New to SL5x5 and Group, and was curious....

PikaKnight

I really want to do SL 5x5 but I don't have any of the equipment. My apartment's gym is very limited, and I mean very..lol. They don't even have free weights!

Currently, the only weight training I can do is with the following machines:

Leg Extension
Wide-Bar Lateral Pulldown
Ab Pec Station (Pectoral Fly and a back version which I haven't tried. My arms seemed to short for that move)
Chest Station (Exercises that can be done are chest press, shoulder press, tricep press, and one arm row)

So my question is: Do you think I can still incorporate SL 5x5's concepts? Or do you think it's not really something that would work?

(Also, to note - the weight increments on the stations/machines go up by 10's)

tameko2

The core concepts are pretty much just 3x a week, full body workouts, low rep, high weight and linear progression. So I think you can adhere to that, although it will end up looking pretty different without the compounds.

I would start very light (not so light that its literally a joke but light, get yourself used to the machine, which can be weird to set up properly) and do something where you do 3 sets instead of 5 (because you'll be doing more than 3 exercises per day, most likely), and increase reps 3-4 times per workout, before increasing weight.

So something like 3x6, 3x7, 3x8 (3x9), then increase weight, then do it again. Whether you do that fourth or not is sort of going to depend on how you feel about it - you could also repeat 3x8 (or any weight) - you may want to put on the new weight, do one set at 3x6, ask yourself how terribly hard it was, and then go back to the old weight for 2 more higher rep sets if the answer is 'very'.

Also I'm thinking its a bit heavy on upper body stuff, and you'll want extra lower body work so I'd add some bodyweight routines.

You can do the leg extension + glute bridges one day (do just 1 leg bridges when the single leg version is easy), and then body weight squats (or with your dumbbells) and then graduate to working on 1 leg squats (video here) http://www.niashanks.com/2012/09/bodyweight-exercise-progressions-hip-thrusts-pistols-pushups-handstand-push-ups/

I'm thinking possibly putting in box jumps with the bodyweight squats, but you may not have a place to do that, or may find it too exhausting to do your other stuff sooooo I dunno.

So it'd be like:
Workout A - Leg extension, glute bridge, chest press, one arm row, core work (supermans and crunches)
Workout B - Squats/single leg squats, possibly box jumps, shoulder press, lat pulldown, core work (planks and leg lifts)

And then when your lease is up you can move to an apartment with more stuff, as this isn't ideal, but I think it will work to give you some overall resistance work for now. Also, take like a few towels with you that you can wrap around the bars, put on the seat, whatever, to give yourself a size boost if the machine can't be adjusted quite right. I notice with some machines they just don't fit right and that can lead to injury or at least extreme discomfort. I personally have never made a leg extension machine comfortable, probably because I haven't wanted to spend much time fiddling with it at the public gym, but still.

Oh and, when the glute bridges and single leg squats get easy, you can start to add load by holding a dumbbell (or settling one on your hips, for the bridges) but even then you're eventually going to run out of your ability to add load without getting ahold of more equipment.

PikaKnight

Great ideas! Thanks!!!