Hi Doug,
I'm a big fan of your blog and have another question for you. What advice do you have in regards to progressive resistance for someone who is limited to working out at home with minimal equipment. If I were at a gym I could incrementally add 5lbs, 10lbs, etc to consistently overload the muscle, but I find this difficult to replicate at home when I'm doing mostly body weight exercises i.e. push ups, squats etc. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
F
Thank you for the question. It's a great one.
A couple of questions to ask your self first are, "What's the point of my exercising? What am I trying to achieve?"
If the answer is to increase muscle size (this is often the goal for men; for women it usually is to lose fat and increase muscle tone), then you have to, at some point, use heavier loads.
Muscle hypertrophy comes from recruitment of mostly fast twitch muscle fiber (FTF). When you begin an exercise, for example a push up, the recruitment of muscle fibers follows a specific sequence from Slow Twitch to Fast Twitch. As the intensity of the exercise increases, you recruit more FTF. But, you have to train for nearly twenty weeks to get past a neuromotor learning phase where your body gets smarter at performing the movement before it alters the muscle fiber size.
Now, in the push up example, the very first time you try them, you might fatigue at 10 or 12, for example. And, then the next day or so, you might be sore. But, eventually, you'll no longer fatigue at 12 reps but rather at 30 or 40 reps which means you recruit fewer FTF.
At this point, you can increase the load of a push up by doing a few things:
- Place your feet on a chair to increase the effect of gravity.
- Use a weighted vest.
- Place a weight on your back.
- Wrap heavy resistance bands around your upper back and under your hands.
- Perform one hand push ups.
- Place you hands together during the push up.
You can also add higher speed, eccentric motions to the movement such as a push up - clap your hands - land in the push up position. The higher speed of contraction (catching your self as you land) increases the force (F = mass x acceleration). Higher force means more FTF recruitment but this may not deliver much change in muscle size since you're not recruiting as much FTF as you would during a very heavy bench press, for example.
For the squat, you can increase demand by:
- Using a single leg squat.
- Holding a dumb bell in the opposite hand of the single leg squat leg.
- In between sets of squats, hold an isometric squat position for 10 seconds or more. This increases the rate of fatigue and therefore increases the perceived load.
- Increase the speed of the squat.
You can develop significant strength though for daily life and recreational activities without significant changes in muscle size (and even in athletes in some sports this happens like the high jump).
I would first answer the question, "What am I trying to achieve with my exercise?" and then decide the best path. If you want functional strength, you may not need much in the way of additional resistance beyond dumb bells. If you're after size, you'll have to go to the gym or buy some weight / resistance tools.
DK
