what's the day look like? And then when you're there, what's the atmosphere? Who's around you? Et cetera, et cetera.

So what you do with a home workout is you eliminate all those barriers. Now that doesn't mean there aren't barriers, but it does eliminate a lot of barriers. So when you're, and when it comes to results with fitness, nothing trumps consistency. Consistency is, it's so important that a subpar workout done consistently will give you better results than the best possible well-programmed workout will give you if you do it inconsistently. It's just a fact. Now of course in the extremes maybe that's not true you could do a terrible consistent workout but so long as it's you know not too far outside of the realm of appropriate workouts

consistency is key and in doing it at home, um, just helps. It helps a lot with that. So, um, again, I think people don't consider home workouts oftentimes because they think, well, what can I do? Like I don't, I don't have equipment. Uh, I maybe I have a little living room, like how do I work out at home? I know one exercise pushups, like what else could I out at home? I know one exercise, pushups,

like what else could I possibly do? But that's not the case at all. A little bit of education, a good workout program, you can apply anywhere and get exceptional results. And now again, the most important factor of consistency now is much more likely because you're home, you're already there, so you can already jump in. Now what are some of the strategies or points

that you think are important for somebody who is going to say, let's start a workout at home, like things to consider, like everything from tools to frequency to like what comes to mind when you think equipment needs. I think before we get into that, there is one thing that's important to consider, which is you want to be able to

be able to give yourself somewhat of a self-assessment before you get started because, and this is just, I'm a trainer, okay? So I'm going to speak now from the trainer side of me. Not all exercises are appropriate for everybody. Even if the exercises are amazing, they're not appropriate for everybody. And you're going be able to perform some exercise as well and other exercises not so well. And so there is a bit of a self-assessment that needs to happen when you're starting a workout. And now I'm gonna give you a basic one, okay?

It can get much better than what I'm about to say, but there's a very basic one, which is level of fitness, level of comfort with doing certain movements. That's a very basic assessment. If you're not exercising now, then very little is needed to get your body to start progressing. You only change your workout and make it harder very slowly and incrementally. You start where you're at. That's the most important thing.

What you don't want to do is say, okay, I'm going to start working out. I haven't exercised in years. So the goal is going to be to get as tired as possible in this workout and really make myself sweat and sore. No, no, no, no, no. That is you've gone way above and beyond what is necessary and what ends up happening with that. And so you may be thinking, well, what's the, what's, what's the harm?

Who cares if you go above and beyond once you just get better results, once you get there faster? No, it's actually the opposite. Exercise serves as a stimulus for your body to change and if you exceed the appropriate stimulus that your body can recover and adapt from, in other words if you do more than you can handle, then you're not going to adapt. You're just going to, if you're lucky, heal and come back into the same workout again and not really improve. So what does that look like? It looks like a little more than what you're doing now. So I'll tell a story to kind of illustrate this. I remember as an early trainer, I had a cousin of mine, an

older cousin, come into the gym, had just become a personal trainer, and they decided they want to start working out. Now this person, normal, healthy individual, but they didn't work out. They had no fitness experience whatsoever. So I took them through a full leg workout and the intensity was high. It wasn't crazy, but it was high and we did hack squats and leg extensions and leg press and walking lunges and leg curls and she never came back. She never came back because she literally couldn't move for four or five days. Now I remember doing the workout with her and thinking like this is probably okay but what I didn't consider

she didn't work out at all. In fact I could have done ten bodyweight squats with her and that would have been perfectly appropriate for her because on a regular basis she doesn't do ten bodyweight squats. So some kind of a self-assessment and there are kind of a self-assessment, and there are other self-assessment tools out there that can really get you honed in on what exercises to focus on, but at the very least, you have to start where you're at,

and that's the appropriate place to go with your workouts, and if you start there, you'll get better results than if you go above it, so always consider that. I remember making this mistake for such a long time with clients. And I think the gym culture is another reason why at home is so great too, is I think the gym culture perpetuates this. Of course.

At least in our gym and all the gyms that I ever worked in, the culture around training clients was how sore could you get them? To the point where the clients were seeking that, thinking that this is what makes a good trainer. Good trainer in their eyes was, can someone kick my ass hard enough and motivate me enough to want to do it

and want to come back? And it's a terrible culture that has been in the gym space for a really long time. And so not only did I make the mistake thinking that was a good idea, but even when I think I realized that this was not a winning strategy for my clients, it was hard to get out of that

because clients thought that's what they were supposed to do. There's an expectation built, yeah, from the clients coming in. Yes. Yeah, you had to overcome that. Something else that perpetuates that is you work out around other people who are working out. Yeah.

Who are at different levels than you. Yeah. So even as an experienced individual myself, I've been working out in gyms for 30 years, over 30 years. And I will train. Now I'm now in my mid 40s, I've been doing this a long time, I'm pretty good at this. But I'm still better when I'm working out by myself

at my house in terms of appropriate. I'm far more likely, even though I don't do this often, but I'm far more likely to use a weight that's a little too heavy or train a little harder than maybe I should because I'm working out with other people who may be training really hard or using more weight than me. Now when I'm working out with other people who may be training really hard or using more weight than me. Now when I'm at home, it's really, I'm much more accurate

with how I feel and what I need. And I don't care what's on the bar, I don't care what I'm doing because it's just me by myself. That is far more true for people who are not as experienced as I am. Like you're in the gym, you're just getting started, you may feel like, but this isn't true by the way, no one's watching you or judging you in the gym,

that's not true but it can feel that way, and you're in there doing your thing and you see the person next to you going way harder, and it may just get you to work out in a way that's not as appropriate. So working out at home can facilitate this much better connection to what's appropriate for yourself when you're exercising. Now one of the first things to consider when you're doing a workout program or you're embarking on a fitness journey is you want to try to develop a behavior consistency with this. And a behavior is easier to build and to turn

into a real behavior when it's practiced frequently. All right, so what does that mean? That means you're better out working out more days than you are not working out, but you have to do so appropriately. I just said, meet yourself where you're at. So this does days than you are not working out. But you have to do so appropriately. I just said meet yourself where you're at. So this does not mean you work out hard every single day. This means even less intensity than you initially even thought before that.

Because if we're going to stretch this out and try to consistently hit almost, let's say five days a week is a targeted goal. I mean, your intensity has to be very low in the volume itself as well. We have to be very mindful of how you're going to feel the next day and be able to have the energy to do that the following day. Right. I recommend daily workouts more often for people at home than people who go to the gym. Going to the gym daily means you have to get in your car, drive there, whatever. When you're working out at home, it's just, if you do it more often, and again, do it appropriately, train yourself appropriately.

If you do it more often, it becomes a ritual. It's like a daily thing rather than like this day and this day I do it. It's like, oh yeah, most days I get up and I do this workout, and then what you'll find is over a short period of time, it kind of becomes a part of your day. So consider that when you're working at home, that doing something most days is probably going to help you to build long-term

behavior on exercise than not. I do want to address one of the other benefits that I found working out from home and something that we have communicated on the podcast more than once, but I think really important in this specific topic since we're talking about at home training. And I definitely did not think this way as a young trainer and did not teach clients this, but absolutely not only practice this myself,

but then teach family and friends that this is a great strategy when we're getting home. And that is the freedom to be able to break the workout up too. Yeah. So there's this idea that you need to, you know, put all these exercises in a half hour, hour, you know, a window and get as much of a sweat and pump and

soar as you can in that hour. And that's what gets the most effective. And it's so not true. It's the opposite is true. And one of the things I found extremely valuable with doing an at home workout was the flexibility. And this, I love this. I did a lot of this when Max was first born so I could be around with him and, and anybody who's had a newborn knows that, you know,

they're either feeding, pooping or sleeping for most of the day. And so, you know, when he was, uh, when he was feeding with his mom, I have a time, I go do an exercise. And then after he was done feeding, pooping, or sleeping for most of the day. And so, you know, when he was feeding with his mom, I have a time, I go do an exercise. And then after he's done feeding, then I could burp him and hang around with him and play with him and then go back and do it. There's nothing wrong with building it into your lifestyle at home and understanding you can actually get

a really effective workout doing that too. Not only do you get an effective workout, there's some data that suggests it might even be better. It's ideal, yes. That's why I think it's so important to know is because not even is it not a compromise, but it's, for me, and for what the data says, it's optimal and ideal.

And you have the convenience now because it's your house. So you could just get it, and the other benefit to that, Adam, is it breaks up your day and produces energy. Every time you move and do some kind of an exercise, you produce catecholamines, endorphins, it gets things moving, it facilitates creativity and productivity. When you do it that way, you notice these little boosts of energy throughout the day as you're doing them.

So either do it or not, but it's not a compromise, I think is the point. And because it's so convenient, that's now a possibility. Um, the next point I'll say, and this again, becomes much more of a realistic, um, factor. Um, and it becomes an important, more important one when you work out at home and that's to start your day off with a workout.

Now the data on this is, is interesting. People who work out first thing in the morning are more likely to be consistent than people who work out at any other time of the day. We all saw this as trainers with whoever came in the most frequently was always our morning class. 5 a.m. They never missed. 5 a.m.

The one you wanted to cancel. Rain, sleet, snow, shine, they're there. Isn't that so funny as a 27-year-old trainer? That was the, because you know, most of us were in our 20s and we stayed up late, like most people do in their 20s. And I remember like so many times wishing that my 5 a.m.

Never did. Would cancel so I could sleep in. I know, right? And like they never canceled. It was always the middle of the day people or at either 5 p.m. on people that would cancel, but not your 5 a.m.ers. Your 5 a.m.ers locked in.

Yes, as consistent as the sun was rising. Yeah, we know this in gyms. Anybody who's ever managed or worked in gyms, you have your morning crowd that comes in and it's the same people and they don't, it's the same people every morning and it's always like that for years and years and years. Everything else is much more in flux.

Starting the day off means that there's less things that get in the way, right? The day's not developed yet. You don't have fires to put out. You don't have work, you don't have, oh my God, I'm tired. It also means that you start your day with that and then you prioritize everything else around that versus you prioritize your day and then you try and insert a workout.

It just, there's something to be said about doing that and why that is so successful for most people with consistency is that you literally are building the day around, hey, I get up and I get my workout. Then I do all these other things. Well, not only the day, but then you're also setting up your night because you know you have to get up in the morning. Correct. Right.

So then, yeah, you're less likely to probably go overboard that night. No, and because you're at home, this becomes more of a reality because you're at home, you wake up and you get your coffee or whatever and you start your day off. You start your day off. You start your day off. It also has an effect on insulin sensitivity throughout the day. I mean, I could talk about all the physiological benefits of it. Data shows when you work out first thing in the morning, it's more likely to positively affect your nutrition

and your other behaviors throughout the day. But although those are important, we can make an argument for them. And my opinion is that the best argument is the bottom is, you're much more likely to be consistent. Because you don't have to drive anywhere, start your day off with a workout. The next thing is you want to consider home-friendly equipment. Now, in an ideal world, a home gym would have a rack, a barbell, dumbbells, an adjustable would have a rack, a barbell, dumbbells, adjustable, you know, adjustable bench, and you'd pretty much, you'd have a nice

free weight set to do a lot of things. That's not reality for most people. So most people are like, well okay, what can I get away with, right? Bands and your body. If you have a good set of bands, which you could buy nowadays for like 50 bucks, and I mean a good set, you could buy a good set of bands, which you could buy nowadays for like 50 bucks, and I mean a good set, you can buy a cheap set for even less, but a decent set,

it's like 50 bucks and use your body weight, you could train your entire body. You can do any, any exercise that you can think of, you could do with body weight and bands and you could get an absolutely phenomenal workout. And bands are so convenient. You could do them in a hotel room. You could do them outside where you put them around a tree or a bench. You could do them, of course, in your house.

You do them when you travel and they take up so little space. I mean, I used to have a set of bands that I used to carry in a little bag that was this big and mean that that was it. And when I traveled to train clients, there was a period of time there where I trained clients in their home.

That's what I took of me. I took bands. I had bands and myself and we could do anything we wanted. It's such a good place to start too. I mean, getting, like body weight and bands are gonna provide enough intensity for you. And then also the body weight portion of like having to control your own body weight and space, are gonna provide enough intensity for you. And then also the body weight portion

of like having to control your own body weight in space, I just think is an important skill to acquire before I stack a barbell on somebody's back or ask them to do something that where they're carrying weight in space, I think being able to control your own body weight. Because you live in your body. Right, is a great, this is why gymnastics is one of the best sports that you can teach kids

before you build on and layer on any other sports is because that body awareness and control and space and obviously a lot of that is all body weight stuff. I think that having a client do body weight in bands to start is such a great way to lay a foundation for all pursuits whether you're trying to build tons of muscle lose a bunch of body fat or just be overall healthy such a great way to lay a foundation. It should be a prerequisite requirement I mean to train your body weight first and really to address a lot of those things to see where the imbalances lie to see where we need more stability and you know you're gonna be

able to appropriately apply pressure and, and apply that kind of resistance, uh, by feeling your way through that with body weight more so than, uh, reacting, uh, towards some load that's sort of weighing you down. So, uh, to be able to create that strength, stability, and that, that solid, uh, response and mechanics, uh, with your form, like body weight is superior. It's, it's, it's an exceptional way to work out. You can vary the intensity in the challenge of it dramatically.

So if I bands and body weight is appropriate for complete beginners, it's also appropriate for the super advanced because of how you adjust and change the exercises and the tempo, I can make it as easy or as hard almost as I want and there isn't a body part or part of the body that I can't train with those two things and they require almost, they're very inexpensive and almost no space. Now of course you could get the gym set up

for your house but my point with this is you could do a lot with what I just said. Well I think that's one of the best parts, and you've said this for a long time on the show, you've talked about how not even fully being able to articulate the science of what exactly is happening, but the soreness that you get from bands is so different in comparison. It's less damaging. Yeah, it just does. And so when you think about getting started on your routine and starting at home and utilizing tools like bands, it's such a safer, smarter way to scale your routine because it's so

much easier to make that mistake when you're using free weights of like, oh yeah, I can do this, this is fine. And then doing a weight or doing something that you load that is so much more than what your body needs to adapt and grow and change. And that's what's ideal. Ideally, we are trying to just stretch, to just progressively overload the body enough to send that signal to build muscle to change, but not so much that it's so much damage that I'm crippled for the next three days and sore and I don't want to work out because I did too much in there and then my body is just trying to prioritize recovering

and not adapting and growing. A hundred percent. And lastly, while you're doing this at home, one of the most important factors that you can adjust that will help ensure that you'll get continual success and progress, in other words your body will consistently change, especially in that first year or two of this journey, is to adjust the intensity on a daily basis and base it off of how you feel. So you may think a super hard workout is the best workout, but that's only true if a super hard workout is appropriate for your body at that moment. And many times it's not. Many times, especially when you first get started the workout the day

before, you're still feeling it. Today's workout is going to be much easier. Maybe you didn't get great sleep. Maybe you just woke up with less energy. It doesn't matter. Adjust the intensity before you adjust anything else. Before even adjust the volume, meaning the total amount of sets, before even adjust the frequency or how many days a week you're working out. The intensity is something you want to look at and adjust based off of how you feel. Now here's a little good rule of thumb. You should feel more energized at the end of your workouts than you do at the beginning. So if you wake up in the morning, you want to work out, you do your workout

afterwards, like, man, I feel good. Then you're doing a good job. If after your workout, you're like, wow, I need to go back to bed. You did a bad job. So adjust the intensity of our workouts based how you feel. Um, and you're, you're more often than not going to train yourself appropriately. Soreness and sweat.

Those are not your indicators. And I know that's very common, but what Sal's saying, if you can figure out how to kind of stop yourself just shy of overdoing it, you're gonna come back the next workout, you're gonna feel all of that strength and energy applied. I can't stress enough the point you're making and how much people need to think about that for a second

because I don't think they understand that the feeling of you feel more energized from your workout is very foreign to most people working out. Most people are searching for that I got crushed or that was really difficult. Or I survived. Yes. And that there's the, the fitness space has done a really bad job of communicating that and how that does not measure an effective workout. In fact, it's most likely an ineffective workout.

If you are, if you're that exhausted, you're that beat up afterwards. Sure. You got some mental fortitude or toughness through it, but as far as the results and then what your body needs, body needs in order to adapt and change, you've overdid it, you've overreached. And so using that as a gauge of, hey, I have these things, these few workouts or bands or bodyweight exercises I'm gonna do, sure, I want to push myself and challenge myself, but not at the expense of I walk out of my garage or wherever you do your at-home workout and I'm

exhausted, I'm spent, or I feel terrible the rest of the day, and so if you are doing that, you need to learn how to scale that back and the goal is leaving feeling like you could do more. No, this is a very, very important point when it comes to working out. And again, don't judge the workout and then say, well, I should be able to do more.

Base it off of how you feel and whatever you did doesn't really matter. In other words, it matters in terms of if it's appropriate, if it's good exercise, good programming, but what I mean is sometimes people get caught up and they're doing the workout and they're like, man, this feels like it's too much. Then they'll look at the workout,

but it shouldn't be too much. This should be easy, I should be able to do this. It doesn't matter. Then they'll look at the workout, but it shouldn't be too much. This should be easy I should be able to do this. It doesn't matter. Base it off of how you feel, adjust your intensity off that regardless of what you're doing and that will more often than not direct you in the right direction. Now look if you want a program with exercises and demos on technique and form and reps, you know exactly what to do when you're working out at home or anywhere. We have a program called Maps Anywhere specifically designed for this. And because we're doing this episode, we're going to make it half off.

So you can get maps anywhere 50% off and then you'll have your whole workout mapped out for you that tells you what to do, when to do, what the exercise looks like. You can click on the videos and watch the technique inform and get the coaching. You can find that program at mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code at home 50 that'll give you the 50% off. Look if you like the show come find us on Instagram Justin is at mind pump Justin I'm at mind pump de Stefano and Adams at mind pump Adam. Thank you for listening to mindump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and

performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a 5-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump.