Lifting for women AT HOME

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  • martielou
    martielou Posts: 50 Member
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    Bump! Thx!
  • StrawberrySt
    StrawberrySt Posts: 235
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    BUMP :bigsmile:
  • Veganniee
    Veganniee Posts: 460 Member
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  • mamakira
    mamakira Posts: 366
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  • lisa28115
    lisa28115 Posts: 17,271 Member
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  • SteffieMark
    SteffieMark Posts: 1,723 Member
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    Thanks for this info.
  • skinnyinnotime
    skinnyinnotime Posts: 4,141 Member
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    p90x is designed to be done at home, with minimal investment in a set of dumbells or bands.

    Also, search the app store on your phone for the Nike training (NTC) app. It's women-specific, and again, little investment in weights or medicine ball. With most of the drills you have the option of not using weights at all.

    The problem with P90x is it's a HUGE investment in time. 1-1.5hrs a day, 6-7 days a week. If you're a parent, it ain't happening.

    My bodyweight strength training program I used is STUPIDLY effective, and is designed to mimic the results of heavy weights (you do 5 seds of exercises designed to cause you to fail within 5-6 reps...which equates to strength training).

    This is the protocol:
    Some of you have been curious about my workout that I used to lose the initial 35+lbs at home. Well, it was 100% bodyweight based, no weights. I'll lay it out here:

    This is your basic 5 x 5 template. (To clarify, 5x5 is 5 reps x 5 sets. The idea is to work at a difficulty level where you could only do maybe 7-8 reps on the first set, and are struggling to finish 5 reps on the last set). You would do strength training 3 times a week, say Monday-Wednesday-Friday with the weekends off. These are done "lazy circuits" style, with about 1 minute rest between each set (I use a FT7 HRM and keep my heart rate over 140). The explanations of the exercises you'll use for each group are farther below.

    Workout A
    1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
    1B. Horizontal push - 5 x 5
    1C. Horizontal pull - 5 x 5
    2A. Ab - flexion - 3 x 5
    2B. Ab - static 3 x 30 seconds

    Workout B
    1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
    1B. Vertical push - 5 x 5
    1C. Hip dominant - 5 x 5
    1D. Vertical pull - 5 x 5
    2A. Ab - rotation - 3 x 5
    2B. Grip and neck training - 3 x varies

    Exercise Progressions - with regular weight training you can just add weight to the bar. With bodyweight progression is mostly about changing your leverage. These are just a few examples, I'm sure we could come up with dozens more if needed. You can always add resistance in the form of a weighted vest or backpack or resistance bands.

    Explanations of exercise in order of difficulty (easy-hard)
    1. Knee Dominant -- squats, lunges, step-ups, bulgarian split squats, unilateral bent leg deadlift, partial one leg squat, one leg squat, box or stair pistols, full pistols.
    2. Horizontal Push -- pushups, decline pushups, resistance pushups, side to side pushups, stair one arm pushups, negative one arm pushups, full one arm pushups.
    3. Horizontal Pull -- body row, resistance body row, negative one hand row, incline one hand row, full one hand row.
    4. Ab - flexion -- crunches, situps, resistance or incline situps, reverse situp, resistance or incline reverse situps, hanging knee or leg raise, hanging pikes, rollout from knees, rollout from feet, dragon flag. Also included are oblique moves like side lying crunches with or without resistance and side lying two leg raise.
    5. Abs- static -- 4 point prone bridge, 3 point prone bridge, 2 point prone bridge, 4 point supine bridge, 3 point supine bridge.
    6. Vertical Push -- pike pushup, hindu pushup, divebomber pushup, decline pike pushup, decline hindu pushup, decline divebomber pushup, one arm pike pushup, negative handstand pushup, handstand pushup with head touching floor, full handstand pushup.
    7. Hip Dominant -- supine hip extension, good morning, one leg stiff leg deadlift, split one leg good morning, one leg supine hip extension, hyperextension, one leg hyperextension, natural glute-ham raise.
    8. Vertical Pull -- jumping or assisted pullups, pullups, resistance pullups, side to side pullups, negative one hand pullups, one hand pullups. All these can refer to chinups or neutral grip pullups as well.
    9. Ab - rotation -- twist crunches or situps, resistance or incline twist crunches or situps, russian twists, lying windshield wipers, standing rope rotations, hanging windshield wipers.
    10. Grip and Neck Training -- for grip you can use handgrippers, deadhangs from a pullup bar (especially a fatbar or gripping a towel). For neck nothing beats wrestlers bridges. If you are involved in a striking martial art or sport, finger and fist pushups are very important also.

    None of these lists have to end here. If you get strong enough you can always add resistance to your full range of motion one limb exercise. Or if you can do more than 5 one hand pushups do decline one hand pushups, or start working on one hand hindu and then eventually one hand dive bombers, and so on.

    The nice thing about this routine is it scales dramatically depending on your fitness level. If you can't do even ONE regular pull up, you can scale it down and do assisted pull ups (legs on a chair), or ballistic pullups (where you jump to provide the initial momentum). It's actually easier to do properly when you're very unfit...because once you're healthy and strong...you're going to be searching for challenging enough exercises to only allow you 5 reps max by the finish of the 5 sets.

    The only thing about it that's NOT free, is the pull up bar. If you can swing something to do pullups without one, even that's free.

    As for the results...well, I lost 40lbs in 3mos, performing very little exercise other than this (I did HIIT heavy bag work on off days sometimes). To clarify, that's 3 days a week, 1hr a day...and no other workout.

    Here's some pictures to illustrate:

    7434194_8492.jpg7434194_7770.jpg
    7434194_4814.jpg7434194_6530.jpg

    If you do end up using the above plan, and have any questions...feel free to ask here or PM me, I'll be glad to help!

    BUMP:happy:
  • susieqa6699
    susieqa6699 Posts: 42 Member
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  • kelleymj
    kelleymj Posts: 102 Member
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  • spokie1
    spokie1 Posts: 23 Member
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  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
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    Bump, bump, bumpitty-bump!
  • Smuterella
    Smuterella Posts: 1,623 Member
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    saving for later
  • gastankerdriver
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    Some effective home excercises would be push-ups, dips (using a chair or bench) and body squats. People think that just doing a normal body squat is easy, but try doing 100 of them and see how sore you will be the next day. I also recommend the threaded adjustable dumbells or kettlebells. They are a fairly inexpensive addition to a home gym. For less than $100, you can have 2 dumbells and maybe 40 lbs of weight. I know that the mantra is "lift heavy" but I have had some excellent results using lighter weights with an insane amount of repetitions (200 tricep pulldowns, 100 squats using 90 lbs, etc.) I believe that ANY excercise is better than NO excercise. You don't need to buy 400 lbs of weights to have an effective home gym. A bench and some dumbbells will suffice.
  • thiscanbedone
    thiscanbedone Posts: 84 Member
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    bump