Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

If you want to get strong fast but you think it’s impossible because you are working out at home, you are definitely going to want to watch this video. Whether you are training at home due to current circumstances or do so by choice, it doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on your strength gains as a result. The key to building strength and getting stronger on all of your big lifts like the deadlift, bench press and squat is understanding that you are only as strong as your weakest link. The home environment actually gives you a chance to work on those weak links even better than you can at the gym.

The reason for this is mostly due to time and convenience. Let’s face it, many of us hit the gym with a limited amount of time to get our work accomplished. Spending our time working on smaller corrective exercises is likely not going to happen. Instead, while we are there we focus on the bigger picture. Performing sets of squats, deadlifts and bench are going to be much more valuable given the limitations we are training under.

That doesn’t mean however that the stuff you don’t get to is unimportant. This is where the big misconception is. Instead, you need to find time to get the corrective exercises in, and when you realize you can perform many of them without any equipment or minimal equipment, the possibility of getting these done separately at home becomes that much more likely.

So we identify 5 simple moves or areas of focus that will deliver the biggest bang for the buck. The first of these is something called “straight arm scapular strength”. The key to improving this is that it helps to maintain stability of the shoulder girdle through movement, particularly on the deadlift. If you lack stability in the shoulder blade you will never be able to stay tight enough on the deadlift to lift as much as is possible let alone perform the more difficult calisthenic movements like the front lever or front lever raise.

You can do this with a band by doing either a straight arm pushdown or by performing an assisted front lever raise. The key is to keep the arm as straight as possible while you drive down into the bar and lift your body via this downward force, not by lifting with the abs.

The next thing you will need is to work on horizontal pressing stability. The key takeaway here is that this has a high degree of translation over to your performance on the bench press. A properly executed bench will consist of a bar path that goes lower on the chest on the descent and higher up towards the head at the top. Given this information, the front delts provide a great deal of the stability to the bar at the bottom of the lift. You can train this via the saw variation of the pushup shown here.

If you want a greater carryover to the close grip bench press, you can simply change the position of the hands to angle 45 degrees backwards. This will get you greater triceps long head engagement and assist your strength levels for the same reasons as above when you go back under the bar to do the close grip bench press.

To round out the big three, you need to find ways to increase your squat as well. Here, the bulk of your additional efforts should be on strengthening your ability to maintain proper thoracic extension. The reason? Whether you are doing high bar squats or low bar squats, thoracic extension is key to not only keeping the bar positioned safely and properly on your back but to maintaining proper bar path during the lift.

The hips are also an area of needed extra attention. The mistake people make is focusing too much on how they work in the sagittal plane. They are probably even more important to be strengthened in the frontal and transverse plane. We can do this while working on the abductors and adductors of the hip