5 Household Alternatives to dumbbells and barbells

Nov 4

When people think about the difference between working out from home and at a gym, two things usually come to mind:

1) Home workouts will have access to less weights or
2) I’ll have to buy a lot of equipment to have a proper “home gym”.

Neither of these have to be the case if you are willing to grab a few items that are probably laying around your house right now.

#1 Curls and weighted pushups: Backpack and Books

Grab the heaviest books you can find and stuff them in a backpack, gym, bag or any other type of bag you can find. Using the top loop, curl them just like regular dumbbell curls to get some bicep training in. Put the backpack on normally to do weighted pushups which will work your chest and triceps.

#2 Farmer’s walks, Squats, Lunges, Calf raises: Gallons of Water

Do you still get water delivered to your home? Or is there an empty container from an office water cooler? If so, you have enough equipment for a full body workout. You can often find 5 gallon water containers for less than $10 at the local grocery store. Farmers walks are excellent forearm builders. Squats and lunges help develop the quadriceps and hamstrings. Calf raises can be made even more effective by combining a weighted backpack from the first exercise.

#3 Weighted Crunches, Russian Twists: Watermelon

A melon can be used as a substitute for a medicine ball. Many ab excercises can be done like this, but two of my favorites are weighted crunches and Russian Twists.

#4 Chest presses: Grocery bag with Juice Jugs, Bench

Fill a bunch of jugs with water and put them in some sturdy grocery bags. The added instability from the liquid will work your stability muscles even more than dumbbells. You can do this with two chairs with both seats facing each other if you don’t have a bench. However, this is a lot more uncomfortable and ill-advised without sturdy chairs. I’d stick to a bench if at all possible.

#5 Overhead Tricep Extensions, Shoulder Raises: Suitcase

There’s not a lot of traveling going on these days, but there’s still a practical use for that luggage bag lying around. Drop some clothes, into your suitcase and that should be more than heavy enough to work the shoulders and triceps. Overhead tricep extensions and lateral raises, and you can also use the weight for leg workouts.