if you want to develop strength and
muscle mass but you don't have access to
a gym there is a way and i want to show
you how
i am ronan i am the head of the health
and fitness department at mind valley
and over the past five years i work with
a couple of thousands of people in their
health and fitness journey and one of
the things
that i know to be true is that not all
exercises are made equal if you want to
get fitter there's a myriad of things
that you can do but one of the most
fundamental types of exercises is
strength training and that's because it
goes beyond your muscles when you're
doing a strength training you're not
only becoming stronger and developing
your muscle mass
but we are also extending your longevity
you know from the book body by science
that is written by dr duke mcguff that
when you are contracting your muscles
under tension
you release a chemical compound called
myocardius and they work like messengers
they go from the
from the muscles to other parts of the
body for example to the bones and work
with the bones to increase bone density
or they go they go from the muscles to
the heart and work with the heart to
improve cardiac functions and protect
your heart from from cardiovascular
diseases and they go around the body
improving and strengthening the whole
body and this is how we know that for
example someone who is over 60 the
stronger their grip is
the longer their health span
the little issue here is a strength
training is a bit more complicated to do
at home because we think we need to go
to the gym and lift weights but there's
a way to do it at home and we need very
little equipment for the exercise that i
want to show you today
everything that we are going to use are
resistance bands
we are going to use two types one of
them are called loop resistance bands
you can see that they are closed and
they are rubber bands that they offer
resistance when you pull them apart
the other type are
open-ended resistance bands you see that
they have two handles here and if you
get yourself a set of resistance bands
what you're going to see is that they
have different colors
and different type of resistances so
what do you want to be complete is to
have two sets one of open ended and one
of loop resistance bands that are light
medium and heavy resistance with this
you are set then the next question is
what exercises should you do
before you think about exercises i want
you to think about
movement let's take a step back
and
if you look at your upper body you have
a horizontal plane in a vertical plane
of movement and in each one of those
planes you can do push
movements or you can do pull movements
so with this four type of movements push
and pull push and pull you will work all
your upper body and then for your lower
body if you think of the type of
movement that you do when you are
sitting and when you are standing up so
you're squatting and push yourself up if
you use resistance for this type of
exercise
then you can target the biggest muscles
on the leg as well so all we need here
is five exercises and some resistance
and then the next thing that that comes
is
how do we execute and how much of this
exercises should we do and here's one of
what i want you to pay attention to
first for
the execution of these exercises
what we want to do is that we want to do
them in a slow manner
mostly because we want to target
specific muscle fibers and put tension
on them this is how we signal to the
body that the muscles need to be
stronger and they need to get bigger
that is when you fatigue specific muscle
fibers but if you're jerking a movement
or using momentum you are still moving
you're still
lifting weight but you're not
necessarily putting that tension on the
muscle fiber that you want so if you do
them in a slow manner it's easier to
control and to to get the technique down
the second thing to pay attention to is
until when you do these exercises how
much if you start doing squats for
example you see that the first
repetitions will be easy
at some point you start getting tired
maybe shaky maybe it hurts a little you
still continue
there will be a time that you cannot
possibly get off the ground like you try
to push yourself and the legs just don't
go this is when you start you don't stop
when you think that it's the end of the
exercise you stop when your muscles are
showing you because that reaches a
fatigue state
and when that fatigue state
comes to the muscle it gives a signal to
the body that says we need to get
stronger when we recover
we need to go beyond that for the next
time that we do this type of exercise so
if you pair that signal here that very
strong fatigue
with the raw material that you offer
your body with nutrition and then time
for recovery with sleep then you have
everything you need to build strength
and muscle mass at home now i want to
show you the five exercise that we are
going to do using the resistance bands
if you're beginning to strength training
now
all you need to do is do this routine
once or twice a week each exercise you
do for one set until you hit
muscular failure and then for this it
would be important to select different
types of resistance bands for me i got
one resistance band that is a open ended
but it's a heavy one we'll i'm going to
do an exercise for the back with this
guy over here
and then i got
two loop resistance bands one that one
of them is thicker for bigger muscles
like the legs and the chest and one of
them that is a bit lighter for a smaller
muscle like the shoulder we're going to
start with a upper body and
with the horizontal push movement and
for this we are going to use push-up now
for push-up
there are different levels of intensity
that you can do this and if you cannot
do a full push-up on the floor your
first option would be to find a surface
like a table like a couch or a chair
just make sure that it doesn't move as
you push it and you make a inclined
push-up first
the higher the surface is the easiest
it's going to be so here's what i'm
going to do a
inclined push-up that will be easier on
my chest triceps and shoulders i'm just
going to
hold them more or less
shoulder width apart i'll bring my feet
back
and i'll lower
my chest
to the table
from here i push one thing that's
important to notice is that i don't open
the elbows to the side i bring my elbows
back
more or less 45 degrees close to my
upper body
and i push up and do this
slowly so that i can control the
movement
and focus
on making the contractions with my chest
now
if it's easy for me to do this i can do
like 30 repetitions and i still don't
get tired then the next level of
increasing the intensity of the push-up
is doing them
on the floor but with your knees on the
floor so it'd be a very similar
technique but the only thing is that
instead of being inclined i have my
knees on the floor make sure
that my
lower back is straight and then my
elbows are not flaring to the side
they're going behind and i'll bring my
chest and my chin to the floor and from
here to push up
and go slowly as well
when this becomes easier you can either
do a full push-up
when your knees are not touching the
floor
and if you can if you can keep going
with this guy as well then is when you
use a heavy resistance band so if you
can do a
full push-up and you you know you can go
with it you don't get tired then what
you do is that you put around your hands
bring it back
behind your back
and now i have increased resistance when
i'm on the top of the movement so here
at the bottom there there's almost no
resistance but as i push
the resistance band pushes me down so i
need to make more effort with my chest
with my shoulders and my triceps
and i'm continuing to do this slowly
bringing my elbows behind
until until i hit that point that i that
i failed that i hear on the top and pa
and my muscles just don't go forward
anymore this
is exactly what i want to finish this
exercise now we are done with a
horizontal push we're now going to do a
horizontal pull for a horizontal pull
i'm also
going to use a thick resistance band
because when i'm pulling i'm using
mostly my back muscles and they are
quite a big muscle
for this to be horizontal what it needs
to happen is that the movement is
perpendicular to my upper body so i will
step
on the resistance band
and i will hold it
close to my feet the closer to my feet i
hold the more intense it's going to be
the closer to the top the less intense
the exercise so this i will hold close
to my feet
i will stand up
and now i lean forward
so when i bring my elbows back
is a horizontal pull it's perpendicular
to my upper body
here i am using my lat muscles to
contract and pull my elbows behind
so
when they when they are on top i have a
peak contraction my hands are more or
less in line with my belly button and
when i lower slowly i'm still
controlling the movement
with my back muscles and then from here
peak contraction and squeeze the back of
muscles
and slowly bring it back until i hit a
point that i cannot pull anymore this is
when i hit muscle failure and then i'm
done with this exercise
now we're done with the horizontal plane
we're gonna go for vertical for vertical
starting with push i will need
a lighter resistance band because when i
push vertically i take my chest off the
equation and use it mostly of my
shoulders which is smaller muscle so we
need less resistance we also step
on top of the
resistance band and instead of holding
close your feet now you hold close to
the top
because now i want to bring my hands to
my shoulder level
and imagine that i want to punch the
ceiling from here
hands go straight up
now i'm using mostly my shoulders and my
triceps
and slowly come back down
to the way to the level of your
shoulders make sure that your back
is straight and not collapsing so your
core is engaged
and i will slowly
bring it down and push it up again until
i reach the point of fatigue that i that
i try to push my but my hands go up
until here if i make all the effort that
i can they don't pass this this level
this is when i reach muscle failure so
then we stop that we are done with this
movement
and now we go for another vertical but
now is a pool
movement for this this is when i use
a open-ended
resistance band and this is where we
also need a help
of a hook that i can find for example in
a in a door handle
just make sure that this is something
solid that you're not gonna bring your
house down when you're working out
and so if you have something solid and
also use it mostly you can either lock
the door or use it or pull it against
the the the position that the dart
closed so it doesn't open on your face
while you're pulling it and now i i use
the open ended
and pull them
or use it around the door handle
i would take a few steps back to
pre-load the resistance band so i'm
already giving some tension
and because it's a vertical pull i need
to lean forward so now when i pull my
elbows back
it's parallel to my upper body
here i'm doing slowly and controlled
and instead of pushing my elbows to the
front i push my elbows to the side until
they touch the side of my body here is
peak contraction i can squeeze
my back muscles and here there is almost
no resistance if you need a bit more
resistance you can step back a bit more
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and it gets is get gets even harder when
you are in peak contraction
there will be a time that i'll get
fatigue and i cannot pull more than here
it gets stuck this is when i reach
fatigue and this exercise is done
by now
we've done
vertical horizontal and vertical
planes of movement four exercises cover
the entire upper body now we're going to
use one of the most fundamental
exercises for the lower body that is the
squats that is going to target the
biggest muscles on your leg
because the leg is a
pretty powerful muscle i'll get a thick
resistance band as well and a closed one
so i can step
on it
hold
more or less in the middle
because i want to bring my
hand up
and behind my shoulders as if i was
in a gym with a barbell
from here
i am going to lower my body
and squat down
i will see that there is almost no
tension
at the bottom of the movement here i'm
just just with my body weight but as i
push forward
the resistance band makes it harder and
this is when i need to contract more of
my quad muscle so this is why i do this
slowly because if i do it too fast i can
jerk the movement and not really use my
my legs so here's when i control and
make sure that my lower back
is straight i go as low as i can if i'm
almost sitting on the floor
and from here
slowly push up
now
this is a guy
that will take some time to get fatigue
so there will be a time after multiple
several repetitions that you cannot lift
yourself up from here this is when you
reach failure
and now you are done with the five
exercises
now you learn these five exercises that
are really basic and fundamental you can
develop a lot of strength and muscle
mass just with this type of exercises
but they are not the only answer and
they may not even be the best answer
they are one that works but there are so
much more that you can learn and
practice not only for strength training
but at home you can also develop your
endurance you can develop your
cardiovascular fitness there's a lot of
things that you can do and in mindvalley
we developed a program with bang refute
and myself called the longevity
blueprint and this program gives you a
whole two box of different routines and
fitness exercises and a lot of them that
you can do at home to develop your
fitness levels in a holistic way if you
want to know more about this program
right now click here and you're gonna go
there straight away or if you want to go
there after the video is done there is a
link for you in the description below
also make sure to subscribe to this
channel i see you there
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you