HOW TO TRAIN AT HOME | Bodybuilding Home Workout Program

What's going on, guys? Welcome to today's video. We have so much to cover here, that is why I broke out the whiteboard again. So without wasting any time, let's get into the video. Give it a thumbs up. Let's go. Okay, so first things first, this video is going to tell you how to stay in shape while you do not have access to the gym. As you know, there is a global pandemic going on, but I am not going to give you any advice on COVID-19. I'm not an expert in that field. I do not research diseases. I have no idea in the grand scheme of things what is going on. You should get advice from your government and from professionals and experts in that field. I'm a personal trainer and a fitness YouTuber, so I'm gonna give you advice on fitness and training and nutrition and how to stay in shape while you do not have access to the gym. I'm not gonna give you coronavirus advice. You know what? Maybe this isn't even a coronavirus video. Maybe your gym is just randomly closed down. Maybe you're just under house arrest. Either way, you can't go to the gym. So let's get into it. Before we get into that, a lot of you have been asking what are my future plans for my prep and my competitions. Safe to say they are cancelled. I've been waiting a few days to make this video. I've been holding off because I wanted to wait until I had more information. All the information is now out. They are cancelled. Of course I am gutted, but we need to have a bit of perspective in this situation. There are people around the world who are dying. There are healthcare workers putting their life on the line. Families being affected. Businesses have been affected. Who cares if I don't get to lube myself up, put on tan, and stand on a stage for a plastic trophy? Yes, I'm disappointed I can't continue the series. There's so much more stuff going on in the world that you need to apply a bit of perspective. So the competition has been postponed till about October. So you know what? That even gives me more time to get in the best shape of my life. So we'll pick up the series back then. So the content, seeing as we are meant to be doing some social distancing and staying inside, I'm gonna be doing a lot more sit-down and talking videos. And I'm actually— next video is gonna be for personal trainers, and it's gonna be— or even anyone who wants to start an online business. It's back to how to move your business online and how to make a living from online business. So any more content or videos, sit-down videos you want me to do, please comment down below. Podcasts are something that are gonna see a big rise right now as everybody is kind of looking for long-form content. So I'm gonna do longer type of Q&A and sit-down videos as well. This is also a really good time to work on your self-development, your mindset. Slow down a little bit and use this as some time to work on things like that. And there's a positive in everything if you just go looking for it. Alright, so let's move on to diet. Now we're gonna go through calories, protein intake, nutrient density, and what to do if you're cutting or bulking. So let's start with protein and calories. The most important thing is in your diet is total calorie intake and total protein intake. Especially when it comes to muscle loss and muscle maintenance, you want to have a high protein intake. And to be on the safe side, I'm going to recommend everyone to bump their protein up to 1 gram per pound of body weight. Usually you don't need this much, especially if you're training away, but right now when we don't have access to weights and a gym, I want to be on the safe side and recommend a higher protein intake than usual. Now, nutrient density. This is something that is very important, especially when there is a sickness going around. You want to follow a nice whole nutrient-dense diet, plenty of whole foods, plenty of vegetables, plenty of vitamins, minerals, fiber, all that good stuff. You don't need to follow any special diet, and there's been some crazy claims of people saying that certain diets can fix coronavirus, and I've seen some outrageous stuff. So seriously, be sensible, follow the healthy diet you were following, but as far as we know, there's no diet that cures coronavirus. It's which is absolutely ridiculous. But of course, follow a nutrient-dense diet. I think that just goes without saying to help with your immune system and stop you from, you know, feeling sick and run down. Okay, so nutrient-dense diet is more important than ever. Cutting slash bulking. Okay, so there's going to be people that are bulking, trying to gain weight and muscle. It's going to be people trying to lose fat and cut down. Okay, I'm going to recommend the majority of people right now, including myself, is to stay around maintenance calories. The reason for that, if you're bulking and you don't have access to a gym, you're gonna gain a lot of fat and not much muscle. You can eat all the calories you want, but if you don't lift weights, you don't give your muscles a stimulus and progressively overload them, why would they grow? Like, there's literally no reasons for them to grow. So I would bump down your calories to around maintenance levels and again, wait until you have access to weights, heavy weights, to return to your usual bulking routine. 'Cause you're not gonna gain a whole lot of muscle without some weights, okay? I think that's fair to say. The reason I recommend if you're cutting to go just below or around maintenance is because without a gym you're going to be more subject to muscle loss. So if you're cutting down again, you don't have access to proper training equipment, you're not going to maintain or sustain the muscle you had. And the number one goal when you're on a cut is to lose fat, not muscle. Okay, so you want to lose as much fat as possible and retain muscle. So right now, without a gym, that's not looking too good. So I'm going to recommend most people go around maintenance until this all blows over. I myself was actually on day 30 out of 90 on prep. Things were going so well. I'll put my current physique up on the screen. I'm just going to pause things for a little bit and yeah, just focus on staying healthy and maintaining as much progress as possible and keeping things ticking over. What's that, what's that like Sean O'Dea meme where he's like, they go to the pub, wait for the blowover? So now let's go on some training principles and I've written a few things down here, a few take-home points. I of course will show you some movements at the end of this, but this is actually the important stuff and this is the advice you need to take on board. And right up here at the top, We got muscle memory written down. Maintaining and regaining muscle is so much easier than building it. We have studies showing this. Even from anecdotal evidence, after coming off a layoff period, a lot of us will have noticed it's a lot easier to bounce back, and we can actually see crazy results. If we take like a month off, we can regain it pretty much all back in a week or two. So, so many people are worrying, freaking out, Rob Lipsett, I don't have my gym, I'm gonna lose all my progress. Chill out, it's fine. Even look at it as a deload, okay? You're going to be absolutely fine and bounce back very, very quickly. Super quick. You can actually recomposition after some time off. That means build muscle and lose fat at the same time, because again, you're not building any new muscle, you're just regaining what you had. So again, don't worry about it. These home workouts, you want to be progression focused, so you want to make them as intense and efficient as possible. So if one day you're doing 20 push-ups, the next day go for 30, go for 40. If you're doing 10 pull-ups, go for 20 the next day, okay? You want to be doing more reps, making it more intense, and again focusing on progression just like what you do in the gym. Next up is home gym equipment. If you're somewhat serious, or even if you're not serious about training, I'd recommend investing in some home gym or any type of equipment. It's going to make all the difference and it's very cheap. I'll go through what I recommend now in a minute, but I've got some bits here and I've got some more stuff on the way as well. And like, I actually kind of like the thought of building a mini home gym. Like, I might even make that into a series. And like, I've been researching home gyms and, you know, when I finally settle down and buy a place, definitely going to have a big home gym in that. But either way, I'm going to go through a few small things to recommend you guys pick up at the end of the video. So again, deload/time off— this kind of ties into what we spoke about in muscle memory. Some people could benefit from taking a break. The only problem is we don't know how long this is gonna last. Some people are saying the gyms are gonna be closed for 2 weeks, some are saying months, so we'll just have to wait and see in that. But deloads are basically when you taper your training down after an intense training period, and they can actually be beneficial to your long-term progress. Now, higher reps, okay, bodyweight workouts, home gym workouts, they're of course going to be higher reps. And let's say if you're powerlifting in a powerlifting gym, okay, but we have studies— Brad Schoenfeld actually linked a really really interesting study I'm going to put on the screen here, and it compares low load repetition training to high load. And basically what the results found was for strength, low rep training is important. So if you're a powerlifter, you're kind of fucked. So if hypertrophy is the goal, you'll be fine training in these high repetition ranges, and don't worry about it. Some of you might actually even make some progress. Last but not least, anything is better than nothing. Even going for a walk or a run, moving your body, climb a tree, anything you want, okay? As long as it doesn't concern people, okay? Anything is better than nothing. We've science to prove this, that literally moving your body is better than being completely sedentary. So do what you can. Alright, on to the main part of the video. It's what you clicked here for. These are my home workout guidelines, okay? And a lot of people will give different points and different advice. It's all good.

It's not that serious.

They're just home workouts, okay? So top of this, I have train to failure, okay? For a few reasons here. I'm not gonna say just do 3 to 4 sets of 20 on everything or 30. For example, you're not going to get the same amount of bodyweight pull-ups as you do on simple bodyweight squats, okay? So just go to failure on whatever exercise you can, or close to failure, okay? So another reason for that is that we don't have weights, so we need to replace the intensity in some way. We need to make these workouts intense and effective and as hard as possible. So go close to or to failure with all of the movements. You want to do at least 3 to 4 sets of every exercise, and about 2 to 3 exercises per body part. I'm going to be going through a sample workout at the end of this, along with a ton of movements too. Again, we got minimal rest time, so we want to make things as intense and effective as possible, kind of like to the point where we said go to failure. And some people will also like to do circuit style training with this. Okay, so what type of workout split should you follow while doing home workouts? Now, if you watch previous videos of mine, when I'm traveling or when I'm not training as often or not taking things as seriously. I do full body workouts 3 times a week to keep things ticking over and keep muscle protein synthesis elevated throughout the week. Now, you can just follow your usual workout program. Let's say that's legs push-pull 6 times a week. Let's say it's upper lower 4 or 5 times a week. You can do that and just replace it with the closest thing that you have on your program. So for example, if you have barbell squats in your program, you could just do bodyweight squats, or you could just grab something weighted and do that instead. If you've got barbell rows on your program, you could grab a band and attach to a doorframe and do rows. I'll show you also how to do inverted rows as well. So there's always something that you can replace to mimic that movement. So you can just follow your exact same routine, or you can do full body workouts, and I'll show you how to structure them in a moment. So that is the resistance training covered. Now next, for cardio, um, if you can't go outside—

I know a few people have been going on hikes as long as they stay away from crowds—

but Depending on what your government says, I know Italy, for example, they, they're told to not leave their house whatsoever. So for cardio, I'm gonna recommend you do HIIT cardio, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. That is super simple and easy to do and easy to follow. Get a timer on your phone, click 30 seconds, pick an exercise to go hard as you possibly can for. That can be jogging on the spot, that can be mountain climbers, could be jumping jacks, whatever you want. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, repeat 10 times. So that you don't even have to leave your house, you don't need a long distance, really simple to follow. Last but not least, enjoy! These are very miserable times, and I think now more than ever, positivity is so important. And one thing I'm really liking seeing is everyone in the fitness industry putting out information like this, putting out home workouts, getting people moving. Exercise is so important for your mindset and your mental health, so I really encourage everyone to just try do a little bit of exercise per day. It's going to benefit you massively and spread some positivity. Be nice to everyone around you. Be nice to the people that you're in quarantine with. Be nice to people online. Call your mom, call your dad, call your friends. Just be nice. It's a time for the world to come together and support each other. So now I'm going to show you guys some exercises and some replacements for stuff that you can do at home. Okay, so here is my mini home gym so far. I've actually got a bench on the way. I've got dumbbells on the way. This is what we have for now, so I'll do an updated video over time. So we got bands, big one and a small one there.

We got two, uh, parallettes.

And so again, I'm gonna go over how to use these.

And then we got a workout mat as well for abs too.

Carpet will be fine, um, but I want to do some workouts outside. Weather's not too great today, but I'll definitely get some use out of that at some stage. And then this is probably the best thing I have. But so this is gonna come in so much use. It is a pull-up bar, and right there we can do wide grip pull-ups, we can do neutral grip, We can do dips and we can also train abs. We can also attach bands off that as well. So I'm going to link that down below. The company 12Fit also does pull-up bars that you can like attach to your door frame, everything. And they're so cheap, you know, you can even get ones off Amazon for like $20. So yeah, I'm going to be doing tons of pull-ups over the next couple of weeks. And again, you can also attach things. So that'd be my number one piece of equipment, would be one of those pull-up bars. Okay, so let's get into things. I'm going to show you guys leg exercises, chest exercises, shoulder exercises, back exercises, and arm exercises, and ab exercises. That was like a dance move. That was like a TikTok dance move.

Leg, chest, shoulder, back, arms, abs.

All right, let's get into it. Legs, let's go.

All right, people, so we are starting off with an exercise you all know, and that is the squat. Now, I do not have access to a barbell, so the alternative we are using is a band. You can also use a weight, hold something heavy in your hands, whatever you like. Now you can see that I put the band around my neck, kind of like a high bar squat. This may feel uncomfortable for some people, so feel free to position it just above the shoulders and traps area. May feel a bit more comfortable for some people. Either way, these felt great, and I burnt out on these for 3 sets in total, then moved on to stiff leg deadlifts. Again, choose where is comfortable for you to put the rubber band, and you can probably see what I'm doing with my hands is pretend there is a barbell in your palms. This is going to help you mimic the exercise, reach really well, and it's going to have a carryover when you go back to squatting and deadlifting.

These actually felt amazing, and this whole workout was actually just really enjoyable, to be honest.

So I can't wait to upload it and edit it for you guys. But either way, that is squats and deadlifts, and they are going to be the foundation and the beginning of our leg workout today.

As you can see here, I'm really feeling the burn. All right, so we got squats and straight leg deadlifts covered. Next exercise is going to be lunges. So again, put the band around one foot And just like so. Again, you want to go to failure on all these and then switch over. So again, swap over to the other foot and you want to go burnout to failure on these. Put your foot back. Explode up. It's like, just maybe I'll do a home workout every day. I'm also going to start doing live workouts on Instagram as well. So add me there, Rob Lipsett. So keep in mind, like, all these exercises, they can be done with no resistance at all. Maybe you're a complete beginner and, you know, even doing bodyweight exercises is hard. That's fine. I've trained people who literally have never exercised before. And, you know, you'd be surprised. So It doesn't matter where you're starting off. You can do these workouts, just make them easier or harder on yourself. So again, you know, if you want to start off just doing normal lunge, just like that, without any resistance, that's fine. No one's going to see you anyways, because you're at home in quarantine. Lean in quarantine. Quarantine. Look at that Lil Zero. Please sponsor me. So another one is a one-legged pistol squat. I am so bad at these. Like, I don't even have the coordination or balance for these. So grab onto a table. They're very difficult. Alright, another tip is that if you're waiting on your dumbbells to arrive, just get a backpack, anything that's lying around the house, and stuff it with heavy objects or light objects depending on your level of expertise. And again, you can do anything with this. So for example, goblet squats. So put it on your front like that, squat down like that. So it's going to be like you're just holding a dumbbell, squatting down like so. More resistance, do this and the band at the same time.

Genius! So after I did my main squat alternatives, my compound work if you could say that, we went on some isolation work and that was calf raises. As if anyone's gonna train calves, but anyways, decided to throw it in there. and then also some hamstring curls. This actually felt really good, and I did them one leg at a time. You can also do them two legs at a time, but I felt it a lot better this way.

So all those exercises, if you combine them together, they're going to make for a pretty decent leg day, or you can add them into a full body workout as well. If you're pushing things to failure, it's going to be really effective. And I actually got— started sweating there myself. So that's legs. Anyways, we're going to go on to chest. So the kind of pinnacle of bodyweight and chest exercises You guessed it, it's a push-up. And you'd actually be surprised at the amount of people that can't do a single properly executed push-up. Not only that, but they're very easy to add resistance to. Grab the backpack, get some bands, get someone to lie on your back, put a plate on your back. Again, get creative and very easy to add resistance to, so no excuses.

So this brings us on to a chest day, or a push day as I frequently call it. Now the key takeaway point here is depending on what part of the chest you want to hit, maybe you want to replicate a decline bench press, maybe you want to replicate an incline bench press, or even a shoulder press, that's going to depend on where your feet are. So as you can see, my feet are below my head right now, so I'm replicating a decline pressing movement. You'll see me end up doing some handstand push-ups, which is a very difficult exercise but a really good one. And obviously that's hitting my shoulders. So use elevated objects like chairs, tables, whatever steady objects you can find to hit whatever part of the chest you want. So really, the exercises and the angles here are endless, and it's going to be kind of like an adjustable bench, just like what you have in the gym. That's probably the best way I can describe it and the best way for you to think of it.

Ah, ah! So again, that is going to be a great stimulus. I can only get a few reps there. So that's going to really mimic an overhead pressing movement, and it's going to help us maintain all our shoulder muscle. That was tough. So like, think about it, if you're doing like whatever your typical 3 sets of 8 dumbbell press in the gym, and then you're doing like, you know, 3 sets of 8 on that, you know, what's the difference? So that is a great exercise to add in if you're in the more advanced range. I'm actually gonna try and get better at them. All right, so we're in the outside part of my flat in London, and so this is the pull-up dip station. So again, we're gonna go into his dips here, which is just such a good exercise. Even like when the gym is open, I'll have them into my routine. So again, sure you all know how to do so, so just like so.

So this whole video is about exercises you can do at home. I am aware not all of you have a freaking dip station in your back garden or your back patio, whatever you want to call it. London property is expensive, okay? You have to value every square meter. To me, it's a back garden. Anyways, you can do dips off any solid objects you have in your house, and before anyone comments, don't worry, this glass table is bulletproof. For the rest of the workout, we killed chest, triceps, and shoulders with some isolation work using the thinner band. The analogy or mental cue I want you to have in your head when training these muscle groups at home is think of the band as a cable, and whatever you tie it to is the cable tower, like what you have in the gym. Once you see it like that, there's really an endless amount of exercises you can do. Even for lateral raises, you can fix it to the bottom of a sturdy object or even stand on it to mimic the effect of a low pulley cable. So between the pressing movements and the band work, this is a really solid push workout and it will definitely keep your chest popping and your delts looking 3D, bro. Next, let's move on to back, biceps, and traps. For the pull workout, I recommend adopting the same outlook going into things. You have, of course, the pull-up, which is arguably one of the greatest exercises of all time. It is a staple in my routine even when I have full access to a gym. You can vary grips between wide grip, neutral grip, and underhand grip to target different parts of the body. When thinking of how am I going to replicate my entire routine at home, this was probably the easiest part for me to do.

Biceps is a no-brainer.

Either purchase some dumbbells or stand on the band and do some underhand curls and some hammer curls. Grab the thicker band and stand on it for shrugs too. All in all, I am really happy with how close I can get to my normal routine at home with such cheap and minimal equipment, and I'm actually kind of surprised, really. I really hope this helps as many people as possible, so be sure to share it with a friend who's also stuck in that quarantine life.

Let's finish things up.

All exercises will be on the screen, of course, along with the full body workout examples. They're basically when you just pick the main exercise of of each muscle group, put them one after the other, and do it in a circuit style fashion.

Alright guys, so as I was even doing that workout there, I realized like you can nearly replicate every single thing in your plan So to wrap things up before we finish off with some abs, I'm gonna say just try stick as close to your plan as possible. But right, let's finish off with some abs. Again, there's so many ab exercises, and when you're in the gym, you don't even need any equipment. So feel free to do whatever you like. When I'm in the gym, just as usual, I do 3 sets of 20 reps on 3 exercises, and I'll train abs like 2 to 3 times per week. So I'm just gonna keep doing that.

Alright guys, so finishing off with a few of my favorite ab exercises. I like to do these year-round, but as I always remind you on this channel, if you want to be able to see your abs, you need to be lean enough.

The way you get lean is to be in a calorie deficit.

That is how you're gonna have visible abs. You can train them, have a strong core, but again, it's about being lean enough to see them.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this video.

I ended up having a killer workout, so I hope you guys have one too. So let's finish things here and wrap of the video.

Alright guys, so we're wrapping the video up here. Take a screenshot of this and send it to a friend, link them the video, thumbs it up, subscribe to the channel because I'm going to be doing more videos on this topic depending on how long this situation goes on for. It's crazy, as bad a situation it is, I've never seen the world more united. So yeah, it's crazy, and let's all support each other. So to wrap things up, if you want to maintain your progress just replicate your plan as much as possible. There is a substitution for everything, seriously, and just use it as a deload or really push yourself and you'll have no problem maintaining your progress. And if you want to spice things up a little bit, just do some circuit training. So do a leg exercise, a chest exercise, a shoulder exercise, a back, and then some isolation ab work at the end. Put them all together and that's one circuit. Again, if you want personalized plans cater to what equipment you have at home. Go to RobLipsett.com. I'll see you in the next video. Keep it real. I'm out of here. Peace and God bless.