Build Muscle Mass, Gain Strength, and Lose Fat with Project Physique » Exercise Equipment

Set Up a Home Gym with an Olympic Weight Bench

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:29:50 +0000

Weight benches are an absolute necessity for home gyms and any fitness gym, commercial, non-profit, or private gym studios. Without weight benches, you’re limiting the number of weight lifting exercises that can be done. Anyone looking to build muscle and get stronger will need a bench to perform the basic fundamental compound exercises.

There’s no other way around this. A cheap alternative would be to just use the floor but that limits the range of motion for bench presses. Not something you want to do if the goal is long term maximum muscle gain and continuous strength gains. A strong and sturdy bench is also much safer than using the floor at times.

Regardless, use weight benches for strength training and bodybuilding. You can’t go wrong with that. Now there are several main types of weight benches. There are those that come with a full home gym fitness center and additional attachments for lateral raises, cables, lateral pulldowns, squat or power cage, and adjustable racks. These all-around home gyms are expensive and cost around $1000 to upwards of $5000.

Only buy them if you’ve tested the center. Check out some popular models online and look at all the features first, then head to the local dealer that offers these fitness centers with weight benches and try them out. Do a brief 5 minute workout to get a feel for them.

The other cheaper alternative is to just go with a regular bench with adjustable racks. A good brand is Body Solid and Weider equipment. They may or may not come with adjustable racks, which depends on your choice. I suggest you pick one with adjustable racks for bench presses so you don’t need to buy a power cage, or a separate power rack for squats. They even come in folding and non-folding versions.

If you’re low on space at home, consider a folding weight bench. After a workout, just fold it up and slide it in the corner or underneath the bed, if you have a large queen sized bed that happen to be high. Folding weight benches may also break easily so check the warranty and sturdiness of the equipment before buying.

Additional exercise equipment you can buy includes chinup/pullup/dip station (which can also be purchased separately), standing calf raise machines, cable machines, and accessories like resistance bands, additional weight plates and barbell sets, and various grip machines (pinch grip, captains of crush grippers, finger dumbbells).

Building a Home Gym is Easy and Cheap

admin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:13:16 +0000

With just a simple basic home gym setup, you can do strength training workouts at home. Building a home gym does not cost thousands of dollars as you might’ve previously thought. You don’t have to buy all those fancy weight resistance and cable machines you see at the sports gyms. All it takes is a couple of basic equipment.

If you have lots of money to spend, you may choose to build a more fully equipped gym with free weights(barbells, dumbbells) and fancy machines(treadmill, cable stations, elliptical/stationary bike). If you’re like me and can’t afford to copy one of those multi-million dollar fitness centers…(Bally’s, LA Fitness Center, Gold’s Gym), take the minimalistic approach to building your own personal gym for muscle gain.

It’s simple, quick, and efficient. You don’t need a lot of space and it’s definitely not necessary to buy every single equipment that we recommend in this article in order to bodybuild and build muscle and strength.

Benefits of a Home Gym

Here, I’m going to tell you what the absolute essentials are for building a home gym before you go on to add additional equipment for future use. Contrary to what most people think, you can get an ass-kicking, stomach-turning workout with just two or three primary pieces of equipment. Strength training at home will make workouts more productive over time.

Think of the benefits of your very own personal gym for building muscle,

* no commute time to a crowded gym
* avoid bad weather
* avoid annoyance from those who hog machines and free weights
* work out anytime you’re at home
* factor of convenience
* cheaper cost than a gym membership over the long term

But first, decide that you are willing to commit a lifestyle of fitness. Make sure you’re fully aware of what you’ll get our of your investment. After all, the home gym is an investment…a long term one for strength training at home. If you plan on working out and keeping an exercise regimen, then do so. Don’t procrastinate. Get going if the ultimate goal is to gain muscle. Exercise is a lifestyle. It’s a productive lifetime habit for overall health. Recognize that you can get an exceptional workout with the bare and basic inexpensive equipment for your gym. Take note. A must-have essential equipment is the olympic bench and rack setup combo.

Olympic Weight Bench

An olympic-style bench provides the strong support and sturdiness to accompany heavy individuals and free weights. Stay away from flimsy bench setups you find at Walmart, Modells, or Dick’s Sporting Goods. Make sure you look for “Olympic” grade benches. You want fitness equipment that will last. Some also come with a leg curl/leg extention attachment. They’re not necessary but optional. There are expensive models with these attachments and cheaper models without. Some are flimsy attachments that are not worth the money.

Now you may buy the entire bench setup, but if you’re on a budget like we were, get a bench along with a full power/squat rack separately. A power rack, also often called a power cage, enables you to do the many variations of squats, deadlifts, and presses all inside safely due to the attached safety pins.

A tough and reliable power rack runs around $200 on the low end to $500 on the upper end with additional pins and attachments. Nevetheless, this setup allows you do perform all worthwhile upper and lower body compound movements: rack deadlifts, front squats, conventional back squats, bench press and it’s variations, dumbbell press and it’s variations, military press, to name a few.

The list goes on. You will be able to do dozens of exercises, both compound and isolation, with a bench and a rack when strenth training at home. I’m going to say that about 90% of all worthy strength training exercises can be done inside a power rack with an olympic-grade bench station. These compound exercise includes squats, deadlifts, bench press, chinups and pullups, dips, barbell and dumbbell rows.

You can also peform many variations of compound movements for each of these main lifts. With a bench setup, you not only can do regular flat barbell bench presses but also decline bench press, incline bench press, dumbbell bench press, decline db bench press, incline db bench press. For deadlifts and squats, you can do rack deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, front squats, hack squats, and db squats. The options are numerous. There are few limitations when you build a home gym with a power rack and bench.

If you’re going with putting a separate power cage in your basement, make sure you measure the height from floor to ceiling. Most full-length racks are at least 82 inches in height and you’ll have to make sure it’ll fit from top to bottom.

Though with only a bench, you’ll still need a way to perform chinups and pullups. If you bought a rack, you’ll be able to do them. If not, you’ll need either a doorway bar or a standalone chinup/pullup/dip station.

You can buy a doorway bar for $20 – $30. A full station is pricier and ranges from $200 for the lower end models to over $350 for the higher end models. A full station provides greater versatility because you can loop a rope around to do rope pullups and assisted rope pullups. You can even attach rings for ring work. With rings alone, you can pull off several dozen different exercises and train like a gymnast. Again, be sure to measure the height of your basement from floor to ceiling to make sure the station will fit.

Olympic Barbell Set

Now, the absolute equipment you need aside from a bench are free weights, specifically a 300 lb. Olympic barbell set. A set consists of a 45 lb. seven foot (86?) bar, two collars/sleeves, and free weight plates totalling 255 lbs. (two 45lb. plates, two 35lb. plates, two 25lb. plates, two 10lb. plates, four 5lb. plates, two 2.5lb. plates).The price ranges for a set are all over the place.

The cheapest prices I’ve seen today is $100 – $150 dollars at neighborhood garage sales and independent sellers from Craigslist. The price from most retailers averages $300 – $350. With a set, your exercise options are endless. As you get stronger, you can purchase additional olympic weight plates later on for additional resistance.

The other alternative and/or supplement to this basic olympic barbell set is a standard 160lb. barbell set for $100 or so. The bar length is a foot shorter than the olympic version. They’re also less thick and hold less total weight, usually a maximum of 240lbs. For strength training purposes, I recommend an olympic barbell set since you’ll undoubtedly get stronger in the core basic lifts. You’ll outgrow a standard bar.

That’s it. These are the core and basic equipment you need for an intense full body strength training workout. All the main exercise movements worth doing and the most effective lifts with its many variations are covered with an olympic bench, power rack, and barbell set.

The three combo should cost you no more than $700 – $750, especially if you shop around for deals. If you’re choosing to go with just a bench and barbell set, it should cost you around $450. Throw in an additional $100- $150 for a chin/dip/pullup station.

Additional Accessories and Equipment

Now you may add extra accessories like a weighted dip/chinup belt for added resistance for dips, chinups, and pullups for strength training at home. A trap bar offers variability in performing deadlifts and shrugs.

Other exercise equipment accessories for a strength training/bodybuilding home gym includes:

* ab wheel
* weight vest
* resistance bands, comes in all grades and levels
* Elite rings
* TRX suspension system
* 1 1/2″ or 2″ manilla rope (for rope pullups and assisted pullups)
* wrist wraps
* Powerblock dumbbells
* total dumbbell set, from 5 pounds to upwards of 100 pounds dumbbells
* EZ bar curl
* portable chinup/pullup bar
* cardio equipment for high intensity interval training and general conditioning: Airdyne Scwhinn stationary bike, elliptical machines, recumbent bikes, jump rope, etc.

A home gym will pay off in years end. Remember, realize that a home gym is an investment, especially for strength training routines. Exercise equipment are tools to fitness, especially true to gain muscle in a home gym. Don’t delay and set up your own gym now to build muscle and strength. Strength training at home is efficient and fun. Consider building a home gym today.

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a message below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

Build a Home Gym for Your Muscle-Building and Fat Loss Workouts: Part 2

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:24:45 +0000

In part 1 of this home gym series, we talked about the basic and primary exercise equipment for a home gym setup. Here in part 2, I’ll outline the extra accessories and workout tools to further complete your home gym.

photo credit: combust

You’ll see additional pictures of more equipment from my basement gym. These accessories aren’t must-haves but they do enhance the strength training and fat loss experience by providing you with more options for exercise choice, selection, and variation.

You don’t have to buy all of these equipment. You can get a tough, intense, and highly productive workout with just the basic equipment outlined from the first article: olympic bench, power squat rack, and a 300 lb. barbell free weight set.

No two home gyms are alike because people choose to go with certain equipment. Buy the basics first and get your home gym set up first, then worry about the extraneous and supplementary equipment. Don’t worry about getting the latest equipment of workout gadgets. Go with what is productive and necessary to begin your strength and conditioning workouts.

So here are the supplementary accessories and exercise tools you can add to your home gym arsenal.

Weight Vest

V-Max weight vest holds up to 40 lbs

A weight vest can be strapped onto your body to provide additional resistance for bodyweight and compound movements like pushups, body weight squats, chinups/pullups, dips, burpees, and even hill sprints. The additional loading provides an enhanced degree of difficulty and method of progression. Body weight movements will become easier over time and a weight vest is the perfect tool to supply an extra load to make your workouts more difficult and harder .

One of the main priorities of working out is to make sure you have overload and progression. Progression is one of the training principles of exercise. If your workouts aren’t becoming more difficult over time, your body will have no reason to adapt.

With strength training, you simply have to train with heavier and heavier weights over time. Pictured on the left is my V-Max weight vest capable of an additional load of 40 lbs. from weightvest.com. There’s a total of 8 pockets. You can add two 2.5 lb. plates in each pocket, and totals 40 lbs. of weights evenly distributed on all sides and angles.

weight vest

The weight vest is also perfect for those training to be in the military as its an exceptional tool for bodyweight training and conditioning.

Rucking, long distance marching, running hills, short sprints, and calisthenics are given an added degree of intensity and difficulty with a load weight vest.

Weight vests cost from $40 to $200 depending on make, model, and capacity for loading additional weights. I recommend weightvest.com since they offer a lifetime warranty and guarantee.

Check out the first 50 seconds of this YouTube video showing how Ross Enamait from RossTraining.com uses a weight vest for ab wheel rollouts, pullups, dips, and various bodyweight conditioning drills.

Ab Wheel

ab wheel

You can also see he uses an ab wheel for rollouts. An ab wheel is an effective tool for working and strengthening your abdominals, lower back, and overall core musculature. Ab wheel rollouts are difficult at first but they build strong, lean and dense ab muscles once you work at it.

Ab wheels are also versatile. You can do two arm variations, one arm variations, standing or knee variations or double wheel variations. You can pick one up for about $10 on amazon and sporting goods store. Visit RossTraining.com for more info.

Visit RossTraining.com for more info.

Weight Belt

weight belt for chinups, pullups, and dips

A weight belt for chinups, pullups, and dips can also be used to add extra resistance. If you’re focusing on dips and chinups, eventually your body weight will not be enough resistance to provide a challenge.

You can easily work from going to doing a few reps using body weight on pullups and dips to easily cranking out 15-20 reps over time.

You want to have a harder and tougher workout with progressive overload. A weight vest provides the solution to strap on weight plates for a tougher workout. Just load up some weight plates, strap the belt onto your hip and crank out the reps.

Pictured above is an Ironmind De Rigueur cloth weight belt capable of 1,000 lbs. loading. It’s versatile and portable as I can just slip it into a gym bag whenever I travel to other gyms. I can also attach a loading pin for easy weight attachment.

A cheaper weight belt option is one of bodybuilding.com’s leather weight belt with chains, though the loading is limited as the chains may break with anything more than 150 lbs. Most people are not even close to chinning and dipping with an extra 150lbs. attached to their hip so the bodybuilding.com belts would be a perfect, alternative choice. Weight belts cost around $20 on the low end to about $50 for the high end Ironmind model.

Rings

If at any time you get inspired with bodyweight conditioning and training, check out the Elite rings from ringtraining.com. Ring training is a whole new dimension of training since you’re training using a large variety of bodyweight movements suspended in air (without lying down on a support like the bench) with the support of the ring equipment.

Gymnasts train primarily on rings and bar. You can to. You can get insanely strong with ring training. The basic body weight exercises can be done on rings, pullups/chinups, pushups, L-sits, leg raises, muscle-ups, you name it. You can apply dozens of variations of every bodyweight movement on rings.

rings

Loop the ring setup onto the bar of a power rack or parallel bar/chinup/dip station like pictured on the left shown in my basement gym. The straps are adjustable to different heights for varying difficulty and elevation. And like the weight belt, it’s also portable and you can carry it anywhere.

An alternative to rings is the TRX suspension trainer that’s been quite popular these days. It’s more of a “high tech” equipment and basically works the same way as rings.

Chinup and Pullup Doorway Bar

In part 1 of this seris, I mentioned the parallel dip/chinup/pullup combo station. If a full station is too expensive, you can buy a portable chinup/pullup doorway bar for $15-20. Buy one that’s attachable to the top of a doorway without the hassle of screwing it on permanently.

Just hook it under your doorway and you’re good to go. Pick one up at amazon. It’ll only set you back $20-25 for a good bar. No need to buy the more expensive bars. They’re all the same.

pullup and chinup bar

Manilla Rope

Now this may be unconventional but a piece of 5 to 7 feet 2 inch manilla rope is also a nice addition to your home gym arsenal. Loop it around the chinup station or bar for rope chinups and pullups. You can use it for assisted one arm chinups. The above video with Ross features him doing weighted pullups on a rope. Strength training is not limited to free weights. Train with variety and in multiple dimensions. I first got the idea of training with ropes with my body weight routines from Ross Enamait of Rosstraining.com

4-ft long rope

Personally, I also like to do some kind of low-impact stress cardiovascular training using high intensity intervals and moderate intensities. Treadmills are fine and so are regular stationary bikes for cardio and maintaining heart and lungs health. I like to mix in some form of resistance so I have an airdyne schwinn stationary bike.

Exercise Bike

Airdyne Schwinn Resistance Bike

With an airdyne bike, the harder and faster you pedal, the more resistance is applied and generated through the wind. Wind resistance is generated as you pedal harder and harder. A computer module keeps track of time, calories burned, and distance traveled in miles and km.

The price might be steep for you at $600 but you can still get a decent cardio workout with just plain old running. The investment is worth every penny since it is much cheaper than a reliable treadmill which can set you up $1,500 to 2,000.

And there you have all the extra accessories and exercise equipment that I recommend. There are no fancy thousand dollar machines or clever complicated gimmicks. What I recommend is what I personally own and use to train.

Make a final decision right now to build a home gym, if you have the room in your garage, basement, or room. You can get a great strength training workout for building muscle and losing fat with just a few basics. Olympic bench station, barbell set, a rack, and maybe some collars and weight plates as extra accessories. It doesn’t take a lot of money.

If you want a home gym now, build one today. Don’t delay. What’s the point of delaying?

Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

Build a Home Gym for Your Muscle-Building and Fat Loss Workouts: Part 1

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:11:20 +0000

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on building your own home gym. You may be thinking of building a home gym right now but unsure of the best approach. Should you go with machines? full bench setups? What equipment should you buy? How much do they cost? These might be questions on your mind if you’re considering building a home gym.

photo credit: Abdullah Al-Naser

I’ll attempt to answer these questions as I detail my experiences with building my first gym here.

I’ve built up a fairly equipped gym in my basement over a period of 5 years on a stringent budget to gain muscle. If you have lots of money to spend, you may choose to build a more fully equipped gym with free weights(barbells, dumbbells) and fancy machines( treadmill, cable stations, elliptical/stationary bike).

If you’re like me and can’t afford to copy one of those multi-million dollar fitness centers…(Bally’s, LA Fitness Center, Gold’s Gym), take the minimalistic approach to building your own personal gym for muscle gain.

It’s simple, quick, and efficient. You don’t need a lot of space and it’s definitely not necessary to buy every single equipment that I recommend in this article in order to bodybuild and build muscle

Again, in this series, I’m going to tell you what the absolute essentials are before you go on to add additional equipment for future use. Contrary to what most people think, you can get an ass-kicking, stomach-turning workout with just two or three primary pieces of equipment. Think of the benefits of your very own personal gym for building muscle:

no commute time to a crowded gym
avoid bad weather
avoid annoyance from those who hog machines and free weights
work out anytime you’re at home
factor of convenience
cheaper cost than a gym membership over the long term

Exercise is a lifestyle. It’s a productive lifetime habit for overall health.

Recognize that you can get an exceptional workout with the bare and basic inexpensive equipment for your gym. Take note. A must-have essential equipment is the olympic bench and rack setup combo pictured here,

Olympic Bench Station

Now you may buy the entire bench setup, similar to one pictured above, if you’re on a budget like I was, or get a bench along with a full power/squat rack separately. A power rack, also often called a power cage, enables you to do the many variations of squats, deadlifts, and presses all inside safely due to the attached safety pins.

The list goes on. You will be able to do dozens of exercises, both compound and isolation, with a bench and a rack. I’m going to say that about 90% of all worthy strength training exercises can be done inside a power rack with an olympic-grade bench station.

I paid around $185 for the bench at the time it was on sale. It came with adjustable handles serving as a stand-in rack for bench presses, barbell military presses, and squats. If you’re on a tight budget, stick with an olympic bench for now and leave the rack for a later purchase. A bench should suffice.

If you’re going with putting a separate power cage in your basement, make sure you measure the height from floor to ceiling. Most full-length racks are at least 82.5″ in height and you’ll have to make sure it’ll fit from top to bottom.

chinup/pullup/dip station with rings

Now, the absolute equipment you need aside from a bench are free weights, specifically a 300 lb. Olympic barbell set. A set consists of a 45 lb. seven foot (86″) bar, two collars/sleeves, and free weight plates totalling 255 lbs. (two 45lb. plates, two 35lb. plates, two 25lb. plates, two 10lb. plates, four 5lb. plates, two 2.5lb. plates).The price ranges for a set are all over the place.

olympic barbell set

weight plates for barbell

Now you may add extra accessories like a weighted dip/chinup belt for added resistance for dips, chinups, and pullups. A trap bar offers variability in performing deadlifts and shrugs. Other exercise equipment accessories for a strength training/bodybuilding home gym includes:

ab wheel

weight vest

resistance bands

Elite rings

TRX suspension system

manilla rope (for rope pullups and assisted pullups)

wrist wraps

Powerblock

total dumbbell set

EZ bar curl

portable chinup/pullup bar, doorway bar

cardio equipment for high intensity interval training and general conditioning: Airdyne Scwhinn stationary bike, elliptical machines, recumbent bikes, jump rope, etc.

You can also consider building your own exercise equipment if you’re getting real passionate about this. Some specific “build your own exercise equipment” tutorials can be found at Ross Enaimett’s “Home Equipment” forum thread.

A home gym will pay off in years end. Remember, realize that a home gym is an investment, especially for strength training routines. Exercise equipment are tools to fitness, especially true to gain muscle. Don’t delay and set up your own gym now to build muscle.

Let’s move on to part 2 of this series where I’ll talk about the extra equipment you can buy to further enhance your training experience.

Build a Home Gym for Your Muscle-Building and Fat Loss Workouts- Part 2

If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

Weight Vest for Bodyweight Training

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:42:08 +0000

Strength Training is resistance training. Bodybuilding workouts uses resistance to stimulate and thrash your muscles into new growth. But resistance training is still resistance training. Whether you’re trying to maintain or gain new muscles, or lose fat, you’re using resistance as a stimulus for body composition purposes and goals.

Resistance is really just extra loading, extra weight. If you’re doing pushups, load a backpack filled with books for extra resistance, making pushups harder. Do the same for pullups, chinups, and body weight squats. Once you supply the movement with extra weight, the exercise instantly becomes harder. You work harder and that’s the purpose of “working out.”

The purpose of workout is to have progression. You can use a backpack for bodyweight exercises or use something more convenient like a weight vest. Weight vest distributes weight evenly throughout the torso in increments of 2 1/2 to 5 lbs. (depending on brand and model).

Bodyweight routine without weight vest

pushups 4x 20 (sets x reps)

chinups 4x 10

lunges 4x 15

bodyweight squats 4x 20

now wear a weight vest with an extra 20 lbs. of added weight and do the workout again. Is it harder?

I’ve talked about progression before. The weight vest by itself is a form of weight and load progression.

Further, if you’re training for the military or any combat sports requiring high levels of conditioning, anaerobic strength endurance, you need to be quick and adept at hurling your body around for distance and time intervals.

Use a weight vest to

- run hills

100m to 400m sprints (flat ground, track, or hills)

mix pushups, burpees, chinups, and short sprints at the park

This offers dynamic workouts for soldiers, boxers, firefighters, police officers

It’s also perfect for conditioning training by combining traditional strength training and cardio exercise: dips, chinups, pushups with distance and explosive activities like jumping rope, running, and sprinting

You can also train on rings with a weight vest. Train the core/abs by using good mornings, ab wheel rollouts and side bends with a vest.

The options are many.

Kickstart Your Interval Workouts with a GymBoss Timer

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:04:11 +0000

When using the a timed or density method for interval distance and body weight workouts, keeping track of the time and rest periods is necessary to maintain the workout’s work rate and work to rest ratio. You’ll need to monitor the clock or stop watch for each interval. Now constantly monitoring a watch or clock takes time away from the workout and may prove to be a distraction.

The gymboss timer provides a solution. The timer is an exceptional and versatile little device for interval and tabata-like conditioning workouts. It tracks intervals of time so you don’t have to look at the clock every circuit to see when the time is up.

It comes with a single and dual countdown timer option with a 1 second, 5 second, and 10 second beeping alarm that alerts you to the next interval. The time is perfect for one exercise interval sessions where you set a time period and just do that exercise for as many resp as you can in the allotted time. With dual option, you can do 2 or more exercises back to back in the set time. Use the gymboss timer with bodyweight tabata conditioning workouts, circuit training with weights, body weight density intervals, sprint intervals, 100 burpees challenge, and even EDT strength training workouts.

For example, set the time to dual option to 30 seconds each. Pick 4 exercises. Do the 4 body weight exercises one after another in 30 seconds intervals without rest. Move quick from one to another. Aim to do as many reps as you can for each 30 seconds interval.

The body weight workout might look something like this,

A1- pushups 30s

A2- chinups 30s

A3- crunches 30s

A4- jumping jacks 30s

A1/A2/A3/A4 designates the exercise in a circuit

The goal is to crank out as many reps in each 30s interval

Rest 60 seconds which is two 30s intervals, repeat 3 more times for a total of 4 total circuits

Set the timer on dual option status with each 30s interval, you have the option of setting imer on auto or manual, set to auto status so it automatically jumps to the next 30s interval (time of interval you set).

You can also do a tabata-based conditioning workout at the football park combining distance (running or sprinting) and body weight strength movements. An example workout is outlined below,

Set timer to 20 seconds and 10 seconds intervals using the dual option and autmatic mode with 1 second beep alarm,

A1- sprint 20s

rest 10s

repeat A1 4 times

B2- burpees 20s

rest 10s

repeat B1 4 times

C1- situps 20s

rest 10s

repeat C1 4 times

D1- lunges 20s

rest 10s

repeat D1 4 times

You can set the timer to up to 99 minutes with the latest GymBoss model. Use the timer for interval body weight workouts, sprinting, running, boxing drills, GPP drills, work capacity training, and HIIT workouts. It’s a perfect tool for HIIT fat loss and conditioning workouts, improve athletic performances, speed, and strength.

Features of the GymBoss Timer,

option of setting up to 99 rounds of intervals
shock and water resistant
measures only 1 3/4″ x 2 1/4″with attachable clip to clothing
alarm duration of 1, 5, and 10 seconds
comes with 1 AAA battery

Purchase at GymBoss.com for a 30-day 100% satisfaction guarantee

Be sure to check out some of the sample workouts with the timer at gymboss.com

Build Muscle with a Weight Belt

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:01:16 +0000

A weight belt provides the versatility of additional loading and resistance to compound body weight exercises like chinups, dips, and pullups. Progressive overload, especially weight loading, is the name of the game in strength training and weight lifting progress. A weight belt offers the solution for weight progression when your body has adapted to just the body weight.

Doing 10 reps of chinups is easy if you’ve been practicing the movement for years but load an extra 50 or 60 lbs onto a weight belt. 10 reps won’t be so easy then. The first time you attempt reps of chinups will be difficult as the body hasn’t yet adapted to the training stimulus. Over time you’ll be able to handle multiple reps, then dozens, or even 20 rep sets. When body weight proves too easy, it’s time to load up the weight belt to ensure weight progression.

Try dips with 100 lbs and weight belt for 12 reps. It’s even more difficult than a 300 lbs bench press for most people. Use a weight belt to transition from high reps to low reps/heavier weights. For example, transition from 12-15 reps on dips (endurance rep range) to 4-6 reps with 50 lbs and weight belt. Olympic trainer Charles Poliquin calls this transition from the volumization phase to the intensification phase an essential must for long term variety and progression using a periodization model for long term results.

Alternatively, you could also use a backpack or schoolbag stuffed with books. Make it heavy and fill it up. The weight belt costs around $20-30 for most models and brands but if you have a bigger budget you can buy a weight vest.