6 Ways To Progress Your Home Workouts (Without More Weight)

Working out at home is a great option for many people to get started and build confidence with exercise. It’s a comfortable and safe space for most of us, not to mention it’s very convenient to just roll out of bed in your pjs and get started into your workout!

However working out at home obviously does come with some limitations – the biggest one being not having access to the usual weight training equipment you would find a regular gym.

Therefore we can often find it a bit tricky to figure out how to make our home workouts challenging and effective enough so that we are actually making some progress and in turn getting a bit stronger.

In this post I’m sharing my favourite ways to progress your exercises at home which don’t require you having to buy more weights just yet. If you only have one lighter set of weights at home you can utilize these different strategies right away!

1. Increase your reps

This is probably the easiest way to start making your home workouts feel more challenging.

For example, if you normally do a set of 8 squats, you could set yourself a goal of gradually increasing that to 10 reps, then 12, then 15 and so forth. Obviously only increase your reps as you feel you can and keep good technique.

If you find you can do 30 or more reps of an exercise however, I would suggest it’s getting too easy for you. At that point I’d advise you to either get some heavier dumbbells or try out some of the other ways below!

2. Increase your sets

As well as (or instead of) increasing your reps, you can also increase your overall sets of an exercise.

So for example, if you’re doing 2 sets of 10 dumbbell squats currently, maybe next week you could increase that to 3 sets of dumbbell squats.

This will mean you’re increasing your overall reps of an exercise as you are adding that extra set and you’ll be working your muscles that bit harder.

I feel like doing that additional set is a great way of getting more reps in, but it breaks it up with the rest periods in between so you aren’t tiring yourself as much as you would trying to do so many reps all at once.

3. Slow things down

This is one of my favourite ways to make certain exercises feel more effective – simply by slowing the movement down, especially on the lowering phases. This is often called ‘time under tension.’

For example, rather than just lowering into your squat quickly and back up, try counting to 3 as you lower down – then come back up as normal.

Or maybe you’re doing a bicep curl – again think about extending your arms slowly down for 3 seconds before you squeeze back up.

Slowing down can also mean you are more in control of what you’re actually doing, which can in turn improve your overall technique as well.

4. Reduce your rest periods

When we’re working out at home with lighter or no weights at all, we can usually afford to have shorter rest periods.

If you feel like your rest periods are possibly a bit too long, you could think about reducing them. For example if you’re currently resting for 60 seconds between exercises and you feel like maybe that’s too long, you could reduce it to 30-45 seconds instead.

Not only will this increase the intensity of your workout, but you will be finished your workout sooner!

Note: we always want to give ourselves some rest between exercises, so be sure not to cut your rest periods out completely. I always suggest going by how you feel on the day – whether you need that extra rest or not!

5. Try uni-lateral exercises

Adding in unilateral exercises (otherwise called single-arm/single-leg movements) to your home workouts is a brilliant way to add variety and an extra challenge.

When you’re working one limb at a time, you will have a less stable base, so it can be harder to keep everything steady and balanced. Plus you might also find that it’s tougher working one side of your body than the other!

A few examples of unilateral exercises you could try are:

• Split Squats
• Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts
• Single Leg Glute Bridges
• Forward Lunge & Reverse Lunges
• Single Arm Shoulder Presses
• Single Arm Rows

6. Take a pause

Last on the list (but by no means least) is another easy peasy way to make your exercises at home feel harder – by adding a pause.

What I mean by this is pausing for 1-2 seconds at the most challenging part of the exercise.

For example, I love to add a pause at the bottom of my squat or hold a nice squeeze for a few seconds at the top of a glute bridge.

It’s such a small thing you can do but it can really change the effectiveness and difficulty of an exercise!

Final Thoughts On Ways To Progress With Your At-Home Workouts

I hope that this post has been helpful in helping you to figure out how to make your home workouts more challenging and effective.

I would personally start out by picking one or two things off this list to focus on first. Maybe the options that feel the most accessible to you or easiest for you to do.

So whether you want to: add 1-2 extra reps, do an extra set, slow down your reps and work on technique, add a pause at the bottom of your squat, reduce your rest or even try some single-leg moves – just choose what works for you!

I do want to add (for keeping it honest purposes!) – that you may get to a point where you have exhausted what you can do with your home workouts or the one set of dumbbells you have is simply not challenging enough. When you reach that point – I’d say it’s time to get some heavier weights or new bits of a equipment if you can. Especially if you really want to lift heavy, get stronger and build more muscle in the long run!

Any questions, let me know below and I’ll be happy to help! 💗

Jane XO