Best non-gym/weights work out

McNulty

As from an earlier post you may have seen that I'm trying to lose some weight, tone up etc. I've read with interest some of the debate (and had some good diet advice) and discussion around weights vs cardio. My situation is that I don't have weights at home, I can't afford gym membership and I have limited time (would be exercising early before work).

Will I progress at all using press ups, sit ups, tricep dips on an interval type basis? I'm trying to follow the attached plan to give me some structure - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jan/07/healthandwellbeing.fitness1 ) or is it pointless?

Cheers

Jim

PS - I've noticed that there are a lot of newbies like myself on here asking for advice/guidance. I hope this isn't annoying people who know what they are doing - I do find this a valuable resource of info, but often think I'm asking what must be obvious questions to those of you who have more experience

rubadub

With bodyweight exercises you are limited by your own weight. Best way to tone up and lose fat is to aim for hypertrophy- muscle growth, and most recommend the 8-12rep range for this. Now most might not manage 12 pushups first time, most beginners will certainly not manage 12 dips or 12pullups. But once you are above that you can increase resistance in 2 ways, add weight, or make use leverage and physics to make the movement harder. e.g. raise your feet up on the stairs or a bed and your pushups will be much harder, you can eventually graduate to handstand pushups. I have done 78 pushups max, but cannot do a single handstand one.

Or you can get some weight plates and do chinups, pullups & dips. This is cost efficient, e.g. doing dips with 40kg is a lot harder than benching 40kg. I can manage around 7-8 chinups with 20kg. The other thing is as you get bigger your weight increases so you work harder. I have put on almost a stone in the last year, and back then could manage about the same 8 chinups with 20kg, but I am stronger now i.e. the combined chinup weight is more.

I would highly recommend getting gymnastic rings and/or a chinup bar. With rings you can do all sorts of exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwJkoq0v_ko

There is also a lot you can do on a bar to increase resistance, there are a few groups of guys on youtube who claim to only do bodyweight exercise but are pretty big guys, bartendaz, calisthenics kingz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfsTKfUT-RQ

YOu could make your own stuff too http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/shenandoah/Grunt/grunt.html

injured365

If your interested i could email you a fairly hardcore bodyweight training guide. Its written by a fella Brooks Kubik who along with three or four others invented a style of training called dinosaur training which is all very low tech equipment. The only equipment used in the guide are a gym/swiss ball, gymnastic rings, hanging ropes and pullup bar but there are a good few exercises which are very difficult and not for the beginnerwhich don't use any equipment.

http://www.brookskubik.com/

Edwardius

rubadub wrote: »

There is also a lot you can do on a bar to increase resistance, there are a few groups of guys on youtube who claim to only do bodyweight exercise but are pretty big guys, bartendaz, calisthenics kingz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfsTKfUT-RQ

:eek::eek:

fecker!

rubadub

McNulty wrote: »

Will I progress at all using press ups, sit ups, tricep dips on an interval type basis? I'm trying to follow the attached plan to give me some structure - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/jan/07/healthandwellbeing.fitness1 ) or is it pointless?

Forgot about this bit, while not pointless, but I would not advise it to you. It is meant for soldiers where endurance is key, they are saying to do runs and them max pushups, you will be exhausted after that and not get the best out of your resistance training.