Body-weight strength training in limited areas

2»

Replies

  • mutantspicy
    mutantspicy Posts: 624 Member
    ^ Agreed I consider myself to be an intermediate lifter moving toward advanced, and I walk everyday. I consider it to be a major part of my fitness. Its great for your body to get started, but its great for piece of mind, Its great for active recovery once you start to have a regular fitness regimen. Walking is one of simplest best things you can do for yourself. And assuming you have shoes and clothes its free.
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    lorrpb wrote: »
    You have lots of great suggestions here. I also urge you to begin walking since you haven't done much for 9 years. Start with 10-15 minutes, then work up to about an hour and hills. You can walk on alternating days with strength workouts, and eventually daily. In all activities, pace yourself slow and steady. Don't try to make up for 9 years in 9 days. You sound like you want to take a reasonable approach and that's terrific!

    Thank you. I agree with you about the walking although I do go hiking (just not as often as I'd like). I have a treadmill for the winter months so I could keep walking but we got a puppy and I lost my walking time. I walk the dog but that's not much exercise. More like he pulls, I follow :smiley:
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    mutantspicy wrote: »
    ^ Agreed I consider myself to be an intermediate lifter moving toward advanced, and I walk everyday. I consider it to be a major part of my fitness. Its great for your body to get started, but its great for piece of mind, Its great for active recovery once you start to have a regular fitness regimen. Walking is one of simplest best things you can do for yourself. And assuming you have shoes and clothes its free.

    I think it was Hippocrates who said Walking is Man's best medicine. I can remember having to relearn to walk after a life threatening medical issue that sidelined me in ICU for a month and a half. It's such a simple joy I often take for granted still.
  • girlwithcurls2
    girlwithcurls2 Posts: 2,281 Member
    I used the You Are Your Own Gym app. When you start, you check off what "equipment" you have at home (door frame, chair, dumbells, etc). I made great progress doing it. Can't remember why I stopped... :confused:
  • imbr0gli0
    imbr0gli0 Posts: 4 Member
    I really like the routine at www.startbodyweight.com. If you read through the site, he gives you a warm-up, resistance routine with progressions from beginner to advanced, and stretching routine for the end. It may be quite easy at the start if you begin and the first progression of each exercise, but you should start a bit easier than you think you can do so you don't hit a stall too fast and get discouraged. The equipment needed is very minimal and most can be improvised using chairs, door frames, tree limbs or towels. As a bonus, there is even an Android App that helps you track your progress and take you through the progressions (not sure about Apple).

    The real key is to just pick something and start doing it. Most of us, myself included, over analyze things and waste weeks or longer before starting something. After we start something, we generally don't give it time to see a real result and quit or change routines. Good luck with your journey. You have plenty of great suggestions. Now it is time to pick one and get started. Let us know how it goes!
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    imbr0gli0 wrote: »
    I really like the routine at www.startbodyweight.com. If you read through the site, he gives you a warm-up, resistance routine with progressions from beginner to advanced, and stretching routine for the end. It may be quite easy at the start if you begin and the first progression of each exercise, but you should start a bit easier than you think you can do so you don't hit a stall too fast and get discouraged. The equipment needed is very minimal and most can be improvised using chairs, door frames, tree limbs or towels. As a bonus, there is even an Android App that helps you track your progress and take you through the progressions (not sure about Apple).

    The real key is to just pick something and start doing it. Most of us, myself included, over analyze things and waste weeks or longer before starting something. After we start something, we generally don't give it time to see a real result and quit or change routines. Good luck with your journey. You have plenty of great suggestions. Now it is time to pick one and get started. Let us know how it goes!

    Thanks for the site recommendation. I'm looking at it now. You're so right. I often suffer analysis paralysis and get nowhere and I almost always quit before I see results. I think I suffer from the instant gratification disease :)
  • gearhead426hemi
    gearhead426hemi Posts: 919 Member
    Burpees, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, crunches, lunges, body squats are all things that your body weight is all the resistance you will need. None of these require any equipment and minimal space. I like to do full body workouts daily 3-4 times a week, body part isolation twice a week and run or bike ride a minimum of once a week.

    As others have stated rings will add a whole new level of challenge and strength to your fitness. Rings will require your core to stay engaged the entire movement. I LOVE using rings in my shop for pull-ups, dips, reverse grip pull-ups and pushups as well. I am a huge advocate for bodyweight exercises because you don't have to limit yourself to a gym. Get outside and make your workouts your adventures. Running, hiking, biking, kayaking anything that gets you active and outside is a great thing. Best of luck!
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    gearhead426hemi wrote: »
    Burpees, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, crunches, lunges, body squats are all things that your body weight is all the resistance you will need. None of these require any equipment and minimal space. I like to do full body workouts daily 3-4 times a week, body part isolation twice a week and run or bike ride a minimum of once a week.

    As others have stated rings will add a whole new level of challenge and strength to your fitness. Rings will require your core to stay engaged the entire movement. I LOVE using rings in my shop for pull-ups, dips, reverse grip pull-ups and pushups as well. I am a huge advocate for bodyweight exercises because you don't have to limit yourself to a gym. Get outside and make your workouts your adventures. Running, hiking, biking, kayaking anything that gets you active and outside is a great thing. Best of luck!

    Thanks. I love hiking. Hands down my favorite exercise to do. Which is why I love October in New England. It's perfect weather for hiking but I can only do it about once a week. I love the idea of bodyweight so I can do it anytime, anywhere. Outdoors is absolutely the best prescription. Clean air for the lungs, beautiful scenery for the soul, just perfect. I'm actually thinking of trying snow-shoe hiking this winter too.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,463 Member
    stevenringeling wrote: »
    gearhead426hemi wrote: »
    Burpees, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, crunches, lunges, body squats are all things that your body weight is all the resistance you will need. None of these require any equipment and minimal space. I like to do full body workouts daily 3-4 times a week, body part isolation twice a week and run or bike ride a minimum of once a week.

    As others have stated rings will add a whole new level of challenge and strength to your fitness. Rings will require your core to stay engaged the entire movement. I LOVE using rings in my shop for pull-ups, dips, reverse grip pull-ups and pushups as well. I am a huge advocate for bodyweight exercises because you don't have to limit yourself to a gym. Get outside and make your workouts your adventures. Running, hiking, biking, kayaking anything that gets you active and outside is a great thing. Best of luck!

    Thanks. I love hiking. Hands down my favorite exercise to do. Which is why I love October in New England. It's perfect weather for hiking but I can only do it about once a week. I love the idea of bodyweight so I can do it anytime, anywhere. Outdoors is absolutely the best prescription. Clean air for the lungs, beautiful scenery for the soul, just perfect. I'm actually thinking of trying snow-shoe hiking this winter too.

    You would probably live snow shoeing!
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    Thank you ALL for your suggestions and advice. Here's what I'm going to do for now. I'll start with the NerdFitness Beginner's routine simply because it's a good way for me to get into a routine. I'll do it for about 1 month. The routine is 2-3 sets of:

    • 20 bodyweight squats
    • 10 push ups
    • 20 walking lunges – 10 each leg
    • 10 dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug or another weight)
    • 15 second plank
    • 30 jumping jacks

    To this I'm going to add dumbbell deadlifts.

    After the month is up, I'm going to create a plan incorporating the following exercises (using dumbbells where needed). I may do it as a full body routine or break it into smaller chunks. Reps and sets will be determined based on where I'm at at the time I start.

    • Squat
    • Push-up
    • Deadlift
    • Bent over row
    • Overhead press (working toward handstand pushup)
    • Horizontal pull up (until I can do a full traditional pull up)
    • Planks
    • Leg raise/other ab exercise

    I'm also going to add walking/hiking into my routine.

    Of course, there are many exercises that can be done in each category so I'll pick an exercise and do it for a time, then switch to another type of exercise so I combat boredom and work my muscles differently from time to time.

    I'm starting tonight.
  • tcunbeliever
    tcunbeliever Posts: 8,219 Member
    You don't need a bar for pull ups, you can use an eyebolt as an anchor and bands for resistance - plus you can increase resistance by moving further from the anchor without having to increase the band weight.

    Resistance bands are pretty cheap and can be used for a variety of exercises, plus you can increase resistance by adding loops or changing the size of the loop so that you aren't constantly having to buy more/heavier stuff particularly in the beginning when strength gains can be significant.
  • FitnTrimSteve
    FitnTrimSteve Posts: 664 Member
    tcunbeliever wrote: »
    You don't need a bar for pull ups, you can use an eyebolt as an anchor and bands for resistance - plus you can increase resistance by moving further from the anchor without having to increase the band weight.

    Resistance bands are pretty cheap and can be used for a variety of exercises, plus you can increase resistance by adding loops or changing the size of the loop so that you aren't constantly having to buy more/heavier stuff particularly in the beginning when strength gains can be significant.

    I do have a set of bands. I'm not sure I'm understanding you though. If the idea of a pull up is to pull my bodyweight upward, how do resistance bands accomplish this? I know it's using similar muscles but not in the same way.

Categories