Wednesday Workout Series: Improving Strength Without Equipment

The Bruins' Wednesday Workout series is presented by Beth Israel Lahey Health

By Kevin Neeld @NHLBruins / BostonBruins.com

April 22, 2020

BostonBruins.com -Over the last few weeks, I've shared some strategies to help improve your mobility, core strength, and overall conditioning with zero equipment.

If you've followed along up to this point, you may be looking for a new challenge.

Today I wanted to share a few more "advanced" exercises that have more of a strength emphasis than those in the Full Body Circuit.

Strength is one of the hardest qualities to train when you don't have any equipment. However, you can still make progress using a few basic strategies:

Strategy 1: Decrease support

How: Use exercises with single-leg and single-arm components

Why: Increases the load placed on the working arm/leg, requiring more strength and overall stability

Strategy 2: Increase time under tension

How: Slow down the "negative" or lengthening part of the exercise

Why: Increasing the time of each set helps develop muscle/strength, and

slowing down the negative portion leads to more muscle breakdown while also teaching "control" of the movement.

Strategy 3: Use a "slider"

How: If you don't have a "furniture mover", use a towel on a hardwood surface or piece of cardboard on a carpet

Why: Using a slider allows for several challenging exercise variations that are not possible without it

Strategy 4: Use "isometrics"

How: Push/pull against an immovable object

Why: Isometrics involve creating force without any noticeable movement. This allows you to generate high levels of tension/strength, and also include important movement patterns (e.g. upper body pulling/rowing exercises to balance the upper body pushing exercises) without needing equipment

These are simple strategies that everyone can use at home to make exercises more challenging without asking a family member to sit on your shoulders/back.

Below are six advanced exercises that integrate the above strategies to challenge both strength and stability. For each exercise, I've also included a "prequel", a slightly less challenging variation of the main exercise.

When performing exercises for the first time, it's normal to experience increased soreness. If you're unfamiliar with these exercises, I'd encourage you to start with the prequels, and progress to the more advanced exercises the next training session.

This will allow you the opportunity to see how your body responds to the more basic exercises and minimize the risk of being excessively sore from taking too big of a step.