If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to shape up, the odds are against you: A full 80 percent of resolutions are broken in the first two months. So, how do you avoid becoming a statistic?
Resolutions often fail for logistical reasons. It’s easy to make a big fitness goal, but harder to fit all your workouts within a packed schedule. Between the drive, the locker room, waiting for equipment, and the workout itself, the gym can take a significant chunk of time out of your day.
Enter the home workout. Removing at least some of the obstacles standing between you and your goals makes it way easier to stick to your plan.
These three workouts—created by fitness pros who know what it’s like to be crazy busy—are a great place to start.
Jumping into fitness for the first time? Don’t write a check your mind and body can’t cash. Make an unglamorous but realistic commitment to comple one or two home workouts each week. Walk or do easy cardio in between.
Those with at least some fitness experience can shoot for 3-5 workouts a week. To challenge yourself, experiment with tougher variations of the prescribed exercises or add extra rounds.
If you’re looking for a full home-workout program, check out Home Body, Ali Holman’s 20-Minute Fit, or Total-Body Dumbbell Fix in the Bodybuilding.com app. These at-home programs are fully trackable and come with nutrition guides and tons of motivation!
1. Beginner Home Workout
This sequence, created by fitness athlete and social media phenom Lais DeLeon, is the ideal workout to give your lower body a push.
“I love this home lower-body workout because I can get a great pump in my legs and glutes without any equipment or complicated exercises,” she says. “I do this workout in my hotel room when traveling and often add a hip circle band and dumbbells if I want to increase the intensity and difficulty.”
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2. Intermediate Home Workout
If you’ve been working out for some time and want to shake things up with a new challenge, fitness pro and entrepreneur Jessie Hilgenberg has you covered.
“When I’m training at home—whether it’s a vacation or mom life won’t allow me to get to the gym—I always follow giant sets, which are great when you want a challenging workout that keeps your heart rate up and still works those muscles,” she says. “Giant sets are basically one big superset, moving from exercise to exercise during each set.”
This giant-set glute workout is designed to build cardiovascular performance, burn fat, and develop strength while sculpting your lower body—a full roster of benefits in a minimal amount of time.
“Once you’re done with one set of each exercise, start back at the top for set two,” Hilgenberg says. “There’s no need to rest between exercises. Rest only once the full giant set is completed.”
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3. Advanced Home Workout
Ready to crank it up a notch? If you’re advanced and looking for a bigger burn, this home workout delivers the goods. It was created by Amy Updike, who is a mom, a registered nurse, and an IFBB bikini pro. She knows many people can’t devote a full hour to their workout, even at home. But she also knows that something short and sweet can keep you consistent.
“I love this fast-and-furious workout because it works each muscle group in the body just a little bit, yet still gets the job done in a matter of minutes,” Updike says. She follows this circuit with a 10-minute run, alternating 20-30 seconds at an all-out sprint with 1 minute of fast walking.
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