Have you ever dug into a muscle or fitness magazine trying to find an awesome home workout routine? Sometimes it can be hard because a lot of the exercises they list are done on the latest and greatest machines that have rolled out of the factory in the last month or two. With a little imagination, you can take any of those workout routines and get a good sweat on at home by making a few little adjustments.

What I frequently hear is that people don’t want to skip over any exercise or anything that may be important to the program. Since they would be working out at home for awhile, they’re not really sure as to what they should do. They would go to a gym but often live a ways out of town and it is definitely a trip to get over to that area.

The good news is that most people that want to work out at home have a bench press or at the very least a stability ball. With that much we are all set to go in modifying our awesome program into a home workout. It just so happens that I know of a few things that you could change so lets look at them.

Modifying a gym based workout program into a home workout is very easy. Mostly because its not so much the “magic” of the movements themselves but proper weight progression as well as the applied effort and scheduled rest that will get you the results.

I am going to assume, like I said above that you have a set of dumbbells and something to lie on. Now if you don’t have a set of dumbbells to do the workout that is o.k, because almost every dumbbell movement ever created can be done with a barbell. For example Dumbbell curls can be turned into barbell curls. What about lateral raises? You could simply do barbell presses because both exercises work the shoulder equally well. In fact, I would actually use the barbell shoulder press over the lateral raises anyway. Compound movements always give you more bang for your buck.

The basic idea in modifying workouts so that they can be done at home is you just have to realize what muscle you are working and sub in something that works the same muscle that you can do at home.

For example, in a typical workout routine you will see something like Machine Rows for the back. What are you supposed to do with that unless you have a couple of thousand dollars to spend on a machine? Simple, it’s a rowing exercise for the back, so you would look for rowing exercises that work that back that you can do at home. In this case since you have a barbell, it would be bent over barbell rows. If its only dumbbells you have then one arm rows it would be. If you had no equipment, you might go for the chin-up hanging off your door instead.

Remember, there are no magic exercises. It’s the effort applied that will get you results.

The same thing goes for any body part but lets look at calf raises for another example. You don’t really need a fancy machine to do these. As a matter of fact, machines rob you from working your stabilizer muscles anyway! Just find a set of stairs and some weight. Your weight could be single leg raises with bodyweight or you may want to use a dumbbell in your hand or a barbell across your back.

Remember, the set of weights you always have with you is your bodyweight. It will always be there for you in a pinch and it the best weight to learn how to move properly.

Triceps pushdowns are another one that people think is mandatory. These can easily be replaced with bench dips, close grip bench presses or close grip pushups. If you start to use your imagination, you could really start to have fun mixing up your exercises like this. You never get bored and you really cannot mess it up, because in the end, as long as you are working the muscle, you’re doing great.