How To Create Your At Home Fitness Routine

With Indiana’s shelter in place order, it’s been more difficult than usual to stay engaged with a beneficial fitness routine.  Gyms, health clubs, and personal training studios are closed so we don’t really have options to go out to a place that has the equipment that we need.  So, what are you doing with the resources at your disposal to ensure that you don’t neglect your fitness at a time when it’s so easy to make excuses?  Have you found a workout plan that works with the equipment that you’ve got?  Are you lost and wondering how to create an exercise regime that works for your situation?  If you answered “I don’t know,” “no,” and “yes” respectively to the questions above then this article is for you.

To create our own exercise routine, we first need to know all the movement patterns that are found in an effective plan.  Those movement patterns are as follows:  Vertical Push, Horizontal Push, Vertical Pull, Horizontal Pull, Lower Body Push, Lower Body Pull, Spinal Stabilization/Anti-extension, Spinal Flexion.  We could also add a Carry to this list if we wish, but I would bet that you already carry things at least a little bit in your life, am I wrong?

Next, we need to know that we want to use each of these movement patterns at least twice each, every week.  And we need to know how many times we plan to work out each week. 

Once we know these two things, we can start dividing our movement patterns into our workouts each week. And remember, each pattern should be in our routine twice.  So if you are going to work out two times per week, then you would simply want to do at least one exercise for each movement pattern during each workout. If you are going to workout 4 times per week then we could do half the movement patterns each workout, and even just do the same two workouts twice each if we wanted.  3 and 5 day splits are slightly more complicated but still doable as long as all movement patterns are used twice each week. 

A balanced workout routine is important like getting the tires aligned properly in your car is important.  If your tires aren’t aligned properly then your car will drift to the left or right.  If your routine isn’t balanced then some muscles get stronger than others and we start to develop problems w/ range of motion in certain joints or we develop chronic pain in joints with imbalanced muscles. Your posture might start favoring the muscles on your front or the muscles on your back.  We need to keep our posture in alignment. 

Here is an effective split for a 4x/wk exercise routine. In this plan you would take one rest day between day two and day three. 

Day 1	Day 2
Horizontal Push Vertical Pull Lower Body Push Spinal Stabilization/ Spinal Anti-extension	Vertical Push Horizontal Pull Lower Body Push Spinal Flexion

Day 3	Day 4
Can be the same as day one or you can divide movement patterns up differently as you wish	Can be the same as day two or if you come up with a new day 3, then day 4 needs to be complementary patterns.

If creating a home workout routine seems overwhelming or if you’d like to take it up a notch, consider virtual training. I offer several options that can help you develop a routine designed around your fitness level and goals. Email me today for more information or to schedule a virtual consultation.

Virtual training is personalized to your needs, the equipment you have, and to help you meet your goals. LIVE sessions and template workouts with supporting videos are available.