Effective Wieght Lifting without a Gym

[bmdiaz]

hey
i dont have a membership to a gym. all i have is a bench press and some dumbbells. i realize there are some exercises that were suggested on the main page that i can do (ex: bench press, squats, etc). but there are somethings that i cant do with just a bench press and dumbells (ex: pulldowns, pulley row, etc). is there any alternatives to these type of workouts that work the same parts that i could do without owning an expensive machine or having a gym membership?

[Matt Toupalik]

I can't stand commercial gyms or machines, and feel I do fine without them.Here are a few suggestions for someone in your position:
For the legs, try doing single-leg squats without any support aka pistols.If flexibility is an issue, do these standing at the top of a flight of stairs or on a sturdy box or platform of some sort.Once they become easy, hold a dumbell out in front of you or hold a dumbell in both hands.For the back of the thighs, do glute/ham raises.Anchor your feet under a barbell, sofa, heavy sandbag, etc, throw a pad or towel down to kneel on, and proceed to do your glute/ham raises.These two exercises will work everything from your hips down.

For the upper body, you have benches and overhead presses.I'd drop a few bucks and buy or make a sturdy pull-up bar.With it, your mid-back training is covered with the various types of pull-ups; palms away, palms facing, side-to-side pull-ups, commando pull-ups, sternum pull-ups, throw a towel over the bar and do towel pull-ups, etc.

If you are knowledgeable in the olympic lifts, you can get a great workout doing just those; snatches, cleans, overhead squats, front squats, high-pulls.

For heavier work, load up your bar and do deadlifts, hack squats, or zercher lifts.

Using your dumbells, you can do single-arm snatches, swings, push presses, turkish get-ups, bent presses, etc.

Lastly, instead of jumping on a machine and doing cardio, you can do interval burpees instead.If you are unaware of what a burpee is, it is basically a squat thrust/push-up immediately followed by a jump squat performed at a rapid pace.Do these for 30 seconds on/30 seconds off and see how many minutes you can go before puking.These sound simple but are far more effective than any machine out there.You could also go old school and do some simple sprints or rope skipping for your cardio training.

[jc228]

I had never heard of a "burpee", so I looked it up online (where else? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). Anyway, my guess is that burpee intervals would really suck while you were doing them, but would be very, very effective for HIIT. Nice suggestion, Matt! I will have to try them out, and see if I can keep from puking.

~jc228