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WORKING FROM HOME WORKOUT SCHEDULE
Welcome to our workout schedule series. Personal trainer, Jess Lees, outlines tailored plans to meet the needs of the nation in lockdown. We start with a plan for those of you working from home, keen to move after hours sitting down.
Our first workout schedule is designed to mimic a commute. It creates a transition from your home headspace to your work headspace. And vice versa. The routine covers five days, so it can be done on the days you traditionally work. Each day has a morning and evening workout session.
Morning Session
Your morning session is an opportunity to energise yourself, ready for work. Short, dynamic and heart rate boosting, it will help you separate yourself from sleep, breakfast and your home life. It starts with dynamic stretches, followed by 10-20 minutes of high intensity work. Then, it’s time to stretch — focusing on hip flexors and shoulders in preparation for seated work.
Here’s a simple routine which you can repeat each day:
Dynamic warm up – 5 mins
- Walking on the spot – raise arms to a T position, keep arms stretched and long during this.
- Circle hands round 5 times – switch direction and rotate again 5 times.
- Get down onto the floor and perform face down snow angels x 10.
- Still on the floor, perform the tabletop bridge (see image) x 10.
- Back to standing and lunge forward into hip flexor stretch. Hold for a moment and then back to standing lunge out and repeat with on the other side. Repeat 3 times each side.
- Deep bodyweight squats 5 very slowly – squeezing the glutes and core.
Circuits
This is the high intensity part of the workout. Do each exercise for 50 seconds. Take 10 seconds rest while you get into position for the next exercise:
- Star jumps
- Squat thrusts (see image)
- Planks
- Butt kicks
- Mountain climbers
If you are finding this hard to keep up with, decrease the work time by 10 seconds and increase the rest by 10 seconds. Try to work no less than 30 seconds and rest no more than 30 seconds.
Complete the circuit four or five times, with a two-minute rest in between. If you have a cardio machine, you could use this instead. Work and rest using the same interval timings.
Cool down
Take 10 minutes to stretch out hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings and upper back and shoulders.
Afternoon/Evening Session
Your evening session will help you destress, switch off and release tension from laptop work. The morning was to invigorate whereas this is to digest, clear out and reset.
This is when you will do strength training. Take it nice and slow doing these exercises. If you need to, moderate the exercise to focus on the form.
Working out on five days allows you to build strength in each of the main muscle groups. If you have kettlebells or weights at home you can use these. But all of these can be done with just body weight.
Start with the exercises that you find hardest to do. Do 3-5 sets for each exercise. Do 5-10 reps per set for each exercise. Rest for 60 seconds between each set.
Day 1: Upper Body
- Push ups
- Dips
- Pike push-ups (see image)
Day 2: Legs
- Squats
- Lunges
- Single-leg Romanian deadlifts (see image)
Day 3: Arms
- Bent over rows (see image)
- Biceps curls
- Lateral raises
For these exercises use water bottles, cans, bags – anything you can add resistance with. If you have dumbbells, even better.
Day 4: Core
- Plank – hold for 30-60 seconds
- Leg raises (see image)
- Russian twists – perform 20-10 each side
Day 5: Glutes/back
- Swimmers – do this for 30-60 seconds
- Glute bridge
- Side lunges (see image)
We hope this workout schedule helps you fit working out around working from home. For more home workout inspiration, check out our workout videos and training plans:
