When we think of pushing exercises we often turn to the push up or the bench press. But dips and even overhead presses are also great PUSH exercises.
However, unlike the bench press or push up, which are HORIZONTAL push exercises, they are VERTICAL PUSH EXERCISES.
When you want to work your chest, triceps and shoulders from a different angle and strength your push up, add in dips to your workout routine!
Crawling – Once we learned how to walk, we thought we would never go back.
We’d found a much easier more efficient way to get around and we could run, which got us places faster.
So why on earth would we go back to crawling?!?
Because it is a great full body cardio exercise! And it’s a really hard one at that! (Plus you can do it anywhere even if you don’t have a ton of space!)
It’s so hard that many of us can’t really remember how to get our bodies to do the movement. We lack the coordination we once had.
Once we learn how to crawl again, not only can we improve our coordination, but we can also strengthen our core and improve our cardiovascular conditioning.
Here’s how to do a basic crawl and some regressions and fun variations to get you started!
You don’t have to buy a ton of fancy exercise equipment to get in a great workout at home.
Actually you can use a ton of things you already have around the house and even make a few simple, cheap pieces of equipment and have everything you need to get in a great home workout.
For instance, towels make great sliders for a full body workout. And a larger bath towel or moving blanket can help you get in a great cardio workout without having much room. Just check out the Towel Taz.
And if you want to make a great functional weight to use to load down your exercises, you can easily make a slosh pipe.
Slosh Pipes are an awkward and functional weight that cost about $10 to make.
They are easy to make and are a great uneven weight to challenge your core and work on your stabilization and strength.
The traditional slosh pipe is about 6-8 feet long and filled about 1/2 to 2/3 full with water or sand to really challenge your core.
However, if you want to use the slosh pipe in your house, you may find this length doesn’t really work. That is why I started using a 2 ft slosh pipe.
With the shorter slosh pipe there are exercises you can do that you can’t do with the longer pipe; however, the longer pipe can be a great option to really work your core if you have the space.
Below is a guide to help you make your own slosh pipe (I’ll show you how to make the shorter one, but the same directions can also be applied to make a longer one). Also, below are some great exercises to do with your 2ft Slosh Pipe!
Unilateral exercises are a great way to prevent and correct imbalances. They force each leg, each side, to work independently so that the dominant side can’t take over.
They also require less, and in many cases no weight, to be challenging so that you can do them at home if you don’t have much equipment or even use them to give your body a break from heavy loads.
One of my favorite unilateral leg exercises is the Airborne Lunge because it not only forces each side to work independently, but it also will improve your core strength and mobility.
And starting out, most people won’t need any load to make the movement more challenging.
To do the Airborne Lunge:
Often people think they can’t workout their legs when they have knee pain.
And while you don’t just want to jump into a lower body strength routine if you aren’t sure what is going on with your knees, there are knee-friendly lower body exercises you can do once you’ve identified the problem and are doing the proper rehab to take care of them.
The exercises below put little to no strain on the knees and also strengthen common areas of weakness that contribute to knee pain….Aka WEAK GLUTES and EXTERNAL ROTATORS!
Using these exercises (along with a proper prehab/rehab routine that includes foam rolling and stretching) you can prevent knee pain from ever returning!
10 Knee Friendly Lower Body Exercises:
You are most likely to stick with a workout routine you enjoy. If working out is a chore, then you will use any excuse you can to get out of doing it.
However, if you enjoy working out, you are going to make sure to include it in your day EVEN if you are completely stressed out.
And what is more fun than playing around on a playground outside!?!
A great workout doesn’t have to involve a barbell or even kettlebells or weights.
A great workout CAN feel like play.
Below is a great video with tons of great exercises to try out on the playground. Also, check out some of my favorite Playground Workouts!
