How to get biceps from your bedroom

Vital for well being and for building bone density and lean muscle mass, but what exactly is it?

As the title suggests, resistance training is exercising in any way where you are working against a resistance. This can be your own body weight as in pull ups and press ups, or using resistance bands or pushing dumbbells into the air.

The great news with resistance training is that you need no equipment at all, if you are doing simply bodyweight exercises. Any equipment you may find to create resistance, like bands, bags of rice in your backpack and so on, are inexpensive and widely available in Action or Lidl and you can do these exercises anywhere. No gym membership costs, no lengthy trips to and from the gym and you can start really slow and build up. You can fit 15 minutes in on a morning and 15 on an evening and doing that over 5 days a week will meet the physical activity guidelines of 150 hours of exercise a week. Meeting that guideline is associated with a 30% lower risk of early death.

Women in particular lose bone density from around age 40 onwards. Establishing a routine of resistance training as early as possible will slow down or stop that process and for some people mean avoiding the pain of osteoporosis or osteoarthritis. In addition to that, resistance training sculpts the body into a more attractive shape thereby improving confidence. It means fitness, strength and has a multitude of far reaching effects on other systems like detoxification, sleep, breathing and digestion.

A great way to break up a workout is to use rotational systems like EMOM (every minute on the minute) or AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) there are time apps available to facilitate this by beeping at you when the minute is up and letting you know when you have reached your goal.

You can make any number of combinations of exercises. A good rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Work on three or four exercises a day. Perhaps make up one work out, repeat it morning and night for that day or do a 30 minute exercise and then change it around the next day.

Here are a couple of examples: 15 minutes AMRAP

10 Air squats
10 Push ups (from the knees if you aren’t used to the exercise) 10 Sit ups

16 minutes EMOM (with equipment)

Dumbell push press (use a weight you feel comfortable with or lift a 5kg bag of rice overhead) Goblet Squat (again use a kettlebell or a bag of rice)
Tricep dips (use the edge of a chair and keep your feet on the ground)

You can find proper form examples of these on you tube if you put in the name of the exercise and write demo. For example ‘Air Squat - demo - you tube’ or ‘Dumbell push press- demo - you tube’.

We each individually hold the key to our own health and longevity, exemplified by the decisions we make and the responsibility we take for our own health and fitness. The tools and opportunities are all around us to live healthy and active lives and avoid the suffering that comes with diseases of lifestyle, poor diet and sedentary living.