My Home Workout

[lyorn]

I've talked about wanting to create a short home workout routine for days when I can't or won't go to the gym. Here it is. I would love to hear comments or suggestions, as I am new at this.

My goals are:
- upper body strength (because it's awesome)
- core strength (because I need it)

I want to be able to do a full push-up before autumn, and a chin-up some time this year or next.

Ingredients:
- one sturdy dinner table
- one kitchen counter, 90 cm high
- one chest in the hallway, 40 cm high
- two stable chairs on a non-slip carpet
- an alarm clock with a large analog display
- a mat
- two confused cats who bring plush mice because human on the floor means that human wants to play (optional)

Current sets/reps:
- 15 kitchen counter push-ups
- 4 planks on elbows at 20 seconds each, 10 seconds in between
- 4 dinner table chin-ups (lie with head under table, grab edge of table from below, pull up)
- 6 vertical leg crunches
- 4 chair dibs
Then repeat, with the kitchen counter push-ups replaced with 3 chest-in-the-hallway push-ups.

Not in the workout for now:
- I had planned to add bicycle crunches, but as I always end up with shoulder blade of the lower arm on the floor, I'm leaving those for later.
- I would also like to add a sun salutation as soon as I can straighten my legs and do full push-ups.
- Then there's a resistance band (don't know how strong it is, it feels medium light) I found in a drawer. There has to be some use for it.


Notes:
- Repetitions are the max of what I can do at the moment. If this goes as planned, they will go up.
- Kitchen counter too high, chest in the hallway too low :-(
- Maybe wear bicycle gloves for the table chin-ups, because that's one sharp edge there.
- For the crunches, cannot get legs vertical and straight without lots of pain, so I leave them un-straight.
- Got very localised back pain after the second time I did this, which might be connected or not. Needs observation.
- Need to figure out that breathing thing.

Any comments or suggestions?