'Little help?

[Dreamforge]

Alas, my hopes of clawing my way out of scrawny-geekitude have gone largely unrealized and I've been getting very, very frustrated lately. Shifting careers and moving cities did not help (heck, it made things rather worse) and I'm rather worried that I might not end up anywhere near "hot" before I turn thirty. Not that this is a particularly "wrong" or "horrible" thing, but I'm an obsessive dreamer and the mountainous array of disappointment has been eating me up a bit. Even in the face of genetic, circumstantial and financial odds though, I remain inordinately stubborn. That's mostly why I'm still asking around ^_^.

Anyway, I've managed to buy a very minor weight set for my very tiny boarding room (it's only about a big as a minivan). It is composed of two dumbell bars, six five-pound weights and... well... that's it. Budget is inordinately tight and I seem to have gotten myself into living quite a distance from home so transporting a bench back to the room has been inconvenient at best. I live and work near malls (which, in the Philippines, function as all-purpose hubs of civilization from 10:00 to 21:00) and I work Advertising hours (which tends to cut into the midnight hours once every couple of days a week). I've tried to workout using P90x and other magazine programs but I am never able to follow them well enough since I never actually have the equipment or the one-and-a-half-to-two hours asked by the workouts, not to mention much motivation besides despair and terror. Supplements, as much as I really, really want them, are also not on the budget and all my friends seem to be bent on keeping me away from the use of steroids (despite telling me how people they know actually got really ripped from being on 'roids - go figure).

To get to the point, what I would like to ask any of you is a program that might be reasonable for me to follow. Probably one that uses minimal equipment (I'm incapable of installing a pull-up bar on the room I'm renting, by the way) and can be done in under an hour a day. I'm good to buy a few more weights and maybe a bench or a barbell bar but that's about it.

Of course, I'm looking for a program that's also as strikingly effective, and fast, and intensive- a program that likely doesn't really exist outside a fully stocked gym or an infomercial-marketed fitness regimen. If I you know of one though, or are developing one, I can be your guinea pig. If you ever think of marketing your program, I can also be your graphics designer/ copywriter. In any case, I am in desperate need of someone who might be able to just whack me into doing what I should do. Think of it as having someone to dominate if you'd like.

A little help, please?

[hecad84]

Dreamforge, I can sympathize with you 100%. I have also been cursed with a body that absolutely refuses to build any muscle no matter what I try, and when you crave muscle almost as much as you need air or water or food, accepting the realization that you're just not ever going to have any is the most bitter pill I've ever had to swallow. And unlike you who has stated that you're not even 30 yet, I am 35, so even if some miracle happens tomorrow and my body suddenly starts building up, I will never ever be able to enjoy the hot and youthful times that I once fantasized about being able to experience.

Nonetheless, with all that said, I figure that I can still at least try to fight off the couch-potato effects of aging, and can at least try to resemble some vague effort at being at least somewhat fit.

Obviously, cardio work is a big part of staying fit, and although I admit that I don't always succeed, I aim for doing it five days a week. And the best part of cardio work is that no equipment is needed. A 20 minute outdoor walk usually comprises my cardio routine.

I then also do some strength movements three times a week, Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I do pushups, crunches, and bodyweight squats, all exercises with no equipment. I would like to do pullups, but I'm just not strong enough, so I'm doing lat pulldowns as a substitute. And then, just because I'm a guy and all guys like nice arms, I do bicep curls with an EZ-curl bar and weight plates.

I started out aiming for three sets each of 12 reps. As my strength and stamina improved, I added a fourth set, and also added reps to some exercises. I'm currently doing four sets of 24 reps for my bodyweight squats (since I'm only using my bodyweight, I have to increase the reps for more of a workout since my bodyweight remains constant). I now do one set of 50 reps, and then two more sets of 25 reps each, for my crunches. My pushups are four sets of 12 reps. Since my lat pulldowns and bicep curls are weighted exercises, I perform them to failure, until I am able to complete four sets of 12 reps, at which point I then increase the weight for the next workout.

So while I'm certainly not building any mass from this simple routine, I am at least hitting all my body parts, and am remaining tone as a minimum. On days when I'm full of energy and ethusiasm, I can complete this routine in a half hour. A normal day is more like 40 minutes, and even on days when I'm just dragging my butt, I'm still done in a little under an hour.

[Dreamforge]

Thanks, hecad84!

Also, does anyone know any good alternative to pull ups that don't involve having to have bars installed (or having to buy any equipment besides weights?)

[inm]

Try this book from the Pavel:
http://www.dragondoor.com/b28.html
its bodyweight exercises. I'm not sure it'll get you big, but certainly strong.

[helliot]

Originally Posted by Dreamforge

Thanks, hecad84!

Also, does anyone know any good alternative to pull ups that don't involve having to have bars installed (or having to buy any equipment besides weights?)

The irongym is a cheap, no-install pullup bar. You can find it at Walgreens, and I'm sure a hundred other places.

www.getirongym.com

[Dreamforge]

Okay,
I've finally - after several odd months of searching - found myself a bench. It's a proper bench, cushioned and all with the foamed bars where you anchor your legs on. I've had some problems finding a bench within my modest (read: ridiculously small) price range, compounded by the mysterious rarity of cheap plastic benches without backrests in Manila (I would have settled for a plank with four even legs, really). But the search has come to fruition and now I have a bench. This brings my equipment tally to:

1 Bench
2 dumbell bars
4 proper 5 pound weights
2 plastic, over-priced, over-sized 5 pound weights I bought on an impulse
1 Mat (which also happens to also be my bed and approximately 1/3 of my living area)
1 150lb-ish body (for body weight exercises)
and 1 plastic hand clamp (the other one suspiciously missing).

I was wondering if anyone can suggest a 30 minute - 1hour routine for just this. That's really all I have to work with. No pull-up bars nor wide jogging spaces with largely non-toxic air. My condo has a very steep fire exit though.

This geekery-reversal business is several kinds of though. It's difficult enough to wake up in the morning to work, let alone work out before going to work. Which brings me to one more question:

I don't drink coffee (because I can't take the bitterness and also because I don't even have a stove to warm water in, let alone a coffee maker) and I usually sleep from midnight up to the time before I go to work which is at around 9:00 AM (although I tend to be at least 30 minutes late, 30 minutes being roughly the time it takes for me to get to and from the office). I was wondering if anyone can suggest good ways to drag yourself out of bed. I usually punch the snooze button for an hour and a half each morning so repeated alarms aren't working for me. Apples tend not to work either. I'd prefer to wake up by six so I have enough time for breakfast, a workout and a shower but even when I'm up by 7:30, I'm usually too groggy to operate (and end up reading a book instead.)

Thanks again!

[helliot]

You certainly are giving us a challenge to work with. I'll leave the workout advice to somebody else, but I will say this about waking up: You can ask all the questions you want and receive all the answer and advice people can give, but at the end of the day, you have to do the work. YOU have to wake up and get out of bed. Nobody can do it for you. If you have to roll out of bed and immediately take a cold shower in order to get awake, so be it. If you need to replace the snooze button with a bowl of water to splash on your face, do it. If drinking two liters of water before bed will force you up in the morning just to take a leak, try it. No doubt there are tricks and tips for many situations, but we can't impart to you willpower. You have to decide what you want to do and do it. My alarm goes off at 6am and I jump out of bed within 15 seconds and immediately start breakfast. Why? Because I don't want to lift on an empty stomach and if I am late for breakfast it starts a chain reaction that either makes me late for work or I miss my workout. Either way I beat myself up over it. It took a while but now I'm conditioned and I don't miss workouts without a medical reason. Ever. Because I want it.

The only real advice I'll offer is this: If you want to get up at 6, you better start going to bed before midnight. Not only are you making it harder to wake up, you're starving yourself of much needed rest. Decisions about when to get up are made as much the night before as they are in the morning. Want, prepare, do.