Lockdown Lifestyle: No Gym? No Problem.

For many of us, the 6 am gym session or after work spin class are an integral part of our daily routine. However, with gyms now closed for the next four weeks (and hopefully not any longer!) we will have to resort back to home workouts and wintery walks/runs wearing lots of layers (brrr). But this doesn’t mean losing fitness levels or seeing a plateau in performance, we can still maintain fitness levels and have the potential to see a slight improvement!

I am disappointed like the majority of us that the government made the decision to close the gyms during this second lockdown as they have been proven to be essential for supporting our physical health and fighting against Covid-19. Their re-opening was a welcome relief from the daily stresses of work and the change to life as we knew it.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! We have to make the most of what we've got and adapt to the change in our routines once again. This may actually provide the stimulus needed to help our muscles adapt to become bigger and stronger if we have fallen into a slight gym rut. Fortunately, most of us are prepared with home-based equipment from lockdown number one so we are well equipped to get underway. But many of us will still not have any dumbbells, barbells or resistance bands to help maintain our progress that has been developing since gyms re-opened. This is not a problem!

Even though we might not necessarily be able to increase the weight on the bar and lift heavier we can still make progressions to our movements and exercises. We can adapt by implementing other training methods such as bodyweight training, HIIT, low impact HIIT, adjusting the tempo of the lifts or exercises, using paused repetitions or increasing our repetitions to a higher range. All of these are able to provide a large enough stimulus for our muscles to adapt and see improvements in our physical fitness levels.

1. Bodyweight Training

No equipment? No problem! Bodyweight training may not seem like it would be challenging as you aren’t adding any extra resistance, however this definitely isn’t the case! Bodyweight training IS challenging and comes with so many benefits. Bodyweight training can be performed ANYWHERE which makes it super convenient and ideal to perform at home, plus can be done in a comparatively short time (12-40 minutes). We can also progress or regress bodyweight movements to make the exercise harder or easier until we are ready to increase the difficulty of the exercise. A cheap and easy way to do this would be to wear a backpack and fill it with bottles, cans or books (anything you can get your hands on!) to add a greater resistance to the muscles when performing the movements they have become accustomed to.

Through bodyweight training we are able to benefit muscular strength and endurance, whilst also improving cardiorespiratory fitness (ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to the skeletal muscles during any sustained physical activity). It has been shown in a study by Tabata et al. (1996), a 6-week bodyweight training programme increased maximal anaerobic power (power developed during all out short-term physical effort) by 28%, that’s over ¼! From this research, Lipecki & Rutowicz. (2015) performed a 10-week bodyweight training programme, which showed increases in strength but additionally found major improvements in aerobic capacity by 33%. This has massive implications in promoting health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The advantage of such training is it includes functional movements that engage multiple muscle groups which can additionally improve balance, flexibility, and proprioception (perception of the position & movement of the body). Furthermore, performing bodyweight exercises can lead to a visible enhancement of physical appearance due to increasing the muscle tone without excessive growth of muscle mass, which may appeal to those looking to increase muscular strength without becoming ‘bulky’.

2. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

We’ve all heard of HIIT training. It’s another common and easy to perform training method with or without equipment, again with a load of benefits to maintain fitness and improve physical health. HIIT can be a mixture of bodyweight exercises, strength exercises, plyometric or cardio all mixed into one workout! It involves alternating bouts of high intensity exercise with rest periods, allowing recovery before performing the next high intensity interval. HIIT is a very time-efficient training method which means it can be performed even if you only have a spare 20-30 minutes in the day (ideal for those still working!).

HIIT has been shown to be a better form of training compared to steady state exercise when aiming to lose weight. During a HIIT workout, percentage of fat breakdown and total caloric expenditure are substantially greater. This was apparent from the results of a study by Tremblay et al. (1994) who found a HIIT exercise group to have a 9-fold greater reduction in skinfold thickness (fat levels) than the group who only performed endurance exercise. This may be due to the fact that in high-intensity training, we switch between aerobic and anaerobic exercises, which has a positive effect on muscle mass and improves the basal metabolic rate (the rate the body uses energy at rest to maintain vital functions) for as many as 48 hours after training. So, this means there’s an increase in the calories we burn after a workout when we aren’t exercising.

3. Low Impact HIIT

Low impact does NOT mean low intensity. This style of training incorporates high intensity exercise just like HIIT but the load and force of these movements is reduced, lowering the impact on your joints. It follows exactly the same format as HIIT with intervals of work followed by a rest period. This may be an effective form of high intensity training for you if you have joint problems or are recovering from injury and want to get back into workouts, or it can be ideal for those who are newer to exercise.

Following low impact HIIT workouts, exercises are modified so that stress on the joints is reduced. For example, instead of your normal burpee (everyone’s favourite exercise!) you would walk your legs back and forward instead of jumping. Regardless of this, you still can achieve the fat-burning benefits of HIIT!

4. Tempo Training & Paused Repetitions

Resistance training intensity can be further manipulated if you can’t add any further weight. To continue overloading the muscle and make the movement gradually more challenging we can use tempo training. Tempo training describes the speed of the repetition performed through each of the muscle contraction phases: 1) Concentric: muscle shortening phase, 2) Isometric: maintaining muscle length in fixed position, 3) Eccentric: muscle lengthening phase.

To consider this another way, tempo looks at the time the muscle is under tension against a resistance. This is a critical stimulus for increasing muscle size and definition. Adding mechanical strain (lifting weights) to muscle fibres sends signals to repair structural damage to existing fibres and set foundations for new muscle cells. Changes in movement tempo at a given weight can influence exercise intensity and changes to maximum strength, power, and hypertrophy as a result.

Maximum strength training with heavier loads (85-100% 1RM) tend to need a faster and more explosive tempo to provide a stimulus to recruit all available muscle motor units. But training for hypertrophy (increasing size of the muscle) requires keeping the muscle under tension for a longer period of time, creating the correct stimulus to increase metabolic demand on the muscle for muscle growth. Just as set and repetition number can be altered, so too can tempo to create a different training effect to change the intensity and mechanical stress placed on the muscles.

Just like tempo training, paused repetition training is a great way to increase the time the muscle is under tension during the movement for the desired stimulus to aid metabolic and muscular changes. The pause can last 3-5 seconds and come in the transition between the concentric and eccentric contraction, or during the eccentric and concentric contractions themselves. This will probably feel like the longest 5 seconds in the world! But it is important that we still provide the muscle with an ample sized stimulus and progressively overload it in order to see adaptation.

5. Higher Repetition Range

Another way to manipulate the muscles time under tension is to vary the repetition number of the exercise performed. Studies have shown that increasing the repetition number and reducing the repetition duration (tempo) can lead to the production of greater nervous system-muscular and metabolic responses, so may be a more appropriate strategy to increase muscle activation by increasing physiological demand on the muscle. This, in turn is an important response related to the hypertrophy adaptation and increases in muscle strength. So, when considering adaptations to the muscles from resistance training, increasing the intensity by increasing the number of repetitions may aid the growth of muscles.

And finally,

Another great thing about training at home? Still getting the mental health benefits of stress release and that feeling of achievement. Exercise, regardless of the form it is done in, increases positive mood states, increases self-esteem, and significantly reduces anxiety and depression. A home workout can still give us that natural ‘high’ after finishing it through the release of the feel-good chemical endorphins.

So, lets make the most of what we have and squeeze in that workout if we’re short on time and continue to make adaptations to maintain and improve our physical fitness and mental wellbeing. These are all variations to training that can be used in the gym as well as in your home workouts and have been shown as effective training methods! There are multiple ways in which you can create new a new stimulus for the muscles and mix up your training to continue seeing gains in performance and fitness. Stick to the good habits that you've built with training and nutrition, the hard work has already been done. Use this time to get fitter, faster and stronger by adapting to and overcoming the circumstances.

References:

L.T. Lacerda, H.C. Martins-Costa, R.C.R. Diniz, F.V. Fernando, A.G.P. Andrade, F.D. Tourino, M.G. Bemben and M.H. Chagas (2016). Variations in repetition duration and repetition numbers influence muscular activation and blood lactate response in protocols equalized by time under tension. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 30(1), 251-158.

K. Lipecki & B. Rutowicz (2015). The impact of 10 weeks of bodyweight training on the level of physical fitness and selected parameters of body composition in women aged 21-23 years. Polish Journal of Sport and Tourism, 22, 64-68.

R. Martins, E.S.M. Coelho, D. Pindus, S. Cumming, A. Teixeira and M. Veríssimo (2011). Effects of strength and aerobic-based training on functional fitness, mood and the relationship between fatness and mood in older adults. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 51(3), 489-496.

C.G.R. Perry, G.J.F. Heigenhauser, A. Bonen and L.L. Spriet (2008). High-intensity aerobic interval training increases fat and carbohydrate metabolic capacities in human skeletal muscle. Nutrition and Metabolism, 33(6), 1112-1123.

P. O’Connor, M.P. Herring and A. Caravalho (2009). Mental health benefits of strength training in adults Review. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 4(5), 377-396.

B. Schoenfeld and J. Dawes (2009). High-intensity interval training: applications for general fitness training. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 31(6), 44-46.

Q.T. Tran and D. Docherty (2006). Dynamic training volume: a construct of both time under tension and volume load. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 5, 707-713.

A. Tremblay, J.A. Simoneau and O. Bouchard (1994). Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Metabolism, 43, 814-818.

R.S. Weingberg and D. Gould. Foundations of Sport and Exercise Physchology 4th Edition. Human Kinetics, pp 395-405.