Lean Muscle Exercise - Three Simple Body Weight Exercises You Can Do at Home
Modern day society is unkind on our bodies. In an era where the economy's control over our lives is ever more prevalent, a healthy body is becoming harder and harder to maintain. It's so easy to buckle to temptation, to throw money at advertisements that promise you the world and give you nothing or to simply pig out and get worse. It just looks so hard to exercise properly, you know, go to the gym 3 times a week, eat healthily and all that. Look, you don't have to spend much to get back into shape. Just take it one step at a time, start with these three exercises you can do at home.
1. Push up
Ah, the hated push up. Bad memories from high school and gym/PE class. If you've wanted to get strong, muscly arms but can't lift your own weight, tough luck! Push ups are a good way to start getting your body into shape if you've been considering lifting weights. There are actually two ways of doing it, one for men and one for women. It's not being sexist, it's just acknowledging the inherent strength differences between the two sexes. Men should start off by lying down flat on their stomach, then lifting their bodies up with their hands. Their feet should be pointing straight into the floor. Hands should be shoulder width apart and when you drop for the push up, your elbows should bend at 90 degrees. For the women's version, they should cross their legs at their knees. Their back should also be straight, hands still shoulder-width apart, still bent at 90 degrees at the drop. A great way to condition your upper body and arms.
2. Stomach Crunch
This is a slight variation of the sit up. People can usually do more stomach crunches than sit ups, and it's better for conditioning the abdominals for strength. Start off in the typical sit up position: lying down, your legs bent at 90 degrees. Place your hands on your legs, just below your knees and raise your body until your wrists reach the top of your knees. The key to getting the most out of this exercise is to work at it until you feel a burning pain in your abdominal muscles. It means that they are firming up and getting stronger. This is the same for men and women
3. Leg Raises
This is an exercise which is not as well known, but is also good for conditioning upper abdominal strength. Simply lie down, hands by your side, legs together. Take two seconds to raise your legs to about 30 degrees to the floor, then drop down to the ground in one second. Repeat 10-12 times. This exercise starts off devilishly easy, but gets harder the longer you do it. It's a variant of a martial arts exercise, where you simple hold your legs at 30 degrees for as long as you can. For people who want a challenge, hold a big Swiss exercise ball in between your legs while you're doing it for greater abdominal strength.
There is no reason you cannot do these exercises for 10-15 minutes a day. You might be battered after work, but if your health is important to you, you will at least give these exercises a shot. Losers make excuses, adults take responsibility.
Cheng is the owner of HowToGetLeanMuscle.com, a muscle blog geared towards helping regular men with no experience in lifting weights learn how to get lean muscle.