Best Exercises for Small Living Spaces and Minimalistic Living.
Introduction
Are you living in a car, van, or maybe even a sailboat but still trying to achieve the explosive power of a predator?
This article is for you if you want to maximize your gains while minimizing your time spent and space used. I will review the best exercises to build explosive functional power with minimal to no equipment. First, I will start by explaining why I find this type of training so helpful, playing into the benefits already listed, and that is, training and finding time to exercise can be difficult, especially if you are busy. That is why I made a program to take the stress out of planning and simplify the path to self-improvement. I have implemented a minimum standard to meet each day for physical development. I ensure that this is unavoidable by preparing myself with the necessary knowledge listed here in this article so that no matter where I am, I can improve myself. This is done by memorizing the bodyweight exercise that best fits my goals and carrying around minimal equipment in my car so I can work anywhere if necessary. The minimum standard for physical activity is 15 minutes of HIIT or High-Intensity Interval Training, which is meant to elevate the heart and respiratory rates to allow for fat burning and proper muscle stimulus through training to failure. Now that I have created a rough basis for why this type of training can benefit someone and why you may want to try it yourself, I will list the best bodyweight exercises with a few added exercises for a bonus.
I will break the exercises into two main groups, the upper body, and lower body, in a push or pull format, depending on how the muscles work to help organize the writing. Beginning with the upper body and seemingly one of the most popular muscles, the chest, one of the best bodyweight exercises to work the chest is the push-up.
Upper Body Exercises
Chest Exercises
The push-up is perfect if you are trying to save space on equipment and at home while also saving money in the bank. A push-up can be done almost anywhere at any time. It is performed by putting your stomach down, lying on the ground, feet together, and arms shoulder width apart by your side while looking forward, pushing your palms into the ground to keep a tight posture and proper alignment of the muscles. Push yourself up and lower yourself down, making sure to be slow on the eccentric to engage as many fibers as possible. Continue this exercise until failure or when you decide your sets and reps are for the session. This exercise can also be lowered or raised in difficulty for a beginner. It will help to start on your knee. This lessens the weight the person will have to lift and moves the angle of the pushup, making it easier to complete. The pushup can then be worked into a full range of motion by bringing the person's knees backward until they are in the proper form with their legs straightened.
On the other hand, to make the exercise more challenging, you can elevate the feet on the push-up with a change of angle and center of gravity. You will work different portions of the pectoral muscle when doing an incline pushup like the one explained. You will put more stress on the upper pec, where a decline is observed in the lower pectoral or third of the muscle grouping. This can be tricky to remember as they are reversed, but an easy reminder is to attempt the exercise. To continue increasing the difficulty of a push, you can add weight to yourself through a backpack or workout vest. To increase the range of motion on a push-up, you can also do it on books where your hands are elevated to get a much deeper stretch in the peck as you lower below the level of the books, putting you into a deficit. This type of training is great when building power out of the hole or for close-range explosions. This can be hard on the joints if done incorrectly, and if an individual were to do this training, I recommend mastering the basics before working up to ensure the form is proper and you remain safe. The last bit I will add is about the push-up to build explosive power. A person may add Plyo push-ups. This is performed by doing a regular push-up, but when reaching the top or full extension in the arms, you exert enough force to lift off from the ground and perform a clapping motion. This is perfect for building strength for combative-like boxing as it combines explosive movement with shock absorption, which will be crucial for your bones to hold up when delivering or receiving strikes. Lastly, to elevate this to the max, an incline Plyo pushup with resistance bands can be done to provide maximum difficulty and combine multiple training techniques like more stretch on the bottom with elevated hands and more tension at the top of the exercise to push through using the bands.
Back Exercises
Bodyweight Row. The following exercise that is perfect for minimalistic training to save on money, space, and time is a pull exercise for the back. This is called a row and can be done in various ways, such as both hands or single hands with or without weight. It can also be turned into a pull-up. The first and most accessible way to do this exercise is to find anything you can hang under while your feet touch the ground. The most ideal location is a railing so you can go underneath and bring your legs out forward. This will make the exercise more difficult depending on where your feet are placed. To change this resistance depends on how much you allow your legs to hold you up. When grabbing onto the bar or even a tree branch, your palm faces toward you. Bring your elbows backward while keeping your shoulders rolled back and down to ensure posture and squeeze as you contract the lat muscles, pulling your elbows backward. If you are having trouble finding a proper place to perform this exercise called the bodyweight row, it may be easier to find an object like a rock, milk jug, or a book bag. Anything that you can hold and provides sufficient resistance will do. You can make your way over to a wall or edge of a counter using the non-lifting side. Place one foot in front of the other, take a defensive stance using the hand with the foot forward, and rest it on the surface in front of you for stability using the opposite hand the lifting had pick up the object of choice, bend your knees slightly and lean forward then begin the same process of pulling your elbow backward to complete the row this can also be done as a dumbbell row if you have adjustable dumbbells. Once you have completed one side, reverse the procedure and train the other arm. To increase difficulty, depending on the environment you are training in, you can use the same railing used for the body weight row to do pull-ups by grabbing the bar roughly shoulder width apart and having your palms facing away, pulling your scapula down, engaging your lats and bring your chin to the top of the bar lower yourself down and continue until failure or sets and reps are met.
Shoulder Exercises
Now for shoulders, an easily accessible bodyweight exercise that can be done minimally in small spaces on a budget is a handstand push-up. This can be a strenuous exercise to start off on, especially if you are new to fitness but have no fear. You can build yourself up to the point where you are repping these. This exercise can be achieved by walking over to a wall, preferably one that is clear and does not have any decorations, shelves, paintings, or nearby cabinetry you could fall into. I place a pillow or towel on the ground to act as padding in case of an accident. I don't want to dive head-first into the ground. I then kneel down to the pillow, placing both hands aside, and kick myself upward into a handstand. Once I am vertical, I will begin pushing myself upward as if it were a shoulder press or military press. If I cannot raise myself or lower, I slowly let myself down, controlling the eccentricity of the lift and rest until I try again. Another more accessible variation of this exercise is the pike push-up. This will allow someone to work their shoulder muscles if they cannot do a handstand pushup. This is performed similarly to a pushup in roughly the same position, raising the midsection of your body higher in the air, hinging at the hips, making a triangular shape, trying to achieve the same rough angle of an incline push-up but keeping your feet on the same plane as your hands you will then do a push-up, as usual, touching your chest to the ground and pushing yourself back up.
Tricep Exercises
This next exercise will target your triceps and make you look like Pop Eye in no time. The bodyweight tricep dips can be done with as little as a chair or a ledge you can put your hands on and bring your feet forward out in front of you. As if you were to lower yourself down to sit with your legs in front, use the ledge behind you to push yourself upward away from the ground, completing one rep of a Bodyweight Tricep Dip. Another form of dip that can be done is a chest dip that is done in the reverse direction and preferably on an angle of 90 degrees. Placing your hands on one line segment stemming from the center of the angle, lower yourself down until your arms are bent at 90, too, then push yourself up and make sure to keep the angle of your chest pointed toward where your arms are pushing to engage the chest muscles.
Bicep Exercises
To work your biceps, you can get a hold of a container similar to one used for the bodyweight rows to apply resistance. If you do these rows, you will be working your biceps as a secondary muscle, ground to that of the primary, your lats or back muscles. It is also possible to perform a variation of the bodyweight row with more emphasis on the bicep by doing more of a curling motion to target that specific muscle.
Abdominal Exercises
Core exercises will be the next group discussed in this article. You can work the abdominals in various ways to be sufficient to fit in any space. A few examples of this are a Plank done like a push-up. You assume the same position, only placing your forearms on the ground so they are parallel to them, palms down. You squeeze your glutes and pull your hips to meet your chest, contracting the abdomen like the crunch exercise that is next. The crunch can be done by laying on your back, arms behind your head with your legs in front crossed at the ankle, bringing your elbows up to meet your knees, and squeezing in the same manner as a plank. Now for a timeless classic, the sit-up. To perform this, sit down on the floor with your feet planted on the ground. Your knees and legs will be bent, making a letter A shape from the side. You will touch your elbows to your knees and lower yourself down to the ground, touching your back on the ground but not resting. You will bring yourself back up. Here is an exercise to work your obliques, the sides or rib muscles of the core, otherwise known as the Russian twist. This can be performed by assuming the position of a situp and lifting your feet up off the ground like a V-sit, then, with your arms in your lap, twisting from left to right, touching the ground aside from you to complete a repetition. The final exercise I will list that works your abdomen is a leg raise working your lower abdominals. This is done by laying on your back as if you were lying down to sleep, arms out to your sides for balance, legs straightened and locked, raising them upward from your hips, keeping your upper body on the ground, and bringing them until they are facing directly upward. Your body makes a 90-degree angle, then lowers to the ground and repeats.
Lower Body Exercises
Glute Exercises
The lower body, the workhorse of the body, and the legs. The first principal component of the lower body is the hips, which are like the generator and the source of all lower power. To work this in an efficient manner to perform functionality and control. Perform a Glute raise or a Glute Bridge. The proper form for this exercise is laying down on your back arms beside you for stability, bringing your heels to your glutes, and then pushing off with your heels, keeping your shoulder blades on the ground, raising your hips into the air, and then lower back down to the ground completing one rep keeping in mind to contract at the top of the repetition and keep your foot placement. I will also mention depending on the person, your foot placement can play a crucial role in the mind-muscle connection and ability to squeeze the muscle at the top of the rep, and it will be necessary to know where your feet are and what works best for you so you can achieve a pump and break down muscle fibers so you can achieve your goal of gaining muscle.
Hamstring Exercises
The hamstring, one of the most critical muscles in the lower body, can be worked effectively in two ways, which I will list: the hamstring curl and the more significant, much stronger brother, the Nordic Curl. The regular hamstring curl can be accomplished by lying down on the floor place your heels firmly on the ground. It is essential you put down a towel or have socks on your feet. This way, you can slide your feet across the ground because the objective of this exercise is to do a bicep curl for the legs in the glute raise position. Move your legs forward and drag them toward the glutes, squeezing as your legs bend to reach your starting position. This will contract the hamstring. To make this exercise hard, I recommend a Nordic Curl, which is my personal favorite; kneel down to the ground from a standing position with legs bent behind you and slide them under a stable ledge or surface. This could even be done on a bench with a belt. The goal is to firmly plant your heels to the ground and bend at the knee, lowering yourself to the ground like a reverse leg raise, curling yourself back upward, and contracting the hamstring.
Quadricep Exercises
The following exercise to work the lower body will be the lunge to develop the quadriceps or front portion of the leg or thigh muscle. This can be done by taking a defensive stance, one foot in front of the other shoulder width apart, kneeling down to the ground without hitting your knee on the ground, and raising yourself upward. Then, repeat with the other leg. This can be done with weight or in a plyometric format where you would lunge and jump up into the air, performing a scissor motion as if you were revolving your legs while sprinting. This is performed to build an explosion through the same range of motion your legs would be in while running so you may run faster and jump higher. Another fantastic bodyweight exercise is the squat. This is done by having your feet shoulder-width apart, standing straight up, keeping your toes forward or slightly facing out, hingeing at the hips, moving your glutes backward, and keeping your chest up. You will lower down toward the ground, bringing your glutes as close to the ground as possible and pushing yourself back up. Squeezing on the way up, you should feel your hips follow the same path as they did on the way down, keeping your knees aligned with your toes, not too forward or back, keeping your center of gravity pushing through the midsole of the foot between the heel and the ball of the foot. This squat can also be turned into a Plyo metric version by jumping vertically into the air with what is sometimes called a box jump or doing a standing broad jump forward and measuring the distance you leaped. This exercise is perfect for football or basketball, allowing someone to intercept passes or dunk a basketball. It is vital to track your progress to ensure you are moving forward with your training and not plateauing. You can help track your vertical by making measurements on the wall using tape or a vertical tester, then writing this into a fitness log to build up your own historical training dating. This will also help with setting new PRs or personal records.
Calf Exercises
The last exercise I will mention for the lower body is the calf and Tibialis raise. The calf raises by finding an elevated platform like a book or staircase. Place the balls of your feet on the edge of this surface standing straight up, lower your heels downward with a slight knee bend toward the ground, and bring yourself up. This can be done with weight added and single-legged to increase difficulty. The calf muscle is also essential for jumping higher or running faster, and when being trained, it is vital to get a deep stretch in the muscle throughout the lower portion of the range of motion. That is why it is crucial to elevate the heel when doing a calf raise. The Tibialis raises are done by walking up to a wall or any vertical surface you can lean against, then moving your feet in front of you. Hence, you slide down the wall slightly, regain your position firmly, plant your heels on the ground, and push yourself against the wall. Lift the front portion of the foot up or the toes, bringing them up toward the knee. Continue this process until the sets and reps have been achieved.
Conclusion
To recap the article, I have listed the best exercises for small living spaces and minimalistic living. These exercises work the upper and lower body, including the following muscle groups: chest, back, shoulders, triceps and biceps, glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves. If you found this article helpful and want to learn more about fitness-related topics, like tips on improving your bench, you can enter your email to stay in the thought flow. Thank you for reading, and I hope I was able to help you learn something new about the best exercises for small spaces and minimalistic living on the Nick Notion.
