Nicol David’s Workout & Other Easy Exercises to Try at Home

By Syakir Roslan • 06 Apr 2020 in Features

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It’s the second last week before the MCO is lifted (probably) and by now, most of you might be exhausted from endless snacking, drinking dalgona coffees and rewatching cheesy ripoffs. While you might be tempted to cramp in all the activities you meant to do like spring cleaning and launching your YouTube career, we suggest you focus on one goal.

Hence, we’re following through with one of our suggestions from our list of things you could do during MCO’s (unconfirmed) final week, and that item is… GETTIN’ RIPPED! And what better way to expand on a list then with another list, so here are 6 home workouts you can do without using any equipment!

1) Jumping Jacks

Remember when we had to do this in school for PJ (PE)? It seems like a redundant exercise at first, but it’s honestly a good way to raise your heart rate, and don’t quote me on this but I think this falls under stretching too??

Either way, it’s a decent warm-up exercise which you could do at home before starting off with your workout session, serving as a good pre-workout cardio.

Do this for 3 minutes and you should be solid – 90 seconds first then get your bearings back and finish off the next 90 seconds. Or you could opt for 3 minutes straight – it really depends on you. You’ll feel the rush in no time and be ready for your first home workout (or completely lose interest and say nah, I’m having ice-cream instead.)

2) Push-ups

Arguably one of the most famous exercises when somebody mentions the word ‘workout’, perhaps due to how easy it is to do this exercise that builds endurance. All you need to do is lay both palms open with your toes onto the ground, straighten your back and push yourself up as hard as you can then land slowly for about 3-5 seconds (or as long as you see fit) and keep doing this until you can’t anymore.

One time I hitched a Grab and this uncle driving the car told me a story about working out and how you can start with 3 push-ups to begin with (although you should definitely do more). The moral of the story was if you keep doing something, eventually it’ll get easier.

Good story, but 3 won’t get you anywhere so do 10 instead, rest for a bit, then do another set of 10, and another after, and so on until you look like Conan the Barbarian (just kidding, unless you’re going for that sword and spandex look).

Body parts targeted:

3) Sit-ups (or crunches)

From this point on, just keep in mind that it’s generally best to do at least 3 sets of these exercises in one workout session. Sit-ups look easy to pull off but if you don’t have the right form, you could either get next to nothing from your workout and just look silly or potentially hurt yourself from muscle strain.

It’s best to do sit-ups with a buddy restraining your feet from moving, but even if you’re all by yourself just find a place to wedge your feet like under your bed for example or if you think you’ve got decent balance, just leave ’em flat on the ground and try to keep them still as possible while you use your abdomen to raise yourself up with your hands behind your back like Bobby Hill in the .gif above.

Same as push-ups, do about 10 of these for 3 sets. If you can’t hit 10 do as much as you can (at least 5, one sit-up won’t do nothing and you know this) and aim for 3 sets. If you manage to do less reps per set, just add more sets (i.e 5 sets of 5 reps).

Body parts targeted:

4) Plank

Remember planking, that old meme? A few of you might be surprised to find out that planking is more than just a meme and can actually provide you with a killer workout. Unlike the previous workouts, your body will just remain static for this one.

While the gif above is not a 100% accurate representation of what this exercise looks like, that’s essentially the way to position your body. Here’s a picture of what planking actually looks like along with the body parts targeted:

Do this ^ for 90 seconds per plank in sets of 3 as well. If you’re feeling fancy, you can switch it up in the second and third sets by doing this instead:

But if you lack confidence in your planking abilities, just stick to the the first one to avoid injury.

5) Lunges

Can’t sleep on leg day! And since going out is pretty much outlawed until the 14th of April, here’s a lovely upper leg workout to keep you busy at home instead of worrying about when you can start gym-ing again. As the name suggests, you’re gonna have to lunge for this one.

First straighten your body and remain in that position then stretch one foot out like the .gif above and slowly bend your knee as low as you can without actually touching the ground. Hold it for a couple of seconds before returning to your starting position and do the same with the other foot – that’s one rep.

Do 3 sets of 10 reps. We’re on the second last workout here, did you expect anything less?

Body parts targeted:

6) Dumbbell Rows

This entry might count as cheating because I did say home workouts without using any equipment but there’s only so much you can do with your own body-weight and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not fully utilising your energy and things you have laying around your house respectively.

So combine the two and make your own DIY free weights! Get a big bottle (like the ones pictured above) and add in water, rocks, sand or whatever floats your boat until you feel that weight is heavy enough. You could use the handle on those bottles by wrapping some tape around it to support the weight of the load when pulling them up but it’s best if you find something pole-like to lift ’em up. Just make sure they’re secure enough that the handles do break.

The exercises you could do with these are endless! Depending on how crafty you get with your DIY weights, you could do just about anything from curling, to floor presses and even add them in other workouts such as when you do lunges. Since we’ve got another week or so of MCO to go, make these for yourselves if you don’t already have free weights at home.

Body parts targeted: Whatever you like – biceps, triceps, shoulders, back, chest, etc.

While searching for workout footage, I stumbled upon this Facebook video of Malaysian squash legend, Datuk Nicol David’s cardio routine which looks like it can be done just about anywhere and if she’s doing it, I’m certain it’s effective!

So there you have it! Hopefully this article motivates you to work out instead of alleviating your boredom by stuffing your face. With these exercises and the ample amount of time we have before the MCO is (possibly) lifted, you should end up looking like this once we return to civilisation: