Can You Get Toned With Home Workouts: The Honest Truth

Want to get the toned look but unsure if you can get toned with home workout? Well, exercising at home can get you toned.

In this article, you will read about the effectiveness of different home workout types to tone your full-body.

 Read on to find out the best practices you should follow for toning with bodyweight training and doing home workouts with equipment.

But yes if you are not following the best home workout practices then you will not get noticeable toning results. Read on to learn more about how you can make your home workouts effective for toning.

Can you get toned by doing home workout without weights?

Exercising at home can help you tone your body even if you workout without weight.

But I will tell you the truth. You might need to workout a little more if you are only doing bodyweight exercises at home to tone your body. Adding some equipment like dumbbell exercises can make your home workouts much more effective for toning. I’ll explain more about it in the next section.

So, you want to tone your body at home with just bodyweight workout. Fine, I’ll tell you how to do it.

As you will only be doing exercises without weights to get the toned look and maintain it you need to exercise frequently.

How frequently to do bodyweight exercises for toning?

When you train 5 days at home with bodyweight strength training you can get good toning results. It can take 3-4 weeks to see initial changes in your body – it depends on how much body fat currently you have.

After you get your muscle toned you will need to workout at least four days to maintain it.

For practical use case, I’ll not recommend you to workout more than 45 minutes in a workout session. There are some exceptions to this rule like if you are doing cardio or low-impact exercises that mainly focus on maximising calorie burn through body movements and strength training is not the main goal.

For beginners, it’s best to keep your home workout sessions short. 25 minutes max for strength training for 40-50 days then increase gradually as your body strength improves over time. As a beginner, you can workout longer than 25 minutes for cardio, low-impact workouts and body stretching home workout sessions.

Effective bodyweight exercises to include for best toning results

Choosing the right bodyweight exercises as per your fitness level is crucial to make your workouts effective for toning.

Include these exercises into your workout routine.

Spot jogs

It would be best if you do spot jogs at the beginning of your workout session. Good for burning calories, and warming up your body.

Suitable for people of all fitness levels.

Duration 30-40 seconds for short workout sessions and 80-100 seconds for longer workout sessions or for those who have better body stamina.

Plank

Do planks to train your core and if you want to get a flat stomach.

If you are just starting do 1-2 sets of planks and try to hold planks for 15-30 seconds.

For intermediate and advanced level 3 plank sets, try to hold for 30-60 seconds. After each set, you can rest for approx 20-25 seconds.

Jumping jacks

Good for training your legs and burning calories. For a short workout session, you might choose between doing spot jogs or jumping jacks.

Good for improving your cardiovascular health and warming up your body.

Bodyweight squats

Bodyweight squats are one of the best bodyweight exercises for toning your legs.

People with all fitness levels can do this. For starters – do 2-3 sets or do 40-70 total bodyweight squats in a workout session.

For the advanced level, 3-4 sets and in each set try to do 40-70 bodyweight squats or close to 150-200 squats in a workout session. If you can do more than 150 bodyweight squats you can try doing an advanced version of this exercise which is jump squats for better toning results, especially it is good for toning and building your lower thigh muscles.

Pushups

Pushups are great for building and toning your upper body. It engages multiple muscle groups like – chest, biceps, shoulders, triceps and core.

Beginners should try to do 1-2 sets of regular pushups or try to do 10-15 total pushups.

If you can’t do push-ups that’s ok you can start with doing knee pushups, wall pushups and then incline pushups. These are easier than regular pushups and suitable for beginners.

For advanced level do pushups for 3-4 sets. In those 1-2 sets you should do pushups until failure. You can also try some of the harder pushup variations to make your workouts challenging.

Sit-ups

Good for getting a flat stomach, improves your body posture and core strength.

Beginners can do 2-3 sets of situps and in each set try to do 10-15 reps. Note – if you can do more than 15 in your first set you should do it because in your last sets, you will be doing fewer numbers.

Burpees

Burpees are good for improving both lower body and upper body strength. It’s also good for weight loss and burning calories.

Burpees also have an explosive movement in them so if you want to build your body strength or want to make your body suitable for doing longer workout sessions without feeling exhausted then start doing burpees and gradually increase the number of burpees you do in your workout session.

It’s a simple exercise but you can get exhausted very soon if you do burpees fast and if you have just started exercising.

For beginners, it’s better to take your time and rest for 1-3 seconds before you do the next rep or burpees. Recommended number of sets 2 and in each set do 8-15 burpees.

As you get used to doing burpees and could do 15 burpees easily then you can eliminate the resting time after each rep. After completing one set of burpees you should take rest for 30-40 seconds.

Spot jumps

Spot jumps are vertical jumps done standing at the same place. In a short workout session, you can do either burpees or spot jumps.

Those who find burpees difficult or could do less than 7 in a set should include spot jumps.

Doing spot jumps is good for strengthening your legs, improves metabolism and cardiovascular fitness.

Frog jumps

Frog jump exercise is a high-impact bodyweight exercise that adds explosive movements to your workout.

Good for strengthening your joints and ligaments. Also, workout your lower back muscles and good for burning calories and weight loss.

Bench dips

Bench dips are good for strengthening your triceps, shoulders and chest.

You can do bench dips using a firm chair, bench and bed frame.

Doing bench dips can help you tone your arms. Especially if you want to reduce your underarm fat.

Lunges

Doing lunges is good for improving your body’s flexibility and balance. It will also help you tone your leg muscles.

Lunges are easy to do and good for people of all fitness levels.

You can do lunges after completing an intense exercise like burpees. This will allow you to control your breathing during your workout session.

Include the exercises mentioned above in your home workouts to get toned without any equipment.

Best way to make your home workouts effective for toning

The most effective way to get a toned body exercising at home or to get in shape with home workouts is to do a combination of cardio, bodyweight exercises and workouts with weights like dumbbell workouts.

1. Include different types of exercises in your home workout routine

A balanced workout session improves your overall body fitness and shape as different types of exercises have different advantages over others. Thus including a variety of exercises will provide better results.

Cardio exercises

Cardiovascular exercises like jumping jacks, high knees, jogging in place/ spot jogging, burpees etc are good for burning your unused calories and for improving your overall body fitness.

Even if you want to get the toned look you should do some cardio exercises.

Strength training with body-weight exercises

Body weight exercises are easy to do and will help you build your initial muscle strength and most bodyweight exercises workouts multiple muscle groups at once.

Include some of the best bodyweight exercises like pushups and other pushup variations, bodyweight squats, plank, lunges, situps etc.

Strength training with equipment

If you want fast toning results then it’s recommended that along with cardio and bodyweight exercises, you also do workouts with equipment like dumbbells, resistance bands etc.

In the beginning, if you want to workout for 30 minutes for toning do warm-up and cardio for 10 minutes, bodyweight exercises for 10 minutes, and weight training or dumbbell workout for 10 minutes.

After some weeks gradually increase the duration of working out with weights for better toning results in less time. For some idea, if in a week you workout 150 minutes then workout with dumbells (or any other free weights or equipment) for 75-90 minutes, do cardio for 30 minutes and do bodyweight training for the rest.

Here are some strength training exercises with equipment which are good for toning your body:

1. Dumbbell squats.
2. Dumbbell lunge.
3. Bicep curl.
4. Overhead press or shoulder press.
5. Dumbbell bench press. (you could also do it on the floor but you won’t be able to extend your arms fully. For most people it might be sufficient)
6. Side lateral raise.
7. Overhead tricep extension.
8. Dumbbell deadlift.
9. Russian twist.
10. Dumbbell squat clean & press. (advanced move)

2. Plan a proper home workout session

Your workout should start with a warm-up. Warm up before you workout to avoid workout injuries and increase your workout performance.

Do some cardio exercises like jumping jacks, jump rope, high knees, spot jogging to warm up your body then do the other exercises.

Also, as per your fitness level pick the right home workout duration.

3. Include rest days

After an intense workout session, your body needs adequate amounts of rest so that it can recover. If you feel your muscles are sore, or stiff then it’s better to take rest days.

If you do high intensity home workouts and also your workout sessions are long then it’s better to do split training (working out different muscle groups on different days. For example –  Monday – chest & biceps, Tuesday – abs and legs) instead of full-body workout.

4. Follow fundamental fitness rules

1. Gradually increase your workout intensity so that your body doesn’t get used to the same workouts.
2. Have a balanced healthy diet and avoid unhealthy food items that have high amounts of fat and calories. Cause you need to have a healthy amount of body fat percentage to get the toned look.
3. Stay hydrated. Drink water throughout the day.
4. Have a healthy amount of sleep for a faster recovery from your workouts.
5. Perform exercises with correct form or body posture.

Final Thoughts

So, can you get toned just from home workouts? Yes, you can tone your body at home exercising with or without weights.

Get started exercising at home with easy-to-do bodyweight exercises to build your initial strength then gradually increase your workout intensity.

Stay consistent with your workout schedule, get an adequate amount of sleep, follow a healthy diet and follow the guidelines mentioned in this article and you will see good toning results from exercising at home.