Full Body Workout: How to Get Started?
Are you imagining a better body but don’t have a lot of time to work out? Perhaps you aren’t sure how to get started with a work-out routine. An at-home full-body workout is a great place to start.
Working your body out evenly will help you reach your goals while making it easier for you to continue doing the workout so you won’t be too sore in any particular body part.
Planning Your Routine
You may decide to break up your routine by doing exercises on alternating days. This is a great way to fit a full-body workout into a busy routine. It also means that you won’t need to suffer from full-body soreness.
However, you want to plan your routine, err on the side of less exercise instead of more, especially at the beginning. Also, try to make sure that you are doing some kind of exercise every day.
Equipment
You can get a pretty great full-body workout with minimal equipment. In order to get the most out of your home work out, consider investing in the following:
- Exercise or Bosu ball. An exercise ball allows you to adjust resistance during a workout and enables stretches that may otherwise not be possible. Besides, exercise balls are fun. Bosu balls offer many of the same benefits as exercise balls, but they are more stable, which may be an advantage for many people.
- Dumbbells or weights. Weights allow you to increase resistance and make a wide variety of exercises more effective. Weights don’t just benefit your arms. They increase resistance to offer a better workout to your entire body.
Exercises for a Full Body Workout
There are two exercises that should be essential to almost any full-body workout routine. These exercises are easy to work into a routine at the home or office and can easily be adjusted whether you have weights or not. Together, they work on every part of your body.
Side Plank
This exercise works your arms, legs, and core, for a nearly full body work out by itself. It does not require any equipment, so it’s a great choice for exercising on the go.
- Lie on the floor with your hands on the floor directly beneath your shoulders and your feet extended out behind you.
- Lift one arm and rotate it out towards that side, lifting your arm until it is perpendicular to the floor and your feet are on top of one another. Either bring your bottom knee down to stabilize yourself or do it with both of your legs lifted, whatever you feel comfortable with.
- Lift your top leg until you can feel your outer hip squeeze and then lower your leg back down.
* Be sure to keep your core fully engaged and use it to move your arms and legs throughout the exercise
Squat
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding a dumbbell in each hand if desired.
- Lift the dumbbells so they are in front of each of your shoulders and your palms are facing each other
- Sink down into a squat and then back up to your starting position
- Lift your arms over your head with palms facing each other for an overhead press to finish the move
Create Your Own Full Body Workout
Once you’re comfortable with these two moves and used to incorporate a workout into your everyday life, you may be surprised by how easy it is to expand your full-body workout until you are achieving your workout goals.
