exercise schedule without gym equipments

Question

I am an IT professional, and don't get much time for exercising. I used to go to the gym, but now I dont get much time. All I have is just 15 minutes in the morning to exercise.

I don't have any fitness equipment at my place. All I do daily is some stretching and a few push ups in addition to a few pull-ups .But doing push ups regularly has created some space between my chest muscles.

So can anyone suggest me a fitness regime that I can follow over a week so that I can focus on other parts of my body as well like shoulders, biceps, triceps without any gym equipment. Also, an exercise for my chest other than pushups so that I can reduce the space between my chest muscles?

Answer 1

I would recommend the book "Never Gymless" for someone in your situation, imo it is the resource for training without equipment. It has 100s of equipment free exercises for building all aspects of fitness including strength. Some of the exercises are listed below.

Strength Exercises: Pushups, Diamond Pushups, Clapping Pushups, One handed Pushups, Pike Presses, Hand Stand Pushups, Calf Raises, Squats, One legged squats, Squat jumps, Pullups, Muscle ups.

Core Exercises: Planks, L-sits, chinnies, ab wheel roll out (I know it's equipment but very cheap), dragon flag raises.

Conditioning Exercises: Running, Skipping, Burpees

Program creation based on your goals is also covered in the book and a very important part of training. Anyone can exercise but the difference between training and exercise is having a specific goal and tailoring your exercise routine to attain that goal.

Answer 2

I find it really hard to believe that you have a meagre 15 minutes each day to exercise. If that is the case, you should take a serious look at moving around your schedule to allow more time, at least half an hour to 40 minutes. Stay up later, prepare meals in advance to reduce time spent cooking, etc.

Before I explain some things that I do without equipment, I'd like to try persuade you into purchasing one great piece of equipment that I have used successfully to strengthen myself overall before I started going to a gym - a boxing bag. These are very cheap and in my experience one of the best pieces of equipment you can get to strengthen yourself overall in short sessions. It's also very fun. With a boxing bag, you can break 15 minutes down however you like for interval training. For a beginner, I would suggest 90 second rounds with a 1 minute break. This should give you 6 rounds total. As you advance you could move up to 3 minute rounds with a 30 second break.

I found the boxing bag really worked my back, triceps, biceps, chest, traps and core. It also has a huge impact on your stamina and balance. Depending on your skill level, you can use a variety of punches and stances to further increase the results. For legs, you can unhook the bag and squat or sprint with it.

As for workouts that I do without a bag, here are a few:

• Pushups - chest.
• Wide grip pull ups - back.
• Close grip pushups - triceps.
• Close grip chinups - biceps.
• Handstand press (against a wall) - shoulders.
• Reverse crunches, planks, side planks - core.
• Not sure what to do about legs. Maybe sprints and bodyweight squats?