Strength training work-outs without a barbell?

wkevinc

This website is a great forum for finding information regarding bodyweight only strength training: http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/ . If you can only do three reps of pushups, that will actually be very beneficial for your strength. The optimal rep range for building strength is actually between about 3-5 reps. Once you start to get up to arout 15 reps, you're really not building strength so much as endurance. If exercises are too hard for you to do at all, like say pullups, there are always easier substitutions of exercises you can do until you can do the actual exercise.

I wasn't sure if by "without a barbell" you meant no weights at all, or just no barbells. You can buy a cheap set of adjustable dumbells at target or walmart for about $50. You would be amazed how many exercises you can do with just dumbells. Practically every barbell exercise has a dumbell equivalent. You mentioned Starting Strength. That entire program is basically just squats, bench press, overhead press, deadlifts and powercleans. You can do all of those exercises except for bench press with just dumbells (and for bench press you just need an adjustable weight bench which could be had for about $50 at Walmart, though doing pushups would suffice as a substitute for now). The real reason people tend to prefer barbells over dumbells is that once you get to very heavy weight it becomes difficult to use dumbells.