Strength Training at Home?

Angelhales1990

Hi everyone,
I'm hoping you may be able to offer me some advice. I've got a set of dumbells (well nicked my brothers whilst hes abroad) which I think are 3kg each at the moment although he has some bigger weights I'll be able to move onto. I also have a couple of kettlebells as well.
I want to get into using them to build up my strength as I'm doing alot of obstacle races this year and strength is so important. But I am clueless as to what to do with them! I hear all these phrases surrounding strength training and have no idea what they mean, how many reps to do, how many days to exercise etc.
Can anyone offer some tips for an absolute beginner?

3laine75

You'll find dumbbell routines on bodybuilding.com and nerdfitness. The important thing is to make things progressively harder - so are they adjustable? Can you add weight?

kamack1215

Youtube is good for lots of exercises as well. I use some for follow along routines as well as just watching them to get ideas of exercises to do on my own

SueInAz

Youtube is a great source of exercise videos. There are also a lot of body weight exercises you can do to start.

MissAnjy

I do p90x and love it.

rick_po

Find a good progressive beginner strength program and follow it to the letter. A 3 kg dumbbell is far too light to be very useful. Chances are, you can squat 20 kg today. You could easily be squatting 50 kg in a few months.

Without a barbell or a complete set of heavy dumbbells, you're better off with a bodyweight program. Bodyweight programs are a little bit complicated, so it's a good idea to buy a book so you can reference it when you need to make the progressions. Some good bodyweight books:

You Are Your Own Gym
Body By You
Convict Conditioning