Do you spend more and more time at work, at university or are you busy trying to keep your family together efficiently and to keep things tidy? Are you losing more and more time every day that was actually intended for you with unnecessary things or caustic duties? Then you are definitely not the only woman who feels that way. Then you are probably dreaming of muscle building training at home all the time.
Given these facts, it is not surprising that exercise at home is becoming increasingly important for women. Train efficiently, quickly and comfortably at home. Shaping your dream body in a time-saving and effective manner in your own living room? Just a dream or a feasible reality?
In this article, we first want to clarify the advantages and disadvantages of training at home and whether sweating in your own four walls really leads to the expected training progress. For this it is essential that we briefly outline the crucial training parameters for strength training as a woman .
From the gym to training at home
The fitness industry has been experiencing a real boom since the beginning and has since developed into an industry worth billions that opens up new markets and wants to sell products regardless of losses. Overpriced slimming drinks, bizarre rubber bands or questionable vibration devices … The list of supposedly useful products for effectively burning fat or building muscle as a woman seems endless.
At the forefront: discount fitness studios. I agree. These “gyms” are sprouting up like mushrooms on every corner. Those uncomfortable halls in which women were mostly outnumbered or had to share the sweaty, worn and unkempt equipment with what felt like thousands of other “athletes”, while male primates perceptibly scrutinized their own buttocks in detail from the background. ?
If a woman got lost in the so-called “free weight area” because she has always been able to put the principles of muscle building into practice excellently, she was suddenly surrounded by those primitive hordes of men. All in the male hope that the supposedly willing female will lure the strongest primate straight into the said own four walls. Every woman quickly feels like a raw piece of lamb that is relentlessly held in a piranha tank. Yes, of course.
Understandably, as a woman, you don’t feel like going to a normal gym to do your training there. And if you’ve been considering taking this step, I’ve probably destroyed it for good. Sorry That wasn’t my intention at all. Fitness studios have their raison d’être and many advantages that training at home can only offer you indirectly.
The gym: better than its reputation
These behavioral patterns just described can certainly be observed, but are initially more visible to absolute “outsiders”. Let me briefly explain what I mean by that. The gym is not (always) as bad as the monstrous reputation echoes.
Said “fresh meat manner” is only due to one primary factor: The permanent influx of new (female) members and an equally reliable absence after a few weeks.
Right. Women come and go (in the gym …). And mostly they spend their presence (for the reasons described) only on cross trainers, steppers or treadmills, where cardio training can be done much more relaxed and in the fresh air everywhere outside. And it is precisely this fact that many men “make fun of”. Women think that with hours of training on the elliptical machine, they can train the bubble butt of their dreams. That you can finally tighten your legs and shape your back more athletically. But that is a misconception . Cardio training is and will remain cardio training. If you want to achieve such effects on your body, you cannot avoid intensive muscle building . Sorry ??
The few women who still resist all these prejudices, effects and uncomfortable situations and start a single-minded strength training , at some point look like the women in the adjacent photos. Not after 8 or 10 weeks. That would be naive and reckless to believe. But after 6, 9 or 12 months of consistent and regular workouts on the squatrack and an adequate diet (you don’t even have to follow a tough nutrition plan), your butt looks completely different. Just like the legs, torso and trunk.
A stable core, tight tissue on thighs, calves, arms and an athletic back can delight! Not just with men. But only if you train properly as a woman. And correct in this case means: Muscle building !
Once you have accepted this fact, you will also be accepted by men. As a regular visitor to the “men’s area”, who simply does her thing and focuses on her training, the unpleasant looks stop and the drooling Gegaffe turns into respect and appreciation. Welcome in the family. The boys now know. You’re not there to chat or flirt, but to train. And that is appreciated. From now on you will no longer have any sympathy for the popular criticism of women at the gyms. The higher the quality of the studio, the more undisturbed you can usually train. In the “supermarket” you just have to fight your way through a bit every now and then. Especially as a woman.
Training at home vs. Gym: Three unmistakable advantages
Let’s first take a look at the unmistakable advantages that you can get from conventional training in the gym (or a comparable facility at home!) . I by no means want to induce a fundamental rethink in you or use this post as an advertising medium for fitness studios or encourage you to buy entire equipment parks. No! I just want to sensitize you to this topic and make it clear why strength training is so important. So:
- You are flexible. While training at home – as the name suggests – can only take place at home, as a member of a widespread chain of gyms you are flexible in your training arrangements. If you travel a lot and do not enjoy fully equipped hotel studios, an omnipresent studio chain is often the only way you can keep fit on your short trips (in terms of muscle building).
- You save a lot of money and space . Targeted strength training that engages all major muscle groups requires at least a solid investment in minimalist equipment. Barbell, variable dumbbells as well as suitable weights, a weight bench and similar equipment belong to the absolute basic equipment – also for training in your own home or in your own apartment. For a few high-quality devices, however, you can easily put 1000 € or more on the counter. Have you ever transported a box full of weights through the city center to your booth? Fun business. If these things are missing, however, you can only complete really effective strength training at home with a lot of effort.
- You can consistently adapt the use of equipment and weights to your training progress and thus vary the training intensity. I wanted to get on with this elementary point. And because it’s so important, I’ll only explain it in the next section.
Training intensity as an elementary training parameter
How successful your training is depends primarily on three essential training parameters :
- Training frequency: How often is a single muscle group stimulated per unit of time (e.g. training units per week)
- Training volume: How extensive is the stimulation of an individual muscle group within a training unit (number of sets or repetitions per set)
- Training intensity: Describes the intensity and relative level of muscle fiber recruitment, which is significantly influenced by the level of the training weight. Eh wat? Yes. Sounds important. It is.
While you can control and vary the first two parameters during training at home, things look different with the training intensity . This is primarily influenced by the choice of weights and is of immense importance especially for beginners.
When training in the gym, the hurdle to start training is quite low. As a beginner, you can start with stationary weights or equipment with which you can even simulate training with body weight (e.g. dip machine). You can usually vary the weights steplessly (from approx. 5kg upwards) and prepare yourself for a training with free weights. Since a conventional barbell usually weighs around 20kg, you need to have built up a little strength before you can even start the (highly effective) barbell training.
But even in the “free weight area” – provided you have the right equipment – you can usually fine-tune your weight for your exercises. As a woman, it is advisable to work with 0.125kg or 0.25kg weights for fine-tuning. In a classic hypertrophy training (about 5-8 repetitions per set) you scratch the upper limit of the rep range (i.e. 8 or more repetitions), then you approximate both sides of the dumbbell with 0.125kg each for exercises that put weight on shoulders, chest, back or arms, or 0.25kg for exercises that primarily target your leg muscles.
This procedure minimizes the risk of muscle injuries or other overloads, which can not only have a bad effect on your health, but also put your good mood unnecessarily deep in the basement.
You will now realize at the latest that a fine coordination of training equipment and weights is inevitable for effective muscle building training. The following graphic comes from our Strong Women’s Guide and shows you the relationship between training intensity and repetition areas , which are also fundamentally valid for all other exercises apart from classic strength training in the gym.
If your training goal is muscle building, i.e. you not only want to tone and strengthen your legs, arms and upper body and shape your buttocks more voluminous and crisp, 5-12 repetitions with appropriately chosen weights are the ideal repetition range for you.
That means: you choose your weights exactly so that you can manage a maximum of 12 or 8 clean repetitions on your own before you temporary fatigue forces your muscle to pause in sentences. In this repetition range, the high muscle fiber recruitment ensures a very pronounced hypertrophy stimulus, which in turn triggers muscle growth. If you leave this repetition range because your strength has increased over several days, weeks and months, then you can work your way back to this repetition range by fine-tuning your weight by slightly increasing your training weights again.
Training at home: coordination difficulties
And this is often the crux of strength training at home. In your cozy living room you can vary the volume of your HD television continuously, with the Intensity of your exercises doesn’t work that easily if you don’t have a suitable equipment park or a small warehouse full of weights.
For this reason, when training at home, most women train in a rep range that is somehow just a compromise between technical feasibility and physiological effectiveness . Or it is simply chosen completely arbitrarily and without any sense or understanding. Thus, in terms of effectiveness in muscle building, training is as far removed as Turkey is from absolute freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
