Need a quick workout? No Equipment? No Problem.
One of the biggest barriers to working out is time constraints. Everyone has time constraints. Unless your job requires you to work out every day, or working out 6-8 hours every day is your job, you probably have a LOT of other things on your plate during the 16-ish waking hours.
Another barrier to getting in a workout is a lack of equipment. Either we don’t our clothes with us, or we aren’t in a facility with workout equipment.
The good news is that short bouts of exercise add up over the course of the day/week. So getting in a couple minutes here and there of exercise can be quite beneficial.
Here are 5 of my favorite go-to moves for a quick workout.
The Plank
Pretty much everyone is familiar with the plank. Here’s my take on it. I prefer to do the plank on my elbows (some will argue that that is the proper plank position). This takes the need to worry about your wrists out of the equation. It also allows you to focus more on your shoulder engagement and placement.
From there, work down the body making sure to pull the belly in and contract your abs and glutes. You’ll likely want to contract your quads too and think about keeping a really strong straight leg.
Keep your head in a neutral position as an extension of your spine. If you feel like your head needs to drop, consider what your shoulders/arms are doing and correct your position.
Shoot for 30 seconds.
I’m not a huge fan of lengthy static holds. While they are great if you really want to win a contest of something, that’s not typically how we move our body throughout the day. Nor should it be. We should probably move more throughout our day than we typically do. *guilty*
The good thing about a plank is that it is extremely modifiable.
Should you need to make it easier, try a full body plank for as long as you can hold good form, and finish the time with your knees on the floor. As you work on your plank, gradually increase your full body plank time and decrease your modified plank time.
If you can’t or don’t want to plank on the ground, you can do a hands elevated plank. Rest your elbows on a desk, countertop or wall and slowly walk your feet away till you are in a plank position. You can do a straight arm plank in this position too, if that feels more secure.
And, gosh, if you need to make it more tough. Mwaha ha ha ha
Option 1, you can elevate your feet. That will put more pressure in your arms.
Option 2, You can hold it longer. Anything over 90 seconds though, I highly recommend kicking it up a notch.
Option 3, rotate in and out of side planks. Hold each position for 10+ seconds.
Option 4, put any one of your limbs or pair of limbs on an unstable surface. If you happen to have a stability ball around, put your feet on it. Or put your arms on it. If you don’t, but you have a pillow or cushion you can try the same. If you have an extremely unstable surface, such as a rolling chair, or suspension trainer (I know, I said no equipment) you can put one arm or one leg at a time on the unstable surface.
Option 5, Lifting any single limb at a time and keep your body parallel to the floor. This will work your rotational muscles fighting the rotation. Step this one up by lifting opposite arm and leg simultaneously. (ie Right arm and Left leg) And you can step it up even further by trying to lift both arm and leg simultaneously. I have to admit, I’m not there yet. You can modify that one to a hands and knees position (table top) and go from there.
Lunges
Lunges come in all sorts of flavors. There’s the typical lunge where you step forward with one leg, bend both knees and return back to standing by bringing the leg back to meet the other. There’s walking lunges where you do a traditional lunge, but you bring the back leg up to meet the front.
There’s also side-to-side lunges. And I like these as a variation on the theme because they force us to use our legs in a range of motion that is not the same as we would use for walking or sitting.
If a standard front lunge or side lunge is not available to you, you can start by standing in the split leg (one leg in front one in back)position and bend both knees, rather than stepping out into the lunge. These are often referred to as “split squats”. Likewise you can start with your feet further apart than shoulder with and bend one knee and straighten it before bending the other for the side-to-side variation.
To make lunges more challenging, try the walking variety. Go loco! You can do this with both side to side and the front to back lunges. Speaking of front to back lunges, instead of moving forward, try moving backwards.
You can add reps. Or weight. If you add weight, add weight on one side only to increase the use of your stabilizer muscles. And, your balance.
You can challenge yourself by adding a hold at the bottom of the movement for a few seconds.
Challenge yourself to do a long rep for example, count 5 seconds to descend and 5 seconds to stand back up.
Head or Hand stand
I did say this was my favorite set of moves. I didn’t say that they could be done anywhere, easily or by everyone.
I’ll start by saying that I can rock a head stand. But I cannot hold a handstand freestanding. It’s a goal of mine. I can get a quick workout trying to get into and hold a hand stand.
So, if inversion is your thing, you can try the headstand or handstand against a wall.
Practice lifting your legs controlled. Holding a position. And returning your feet back to the floor in a controlled manner. Practice moving through various leg positions.
In a hand stand, you can practice shifting your weight from hand to hand (not necessarily taking the weight off but just slightly shifting the weight). This will allow you to realize where you may have strength imbalances.
And, of course, if inversion isn’t your thing, don’t do headstands, or handstands. Just leave them out. Again, this is my favorite list of things to do when wanting something quick.
Ok, so these next two exercises actually require a bit of equipment.
Hanging Knee raises
You’ll need a pullup bar or something to hold on to that you can hang from (Safely!).
To perform a hanging knee raise, while hanging, curl your knees into your chest.
Don’t swing. If you’re swinging, you’re using momentum, not your abs/hip flexors to perform the movement.
Don’t tilt backwards. It can be tempting to push back on the bar to get your knees higher but that isn’t really recruiting abs/hip flexors to do the lifting, it’s really using your back muscles (lats).
Need to make it easier? Don’t pull your knees all the way up. Shoot for 90 degrees (or thigh parallel to the floor) or just a little higher.
Need to make it harder? Keep your legs straight. Try to touch your toes to the bar (without pushing back on the bar!!!)
Don’t have a bar but just HAVE to try this? You can do an alternate version sitting on the edge of a chair. Place your hands next to your hips/tush on the chair or bench, and slightly lean back (use your hands to help hold you). Extend your legs out so you are almost straight, and then without momentum, pull your knees into your chest. You may find that you’re pulling your chest to meet your knees. That’s ok.
You can also try it on a flat surface like the floor. Don’t use your hands in that case. Just keep them extended towards your feet and pull your knees in to your chest while balancing on your bum.
Make that one harder by doing it with straight legs or arms over head.
Pullups
Pullups are hard. It doesn’t take many attempts at a pullup from a dead hang before I feel like I got a good workout in.
General school of thought says the pullup is performed ith the palms facing away from you. If you turn your hands, palms toward your face, it’s called a chin-up. I’m going to lump both here under Pullups because both are difficult and there are even more grip positions you can try if you’re feeling up to it.
Need to make it less challenging? Go horizontal. Or , if you can’t find a desk to tuck your feet under and pull yourself up to, grab a door frame and use it as a vertical horizontal pullup.
If you have a bar, go ahead and jump up to the pull up position and then slowly lower yourself down. You’ll get a little cardio jumping, and you can work on your pullup prowess by working the negative of the motion.
Need it more challenging? Start working on your 1-arm pullups. Or, start working on that muscle up you’ve always wanted to get.
So there you have it, my 5 favorite exercises to do for a quick workout when short on time and/or equipment. Enjoy. Leave a comment below with your own quick workout exercises.