New to strength training

I bought my home Gym many years ago. But, I never used it. I am now losing weight and getting in shape. I would like advice on how to best use my gym. It does not have a leg press bench. But, it does have the other stuff. Can anyone help?

Congrats on deciding to get in shape!

Can you be more specific as to what your home gym is comprised of? Do you have pictures, or can you find one on the web? Do you already know the exercises you can do on it?

Ditto … congrats on deciding to get fit in 2009! It sounds as if you’re off to a great start by dropping a significant amount of weight!!

My recommendation is to not limit yourself to any one piece of equipment. One of the keys to a sustainable fitness program is ensuring that there is diversity in your workout. Use your home gym but also work in bodyweight exercises, core training, and being that you’re in Texas, take advantage of the weather with some outdoor cardio.

If you’re just beginning a strength training program, consider a full body workout 3x/week. You can find variations by searching Gyminee (e.g., http://www.gyminee.com/workout_programs/9843-MY…)

For leg exercises try different squat and lunge variations. If your home gym utilizes weight plates, you can use these similar to dumbbells to make these exercises more challenging.

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com

Sell the home gym and by an Olypic bar, bumper plates, a power rack, a bench and a pull up bar.

Do a four day spli, Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs. Focusing on compound lifts(using multiple muscle groups)

Bench press(incline/decline/flat), Dips are the bread and butter for chest.

Pullups, Deadlifts, Barbell row will be a solid Back routine.

Shoulders Standing overhead press, push press, push jerk basically same excercise but very slight differences. Standing barbell row.

Legs. Squat will be your number one excercise know it and love it focus on getting your upper leg parallel with the floor or deeper. Good mornings.

When you have your form down on squats get a weightlifting coach and learn the Squat Clean and jerk. The snatch also is a very good excercise but can be limited due to flexibility. Those are outstanding full body excercises which can’t really be touched by any other one excercise.

What I meant in my first post was you will get far better posture, better gains, save money, and will ultimatly be more likely to stick with it going with the free weight stuff I listed.

Machines are garbage, period. I had a home gym thing at one point in time and my results sucked. It was one of the weider home gyms with a leg press, upright bench press, lat pull down and the basic cable attachments.

I have yet to touch a machine besides for Leg curls in the last year and my gains, confidence, motivation to lift another day couldn’t be any higher.

A word of caution about explosive power lifting exercises such as the snatch and clean/jerk, deadlifts and (weighted) squats – Unless you are working with someone who is well versed in these exercises I would not advise attempting them on your own.

Form is everything in weightlifting and especially when performing explosive movements. I’ve seen many a person injured trying to do a clean and jerk (a fairly advanced move).

Sadly, I’ve seen many trainers at the gym mis-inform their clients on how to properly execute these movements. Your best bet is to work with an advanced Powerlifter to learn the correct movement (and start with zero to very light weight to get your form correct).

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com

That’s why I said get a weightlifting coach.

If this works. This is the Gym I have. Without the leg press
http://www.homegymbynet.com/pacific_malibu.html

The type of program you under-take is going to be based on your fitness goals. My suggestion is to specifically define these goals.

By “getting in shape” do you mean that you’re still looking to lose weight, or are you now at your desired weight and you’re looking to get toned? Or, are you actually looking to gain muscle (which may mean increasing your current bodyweight)?

Also, you need to consider how many days per week and how much time per day you are going to dedicate to working out.

Next, review the workouts on Gyminee.com and make a commitment to one.

You simply need to get started!

If once you defined your goals you are still unsure of what exercises to do, share your goals on this message board so that we can give you the appropriate feedback.

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com

To be honest, I would recommend keeping the gym. I’ve used machines for the past year and have had great results…in both an increase in what I can lift and overall muscle tone.

Thank you to all who responded. I don’t have lofty measurable goals. I have lost all the weight I really intend to lose. I started at 290 and I am now at 218. I might go down to 210. But, strength training is just for overall health and toning. My vision is to do 2ish exercises per muscle group 10 or so reps each w/ enough weight to make it reasonably difficult. But, not so difficult that I cannot do it every day. I do best when I have a daily routine. It should take 20-30 minutes. I truly appreciate any help.

Gordon5jeff,

The good news is, if you haven’t strength trained up until any amount of strength training should provide you with some results, assuming you’re lifting enough weight. If you’re looking to gain muscle, I would keep reps to 6 – 8 per exercise and make certain that you’re really feeling it during the last 3 reps of each set.

With that said, if you’re sacrificing form for weight, don’t. It’s a sure way to inflict injury.

On that note, I wouldn’t recommend any exercise program w/o you first receiving an “ok” from your personal physical.

I’ll also preface this by saying that I can’t really see what your home gym can and can’t do. I also don’t know what attachments, if any, you have. Secondly, dumbbells would be a good investment and you can likely pick some up inexpensively at garage sales or on Craigs List.

20 – 30 minutes per session is petty bare bones, so you may want to consider a 5-day split. There are many different ways to “split” exercises and you can likely find many options searching Gyminee. An example of a split would be:

Day 1 – Legs/Abs – it appears that your gym allows you to do both hamstring curls and leg extensions. I can’t tell if it allows you to do calf raises. If not, it would behoove you to add dumbbells to your gym for calf raises in addition to weighted squats and lunges.

Day 2 – Chest – Chest press, dumbbell flyes, dumbbell pullovers, push-ups

Day 3 – Back/Abs – If you have access to a pull-up bar, now would be the time to use it. On your machine you can do straight arm pulldowns, seated pulldowns, seated rows, dumbbell rows and dumbbell shrugs if you invest in some dumbbells.

Day 4 – Rest

Day 5 – Shoulder/Abs – On your machine you should be able to do low pulley lateral raises (using the same pulley you would use for your seated rows (looks like there’s one under the bench), it looks as if you may be able to do shoulder presses (I can’t tell). Add dumbbells and you can include seated dumbbell presses, bent over lateral raises, alternate front arm raises

Day 6 – Arms – dumbbells will provide you with a variety of exercises. On your machine you should be able to do push-downs, reverse push-downs, low pulley curls, tricep dips

Day 7 – Rest

Because you’re only training each muscle group 1x/week in a 5-day split you should be able to lift with fairly high intensity.

Note: Ab exercises include lying leg raises, partial sit-up, plank, side plank, bicycle crunches

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com

i’d recommend googling stronglifts 5×5 or rippetoe’s starting strength. both are a solid foundation and as a beginning you will benefit a lot from them.

Susan, Thank you so much for the information. I don’t know what most of the names of the exercises are. But, with the names I can look it up and start working out. As Gomer Pyle would say “Thank you, Thank you, Thank You.” :)

You’re welcome gordon5jeff.
The exercises I listed are fairly basic so you should be able to Google them and find video and/or instruction.

For example, if you Google “Straight arm pulldown” the first link is to an animated .gif of the exercise: http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/LatissimusD…

With that said, it would be well worthwhile to schedule a 1x personal training session if you have that option available to you. Some gyms let you work out on a day-to-day basis, so it’s simply a matter of booking a one time visit with a trainer. Let them know what exercises you’re looking to learn.

Let us know how it goes!!

Susan
www.catapultfitnessblog.com