No gym equipment? No worries.

We’re all at home right now, and unless you’re The Beckhams with your own home gym in the basement, you might not have any equipment with you. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t get a great and varied workout from home.

There are many workouts and types of exercise that require no gym equipment, here are a few of my favourites: 

• Pilates 

• Yoga 

• Running/jogging 

• Walking 

• Dancing 

• Circuit training (possibilities are endless here) 

Pilates and yoga are age old practices, established well before going to the gym became main stream.  Both practices evolve around using your body weight as the resistance and challenge rather than any additional equipment.

Alongside my obvious love of Reformer Pilates, under normal circumstances I use weights mostly as a part of my own workout routine in the gym, however since lockdown and working out at home with no equipment, I have re-found my love for mat Pilates. 

I have found the workouts really challenging as I haven’t done some of the exercises in a long time, which means that several different muscles groups are working in several different ranges of motion that my body has not been accustomed to. This has made my home workouts just as physically challenging if not more so than my regular training routine at the gym. 

To be able to build strength and improve overall performance it’s important to workout in ways that provide the body with new stimulation by switching up your training routine. Working out at home without gym equipment is a perfect time to explore this.

Alongside this it’s also a great time to focus and isolate muscles that tend to be neglected in the gym such as the smaller, stabilising muscle groups (local muscles). Mat Pilates is a great practice to work on these muscle groups that are naturally weak so using body weight as the resistance is enough to work these muscles effectively.