Image by Joe Shlabotnik
There are so many different types of workout available for men these days that it’s often hard to determine which is best for you. This is made more difficult by so-called experts that claim their way is best and anything else simply won’t work. The fact is that there isn’t a one-type-fits-all workout per se. Different goals, body types, and motivation are all factors to be taken into consideration.
If you’re anything like me, you want your workouts to be as simple as possible so that all of your energy and focus goes into the exercise. This is why I hate most modern gyms. There are distractions everywhere! The TV is playing, there are social conversations between groups of friends and not to mention that there are often a lot of attractive women, which means my concentration is not 100% on the task at hand.
Working Out From Home
Working out from home may not be for everyone, however the exercises I will explain later in the article can be done at home or in the gym.
Working out from home allows me to remove all distractions from my surroundings and my daily life so that I can focus completely on my workout.
The main reasons why I love working out at home are:
- There is never any queue to use a machine
- I can put the time it takes to travel to/from the gym to much better use
- No distractions
- I can pull my most hideous workout faces without the hot girl on the treadmill seeing me
- I can do exercises I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in front of other people
Okay, so we’ve established reasons to work out at home (if you’re comfortable doing this workout in the gym then it can be done there too) so now it’s time to talk a little bit about the reasoning of the weight free workout.
Reasons For Weight Free and Conditioning Exercise
Having lifted weights for many years, I was very skeptical to try out conditioning and bodyweight exercises, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that resistance is resistance. It doesn’t matter if that resistance is your bodyweight, a barbell or a medicine ball. As long as I’m providing my muscles with the necessary resistance needed to improve strength, speed and flexibility, then I don’t really care about what type of resistance I’m using.
Let me tell you now that after doing these exercises (and various others) for six months, I was stronger, fitter, and healthier than I ever was when I was pumping iron. I’ve included a couple of very basic sample routines towards the bottom of this article for people who don’t need to go through the exercise moves and want to skip ahead.
I would describe the sample routines and exercises as low-tech and high intensity. It’s similar to circuit training I did back in school, but that was nothing compared to this. Let’s cover some exercises.
High Intensity Exercises
People often think that the further they run and the longer they run for, the better shape they’re going to be in. This is true in principle, but it’s not always the type of shape they’re looking for. Lengthy cardio sessions will increase your aerobic capacity which means you can run longer and further, but your body will adjust to this type of exercise by reducing the muscle mass.
What we want is short, high intensity anaerobic workouts (unless you’re running a marathon) to really get the heart pumping. This type of exercise burns fat while preserving your muscle mass.
Exercise 1 – Hill sprints
Remember when Rocky ran up those steps in Philly? Same principle. The process goes like so:
- Start at the bottom of the hill
- Sprint all the way to the top
- Jog/walk down the hill
- Rinse and repeat
If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Be warned though, this exercise can be soul destroying. I used to jog over to this giant 200-odd metre hill, which was maybe a 30 degree incline, and sprint up it for 30 minutes. By the time I was ready to jog home, my legs were like jelly and I was ready to puke. Simply, effective and minimum time needed for the workout. Hill sprinting also helps to develop lower body power in addition to anaerobic endurance.
Exercise 2 – Burpees
Remember those weird star jump into a push-up type things you used to do at school? They’re called burpees and I guarantee that once you start doing them, Burpees will be the exercise you love to hate.
This exercise is, in my opinion, the best conditioning exercise available. You will rarely hear people bragging about the number of burpees they can do the way guys in the gym brag about their bench press figures. This is a very difficult exercise which a lot of people avoid by choosing alternative conditioning methods. Here’s how to perform it.
- Start in the squat position with hands on the ground.
- Kick your feet back into the downward position of a push-up.
- Push up with your arms, simultaneously thrusting your feet back into the squat position.
- Explode into a jump.
- As soon as you land, repeat and continue at a furious pace.
For those that didn’t get that, here’s a YouTube video:
Try performing 100 burpees as fast as you possibly can. It makes for a brief, but very effective conditioning workout.
Related posts:
- Intense Tabata Interval Routines For Ultimate Conditioning
- The Fitness And State Of Mind Of A Royal Marines Commando
- Freerunning For Fitness
- The Four Worst Workout Blunders
- Get Fit in Just Six Minutes a Week
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January 9th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Ross Enamait is the master of total fitness. I always think i train really hard..However, it is nothing compare to Ross’s program.
All those fitness magazine tell you how to get big. However, they all forget it is not how good you look, but how strong, how fast and how durable you are that count
January 9th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You’ve hit the nail on the head there Sam. I’d much rather be strong, fast and flexible than one of those big meatheads guzzling weight gain powder and chatting instead of working out.
Also, Ross Enamait is awesome. His book Never Gymless has changed my entire perception of health and fitness.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:43 am
OK
January 12th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Great post! Bookmarked for further reference
February 20th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Christian,
Great article buddy! I can tell you spend quality time on your posts. I know a post of this length can easily take 2-3 hours…especially with all of the videos (I have been distracted on Youtube for an hour trying to find the perfect video for a post).
Thanks for the mention of my site. As a “thank you”…I submitted your RSS feed to hundreds of RSS directories (using RssSubmit), I “Stumbled” this post, and I bookmarked it with “Onlywire” (around 24 sites bookmarking sites). Submitted this post to Newsvine, Propeller, Dig, Reddit, and Netscape.
I enjoy the quality of your blog. We need more sites of this caliber!
Rusty
February 20th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
@Rusty - Thanks for the kind words. I’ve been a regular reader of your blog for some time now so it means a lot to get some feedback. Thanks for helping out and submitting the article. I know what you mean about Youtube as well, I find myself watching some really random junk when I’m supposed to be finding something useful. Men, eh?
February 27th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Great article and excellent advise! There’s only one thing I do not agree with, either because my own training proved me that chin-ups are better than pull-ups and would you know it, I stumbled upon “Common Exercise Misconceptions Part 2″ on t-nation.com describing the same finding. http://www.t-nation.com/article/most_recent/common_exercise_misconceptions_part_2&cr=
(part one is a good read as well!). Keep up the good work!
February 28th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
http://www.crossfit.com
Its basically what you just spoke about, but 1000 times better. Give it a shot!
March 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Ok, I’m not a guy… but this post was very inspirational. I’ve bookmarked it.
Thank you for writing it and sharing it, you’ve done well!
Em
p.s. I’ve also seen most of the 100 most manly movies…
April 13th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
dude wat the hell is rong with ross he aint human
hey i can barely do 1 proper pull up (im all walking no watever with the arms)
what would u suggest as a suppliment until then and i cant do many push ups so thats probs not the best idea
April 17th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
There are some pretty wierd, but effective workouts. They help alot!!!!
April 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I really liked your post about body weight exercises. I have done Judo for years and I always noticed that actually weight training messed me up rather than helped me. I always wondered why. When I concentrated on the body weight exercises I felt way stronger and fitter. I agree the “burpees” are the best exercise on the planet. We called them suicides. Whenever, I do them in a park I usually get an ex military guy coming over to me asking me if I was in the special forces or something. I think the problem is that everyone is trying to sell some new exercise gizmo. You can really get in shape right in your local park for free.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Great great great. Me: minus 70 lbs, 3 years ago. First 45-50 was lost from diet (no more booze) and dumping crappy job (stress). Last 25, lots of bodyweight exercise research… thence hard work, 1 hour 5-6 days a week.
I am convinced bodyweight exercises are the best. Way more natural, and superior flexibility. Super fast, super strong, and more to go!
Excellent advice!
April 19th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Willz, to enhance your strength enough to do pullups : first begin with chinups, it’s easier. If you can’t do more than 5 chinups straight, then work it out doing reverse chinups : use a chair to get in position up on the bar (palms facing you on the bar, your chin over the bar) and let yourself go down as slowly as possible until your feet touch the ground. Repeat 10 to 20 times three time a week to every day. After two to four weeks, you’ll be able to do 5 to 10 chinups straight; so then do three times 5 to 10 chinups (pause for a minute between sets) three times a week to every day for 4 weeks again; then you’ll be able to do 20 chinups, go on doing pull ups instead. Program length : 3 months
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
There are definitely some great exercises you can do without ever leaving your home. However, free weights and variable resistance machines are also important in developing a great physique. Sometimes the gym, even with all of its negatives, is the best place to get the best workout.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:47 am
nice healthy post.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Great article dude!! Also the fun part is you can play your own music too!!
http://www.ekhichdi.com/general-healthcare/a-happy-mother-makes-a-better-mother
Tina
January 7th, 2009 at 7:22 am
those are cadio exercises very effective but those are the hard parts in exercise…
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
Good article we do a lot of that type of training here in our facility at physio fitness. Check us out at physiofitnesswayne.com
March 1st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I really liked the way they came off