While I currently have access to good ingredients, if we need to buckle down and establish stores to last longer term the I’ll end up shifting to more processed foods. Processed food is a killer for a weight loss program.
My home gym.
Workout today
Superset of
Front Squat (cleaned from floor) 3 x 5 x 82.5 kg
Decline parallel bar press ups plus 25 pounds of dumbbells in a backpack
Power clean practice sets 5 x 3
Short circuit of barbell curls, calf raises, and shoulder rehab
Planks. Front and side.
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Another workout yesterday following the prior day’s leg work. I’m doing an upper / lower daily split and will take today off.
Warmup: Pass throughs, Y-raises, rotator cuff dumbbells, thoracic spine extensions
Super set 1: Barbell rows, dumbbell incline bench
Super set 2: Kneeling unilateral landmine press, seated row with bands
Super set 3: Lateral raises, straight are pull down with bands
Some questions / comments for the group:
- Tomorrow I am going to switch back to lower body. I have no squat rack, and I’m thinking about “simulating” squats with sumo deadlifts. Thinking that wider stance, more upright torso will make it more “squat like” - thoughts?
- Without a pull up bar or pull down machine I’m struggling to come up with a free weight substitute. Thoughts? I have some light cables that I can hook to the door frame but it feels more like a good warmup exercise instead of a real resistance exercise.
I’ve been trying to work up to a pistol squat. Starting with one leg squats onto a chair. If you can do something to raise yourself up (and make the chair lower) you can get some pretty tough progression.
Regarding the chin substitute. How heavy are your dumbbells? Do you have a kettle bell? Between the rows, one arms swings and some curls you can have most of the bases covered.
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Also. I’ve just had this delivered.
It’s pretty big but folds away to lean against a wall. I gave it a couple of tests chinups and feels pretty sturdy. I reckon can even do front and back lever stuff if I wanted. Also gonna order some gymnastic rings to hang.
Thanks. I might try to work in some pistol squats. I personally find them a bit rough on the knees, I’m a believer in low bar / hip hinge driven squatting.
I have dumbbells up to 50 lbs and one 35 lb kettlebell. So I definitely can get some work in on bbell rows, one arm rows, curls. What I find hard to get is that overhead pulling motion one gets from pull ups or pull downs. Maybe I just need to live with that limitation for a while and get good at bbell rows.
For squats without a squat rack, I used to do front squats by (hang) cleaning the weight. I also did them outside, so I could drop the weights. If that doesn’t work, then goblet squats with the 50-lb. dumbbells, and maybe do explosive movements or high reps to compensate for the lack of heavy weights.
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Thanks, good suggestions all.
I am not proficient in front squats but maybe this is a good time to learn with light weight.
For explosive movements I do tend to work in kettlebell swings and also doing goblet jumps, i.e. I’ll get the 25 pound dumbbell into a goblet position and then do sets of 8-12 jumps. That get the heart rate up super fast.
I’ve been doing front squats from the floor weekly. It’s really helping with overall squating technique. But yeah. It’s a technical skill that takes time to learn.
Can you do a full pistol? Or are you doing some sort of variation? Your knee shouldn’t hurt with any kind of well executed squat, there’s probably something else going on that you could try to fix.
Regarding the lack of pull down motion. Yeah. Agreed. It’s a problem. However just remember that all of the actual muscles involved are used with rows and swings, maybe not at the same angle, so it’s less of an issue than you might think.
Thanks for these comments and suggestions, I really appreciate it.
I can pistol squat what I think is a full range of motion - standing position down to parallel and back up. I can do about 8 per side. What i find is that the motion is a little unstable - maybe I just need to practice so I can do them more smoothly? It seems the slight wobbliness might be tweaking the knees a bit.
One other observation - I am very comfortable full squatting with toes turned out slightly (maybe 30 degrees) an both knees going out over the toes. This creates a solid tension in the inner thigh so I feel connected all the way down to the bottom. In the pistols my toe is pointing straight forward so I don’t get that same stretch/reflex in the inner thighs. Maybe I just need to work on my balance and that’ll make the pistols better.
I have the same issue but on one side only. It’s a hip muscle issue. You need to think about the muscles that pull your knee out. The piriformis and the inner glutes.
My suggestion is to make sure these are fully activated in your warm up, then do one leg chair squats focusing on maintaining stability.
What happens with me is that my knee caves in a little, then I’m swinging my weight around above that to try and compensate. If you get the knee stable the rest will follow.
The other good thing to try is a banded goblet squat. Band around the knees pulls in, so you have to pull out, especially once the knee is bent.
The piriformis and the other hip muscles operate very differently when upright to when your knee and hip are bent. So you gotta be aware of and work that.
Sorry. Bit of a brain dump.
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Thursday. Rowing machine.
Long slow 30.
8050 metres at 1:51.8
Bit harder than I intended. Could be a lack of sleep.
Sorry. One more thing to add. On me it’s primarily a weakness. It could be a flexibility issue as well.
I don’t know if this is the right place but here goes.
I’ve got some underlying lung issues. Lots of bronchitis and pneumonia and all that. I’ve also smoked stuff for years. With corona looming I’m looking to do lung exercises to give me a fighting chance.
Current plan:
- Don’t smoke for the next 3 weeks. If I have some wacky tobacco once or twice I won’t beat myself up but I’ll consider it a failure.
- Walk my dog at least an hour a day, up from my usual ~30 min.
- Practice mindful breathing exercises at least 10 minutes a day (2x5, probably). Currently just doing basic belly breaths with inhales half as long as my exhales through pursed lips. I’ve heard some good things about Wim Hof method but I’m suspicious of the man but I should look into it.
Been going decently for about 5 days now. I know this isn’t something that fit people usually think about but I suspect lung exercises could help everyone right now.
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All the people whining about not being able to go to the gym has inspired me to start using the home gym in my basement again.
I also want to start some kind of burpee challenge in the morning. If I come out of this whole mess in better shape than the fat ass I have become, there will at least be some benefit to it.
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I have never really understood the point of burpees. Anyone want to educate me on that?
Brutal cardio. If you want to blast yourself in under minute, not much else can beat it.
Is there any kind of cardio you can do? Anything to break a sweat will be good for your lungs.
You are right however that stopping smoking is the best thing you can do.
This has a good timeline of how quickly you will see some benefit from quitting.
Edit to add the link. Lol
I think I’ll pass whole on burpees for my WFH exercise plan. My basement ceilings aren’t super low but if I do burpees I’ll hit the ceiling with arms overhead.
I can get a pretty intense cardio burn just jumping with my hands on my hips, maybe I’ll just do that.