home gym setup

Quoted message said:

Never enough time, and I don't even have a tv.

Me too.

Quoted message said:

Most my workouts are with dumbbells at home. I place the dumbbells on
chairs and lie on the floor with pillows behind my back for chest. I
place the dumbbells on facing chairs and do squats.

When I am able to get to the gym I get good, solid pain afterwards in
my pecks and glut from the press and squat rack. Would a collapsible
bench give me the same results? Do I need a full barbell for chest & a
squat rack to really push those?

My wallet thanks you in advance.

I'd say the gym might be a better choice for you. You can buy a cheap 300#
Olympic barbell set and a bench and a squat rack at garage sales, maybe ebay.
Check your local papers.

Forgot to mention: I live in a one room studio. That's why I thought
of the collasible bench. I'm just not sure if the bench provides a
superior workout to what I'm doing already.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Never enough time, and I don't even have a tv.

Most my workouts are with dumbbells at home. I place the dumbbells on
chairs and lie on the floor with pillows behind my back for chest. I
place the dumbbells on facing chairs and do squats.

When I am able to get to the gym I get good, solid pain afterwards in
my pecks and glut from the press and squat rack. Would a collapsible
bench give me the same results? Do I need a full barbell for chest & a
squat rack to really push those?

My wallet thanks you in advance.

Your wallet will do well in your local .forsale groups,
as well as local garage sales. Millions of people buy
equipment every year, then end up selling it off for about
10% or less than what it cost them.

My housemate picked up a $250.00 eliptical trainer for $5.00.....

I think you know the answer to your question. ;-)

Cheers!
--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-[censored]." -Jack Nicholson

Quoted message said:

Never enough time, and I don't even have a tv.

My experience is that I never *find* the time, I *make* the time.

Related to that, I have a good-enough home setup but rarely use it: I
have to actually leave the house and all its distractions to get in a
decent workout. The gym is important to me for that, as well as for the
range of options that keep me interested and working on new training
goals. For example, at the moment I've got a hip injury and I'm
swimming a lot. Good thing I don't depend just on running for free!

Quoted message said:

Most my workouts are with dumbbells at home. I place the dumbbells on
chairs and lie on the floor with pillows behind my back for chest. I
place the dumbbells on facing chairs and do squats.

I like dumbbell squats with a swiss ball behind me. See the demo on the
left side at:
http://www.spine-health.com/topics/conserv/rehab/ball/ball02.html

Quoted message said:

When I am able to get to the gym I get good, solid pain afterwards in
my pecks and glut from the press and squat rack. Would a collapsible
bench give me the same results?

Well, no, unless it means you go heavier at the gym with appropriate
spotting equipment. But you can do a pretty good job with dumbbells and
controlled movements. You can even use a swiss ball as a bench for
dumbbell presses. It'll use more stabilizers and you'll end up lifting
less in absolute numbers, but probably have better functional strength.
In my completely unreliable opinion, that is.

Quoted message said:

Do I need a full barbell for chest & a
squat rack to really push those?

You need to be safe and in control of the weight. Using the space
between your ears will probably be more helpful than relying on the
space between a squat rack's pegs.

Dally

In article <[email hidden]>, Dally <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Never enough time, and I don't even have a tv.

My experience is that I never *find* the time, I *make* the time.

Ditto here.
I've actually done better since I started permanently working night
shift. I hit the gym at 07:30 on my way home from work. ;-) Fewer people
and it's cooler.

Quoted message said:

Related to that, I have a good-enough home setup but rarely use it: I
have to actually leave the house and all its distractions to get in a
decent workout. The gym is important to me for that, as well as for the
range of options that keep me interested and working on new training
goals. For example, at the moment I've got a hip injury and I'm
swimming a lot. Good thing I don't depend just on running for free!

I've considered swimming, maybe hitting the river and swimming
up-current for 1/2 mile maybe? Then I could swim back downstream to get
back to the truck.

Swim fins are great for lower leg strength. ;-) 'specially my big
silicon ones.

A agree tho' that the gym is better than a home setup as there are no
distractions. There is also a larger variety of equipment. I only pay
$44.00 for 3 months so it's pretty cheap at the price.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Most my workouts are with dumbbells at home. I place the dumbbells on
chairs and lie on the floor with pillows behind my back for chest. I
place the dumbbells on facing chairs and do squats.

I like dumbbell squats with a swiss ball behind me. See the demo on the
left side at:
http://www.spine-health.com/topics/conserv/rehab/ball/ball02.html

Quoted message said:

When I am able to get to the gym I get good, solid pain afterwards in
my pecks and glut from the press and squat rack. Would a collapsible
bench give me the same results?

Well, no, unless it means you go heavier at the gym with appropriate
spotting equipment. But you can do a pretty good job with dumbbells and
controlled movements. You can even use a swiss ball as a bench for
dumbbell presses. It'll use more stabilizers and you'll end up lifting
less in absolute numbers, but probably have better functional strength.
In my completely unreliable opinion, that is.

Quoted message said:

Do I need a full barbell for chest & a
squat rack to really push those?

You need to be safe and in control of the weight. Using the space
between your ears will probably be more helpful than relying on the
space between a squat rack's pegs.

<grins>
That was kinda a cheap shot dear!

Quoted message said:

Dally

--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-[censored]." -Jack Nicholson

Quoted message said:

Never enough time, and I don't even have a tv.

I know exactly what you mean. That's precisely why I work out at
home. With the right workout template I can be nearly done with my
workout before most people have even arrived at their gym.

Quoted message said:

Most my workouts are with dumbbells at home. I place the dumbbells
on chairs and lie on the floor with pillows behind my back for
chest. I place the dumbbells on facing chairs and do squats.

I am having trouble picturing this, but dumbbell bench presses can be
very effective. However, you are probably going to need a bench. I
can't imagine being able to move enough weight to be effective while
laying on something as unstable as a pillow. Some sort of folding
bench would be fine, but make sure that it is designed to hold enough
weight.

Squats are a little harder to do effectively IMHO with dumbbells, but
if you have a bar then you can clean the weight and front squat it.
This won't let you move as much weight as you could with a power rack
and a back squat, but it will be an improvement over what you can do
with dumbbells.

Quoted message said:

When I am able to get to the gym I get good, solid pain afterwards
in my pecks and glut from the press and squat rack. Would a
collapsible bench give me the same results? Do I need a full
barbell for chest & a squat rack to really push those?

You can get a good solid workout with a minimal amount of equipment,
and saving yourself the time and expense of going to a gym can be a
big deal.

My equipment used to consist of the following:

1 cheap standard bar
2 standard dumbbell handles
1 bench
1 chin up bar
about 300 lbs of assorted standard weights

I got all of the equipment that I needed either at Play it Again
Sports or Wal-Mart, and with this equipment I could do:

* dumbbell bench presses
* bent over rows
* deadlifts
* front squats
* farmers walks
* various types of chinups (throw in a bit of rope and you can do
weighted chins)
* any type of olympic lift you can name
* a whole lot more.

Sure, there are exercises that I couldn't do with this setup (back
squats being far and away the most importan exercise I couldn't do),
but I could get in a lot of money exercises h enough weight to make
them worthwhile.

It's also worth noting that if you don't already have some standard
weights that you might be better off purchasing an Olympic bars,
handles and weights. An Olympic bar is longer and harder to store (my
first standard bar could be taken apart into three pieces), but if you
ever do decide to get a power rack then you'll need an Olympic bar and
weight to go with it. If you've already got standard weights, then I
wouldn't worry about it. You can put plenty of weight on a standard
bar. And when you do get freakishly strong think how cool a bent bar
would look over your mantle.

Quoted message said:

My wallet thanks you in advance.

There are plenty of social reasons for joining a gym. However, if you
aren't looking to meet people you are probably better off working out
at home. You certainly don't need to join a gym for the equipment.

Jason