#021 No Gym No Problem

Welcome back to the 21st edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

As you know, I always try to provide you with no-bs advice on how to reach your dream physique and equip you with practical tools and strategies to make it useful to as many of you as possible.

But today could really be the newsletter that all of you can resonate with and learn from: How to train if we can’t access a gym?

To make sure there is no confusion, this won’t be a guide on how to build a strong physique without a gym membership (this will be a post on its own) but rather a guide on what to do if we can’t access a gym for a short amount of time.

Reasons for that could be plenty: Maybe you are visiting someone over the weekend and can’t get your Saturday workout in. Maybe you have a busy day and can’t spend the time to commute to the gym and have an hour-long workout (welcome to real-life “masculinity Instagram”; these days exist). Or maybe you are traveling for two weeks. There are countless possibilities for why you may not be able to get to the gym.

So what do we do about it?

The first option is simply to do nothing. Take that off-day or off-week if you are on vacation or can’t make it that day. You have probably earned it (I’m trusting you here that you trained hard consistently before). Assuming you are taking no more than two weeks off, there won’t be a notable (if any) decrease in muscle mass. Maybe you can progress faster as you give your body some time to recover.

With that out of the way. Let’s talk about how we can keep working out, even if we don’t have a gym or any equipment.

The easiest thing you can do is what I would call a “mini workout”. Mini workouts are essentially very short training sessions and a great way to provide a new stimulus to your muscles. Set a timer and try to do as many reps of an exercise as you like.

An example would be trying to do as many pushups as you possibly can in 5 minutes. Take breaks in between if necessary, but the goal is to reach failure within these five minutes.

You can cover most of your body within 20-25 minutes if you are doing 5-minute sessions with some breaks in between for legs (e.g., Bulgarian split squats), chest/shoulder/triceps (e.g., push-ups), back (e.g., pull-ups), and abs (e.g., leg raises).

Mini workouts are best applicable if you have a busy day but still want to work your muscles. You may not trigger a (meaningful) adaptive response, but it’s a good way to preserve muscle mass.

If we want to actually provide a meaningful adaptive response to our muscles, we should have a proper workout. And yes, bodyweight training can be a viable tool for that.

Setting up a bodyweight workout program follows the same principles as any other program, and you should be doing around 4-6 sets per muscle group to failure.

How you do that is up to you. But to give you some guidance, I have collected a few exercises you can do at home or while traveling without needing any equipment. Just pick 2 exercises per group and do them for 2-4 sets each, and you have a decent workout if you can’t access a gym:

1. Chest/Shoulders/Triceps: For chest/shoulders/triceps, we are mostly reliant on push-up and dip variations, which makes this an easy and fun muscle group to train with bodyweight exercises. Pick whatever push-up and dip variation suits your goal and get started. If you can do 50+ reps and don’t know which variation to use to make it harder, simply slow down the eccentric phase as much as possible.

2. Back/Biceps: Working the back without any equipment can be quite challenging. Your best option is to find a possibility to do pull-ups or inverted rows. You can also get creative and build yourself dumbbells and use them for rows or do towel pull-downs, but more on that later.

3. Legs: While legs can also be a bit challenging to train without a gym, you can still choose from a variety of exercises such as (Bulgarian Split) Squats, Pistol Squats, Lunges, or Step ups. Technically, it is no longer bodyweight, but an easy way to make these exercises harder is by wearing a backpack filled with whatever heavy stuff you have in your room.

4. Abs: As most abs exercises are already bodyweight exercises, they are the easiest group to train out of these four. Just pick some exercises that you like, such as (reverse) crunches, leg raises, or planks.

For now, we have tried to work only with our body weight. But luckily, we don’t need to do that. We can also be creative.

Creativity: Just because you don’t have access to a gym and no gym equipment available doesn’t mean you have to rely solely on bodyweight exercises. Look around in your room (or wherever you are) and find creative alternatives. Most of your problems should be solved if you can find some form of bag that you can fill up with some weight, which you can then use as your dumbbell and/or additional weight for exercises.

All that being said, I believe it still makes sense to buy some minimal gym equipment you can use at home or while traveling.

An absolute no-brainer, and must-buy are resistance bands. Buying them has literally no downsides. They are cheap and you can take them anywhere. And most importantly, they are a great tool to enhance your bodyweight workout at home or while traveling. By using bands, you can simulate nearly all movements from the gym: Chest Press, Rows, Face Pulls, Curls, Flies, … countless possibilities!

Another purchase I’d consider if I’d train at home regularly is a pull-up bar. By combining bodyweight exercises, resistance band exercises, and pull-ups you can work your whole body really well without even leaving your room.

And that’s it. I hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter and have an idea now of what to do if you can’t access a gym. If you have further questions, simply DM me on Instagram.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.