Best way to maintain strength with BW

lizafava2

Hi all,

I've been doing 5x5 for a couple weeks and am loving it. I have some prior experience with heavy lifting so its been fun and easy so far. I'm wondering about something though - we are going to rural belize for over 2 weeks in a month. There will not be facilities for lifting, obviously. Any thoughts of BW exercises to help me maintain strength? Pushups, BW squats (maybe jump squats) and.....? I can't do unassisted pullups, sadly.

Will be swimming, hiking and jumping rope a lot.....

girlie100

Yeah just do what you can bw wise. If you can't do a pull-up then brilliant time to start

Start with chin ups and just do as many as you can then rest then repeat for 3-4 sets work on it every other day and you will improve

Have fun in Belize :bigsmile:

jstout365

If you are traveling with someone else, you can do resistance training with them. They can apply pressure to your shoulders during a pushup, you can do fireman carries or piggy back rides, seated resistance OHP.....the list continues.

Just think outside of the box and maybe sneak a resistance band in your bag. They don't take a lot of space and can help you somewhat maintain.

krokador

You can do let me ins or let me ups for a pulling movement if you can't do pull-ups yet.

Let me ins are performed around a door. Put both feet about level with the handle around the door, bend your knees and using the door handle (or a towel wrapped around the handle) you pull yourself in towards the door and then drop back. As a bonus if you're not used to those, it'll burn in your thighs in no time

Let me ups are done under a horizontal bar/surface (so a table might work). You lay down, grab a hold and pull yourself up. Bend the knees a bit if it's too hard with straight legs. You can play around with grip here too.

There's a great app you can get called You Are Your Own Gym (YAYOG) which has a few bodyweight programs and some quick circuits and workout timers. It's pretty cool. (and since my descriptions are pretty bad, the app has videos of these 2 exercises)

Some more exercises you may want to consider too:

1 legged romanian deadlifts
lunges (walking, back, forward, jumping)
pike presses
close grip push-ups
glute bridges
superman holds
mountain climbers
burpees

hopefully that helps you out a bit ^^

catfive1

I used the "You Are Your Own Gym" (YAYOG) app when I was away for Christmas. It was a great workout and requires no equipment.

lizafava2

Oh my gosh, THANK YOU all so much! Folks on this forum are incredibly helpful and inspiring.

rlw911

These are all wonderful suggestions, however, I suggest you let me go in your place and you can stay home and lift. :happy: :happy: :happy: :happy:

My dream is to move/retire to Belize, so I'm extremely jealous of your trip!

lwoodroff

press ups under the bed, lifting the bed up? get someone to lie on it if it's not hard enough! (I'm mostly joking here )

hananah89

Nothing to add but I visited Belize on a cruise once and we got out of the port city and it was a great place to visit! We saw the Belize zoo and their pyramid ruins. Very hot but loved that it was different than your normal "cruise stop"