Abs and Arms?

[NewGuy]

I've just recently turned 20, and I've been trying to bulk up. I'm 6"1, 160. I've been exzcercising for at least 6 years, but I've never been able to pup much mass. I cant afford any weights, or join a gym because my parents are paying for college. Does anyone have any excercise ideas that could help me? Thanks.

[Marco_ukmus]

Welcome to the forum man!

Ok well there is actually quite a bit you can do without the gym and wihtout weights. Having said that, you might not arguably progress as fast and get the right shape your after without proper equipment and supps.

CHEST

Ok well obviously for the chest you can do press ups. Bare in mind there is not just one type of pressup. There your regular military style pressup with your arms shoulder width apart, theres another one (forget the name) where your hands are side by side. And a whole ream of other types.

TRICEPS

For your triceps you can do dips, say grab a chair and posistion it about a meter and a half away from a flat end of your bed (assuming your mattress is a standard height off the floor), now sit on the chair facing the bed and rest both your legs on the mattress. Now put both hands behind you on the chair and lift your butt off the chair. Now move you butt down off the chair lowering it (within reason) as far as you can go, and using your arms raise yourself back to the starting position. Do about 12 reps and 3 sets of that. If you can do more then do more. This exercise really works your triceps.

ABS

For the Abs do the abdoninal crunches. Again there are various styles and different types. Theres your regular one with both feet flat on the floor and hand crossed on your chest. Knees together, lying flat on the floor. Now raise your back off the floor contracting your abs at the same time. Note: some people put the hands behind their heads, this isn't a good idea as it could lead to extra pressure being exserted on the head and thus could lead to head strain or injury. Also keeping your feet flat on the floor might be a bit of a problem, So you can either find someone to hold them down, or wedge them say underneath the bed or other funiture. Furthermore, you might get pain on your tail bone since you will be pivoting on it, so you need to find some kind of gym matt substitute. You might find that if you have a good carpeted floor that that is sufficient, otherwise you might need to say lay your dovet on the floor.

BICEPS

Ok so we got chest, abs and triceps. For the biceps you need to lift something. You can either find some heavy objects that you can use as weights or find a bar somewhere prehaps outside the house where you can do pull-ups. When you find one, make sure the bar is VERY secure before preceeding. Make sure it will take your entire body weight. Also make sure its quite a bit above your head. Ok, so all you do is jump and place both hands on the bar. Now proceed to raise your head using your arms above the bar and lower it back to the starting position. If the bar is at say head level then just place both hands on the bar and cross your lower legs and raise them. This exercise will also help give you that great "V" back shape after some weeks of strict form and repartition.

CARDIO

Obviously, even if you have the best abs and arms in the world, having fat obscure them will spoil the work you have put into them so you MUST and WILL have to do cardio. You can run round the block say three times... or if you have a bicycle, then cycle for a while.

LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

To make the most of what you do you'll need to get your body into tip top condition. The building a better body is not simply about exercise, but also, dare i say it, about good nutrion, and therefore eating the right foods at the right times. I would suggest that you only drink alcohol one or twice every week. Better still if you can manage it, try and cut that down even more. The same goes for smoking, only the effects of smoking in my opinion can be somewhat more obvious. Smoking will make the whole cardio and keeping fit thing that much harder. So if you smoke try try try to cut it down to a minimum or better still, DONT SMOKE AT ALL. Now obviously we all have a social life, so obviously its OK to have a drink now and then, and smoke if you have too, but don't go mad with it. Bare in mind that both alchol and smoking, particuly smoking though has a very negative effect on the health, not to mention aging effects.
Lastly, you will need to drink lots of water, try to cut down on drinking too much coffee or tea, or anything else with caffeine in it, and try to only eat say chips and burgers, chocolate or anything else deamed unhealthy to once a week or better still once every 2-3 weeks. I'm not saying cut it out altogether, but try not to live on it. Instead eat a balanced diet with good vegtables, protein and fruits.

Remember, getting into shape is really a life long commitment, not a 3 week phase. And diet is arguably more important than the exercise itself. This is to do with the way muscles work. In short, we exercise our muscle to get microtears, "damage", we must then feed our bodies the right nutrition in order to have a quick recovery and to spur on the growth phase. There are three main phases, the energy phase whereby nutrition is required in order to allow us to give our maximum effort in the gym or when we lift weight or perfom exercises, the anabolic phase whereby nutrition is feed back into the muscles to replenish supplies and repair "damage", and lastly, the phase we all want more of, the growth phase. Its the exercise that kicks off this cycle, but once the cycle has started, its nutrition that will determine how fast we recover and how much we GROW (I'll comment more on this in another thread sometime soon). This cycle is particuly important for those withing to BULK UP!

CLOSING STATEMENT

Ok well the above is just some ideas. I suggest you look around on the net for some other exercises. Also bare in mind that I personaaly believe it will be quite hard to bulk up well using the above exercises alone. The above is basciaclly a cardio routine that only touches on exercises that will actually work you hard enough to cause sufficient "damage" and thus give you that oppotunity to "Bulk up". Trhough the above, if executed in the correct manner, will eventually give you a great 6 pac, and a very lean muscular and vascular look. Really, if your heart is set on getting bigger, I suggest trying to buy some weights. And a set which will last you a while. Say a 90kg set with a barbell and two smaller dumbbell bars. Acquiring this will give you the the oppotunity to perform the exercises that will kick your muscles in the the threee part cycle breifly touched on above and start your growth cycles.

Hope this helps... Sorry for the loooooonnnnggg post :0)

Good Luck

Marc

[ethernet_jock]

Wow Marc!!

Written like a true expert!! I even read some things in there that I can do in addition to my normal home workout routine that might help a little here and there!

Incidentally on pull-ups - I've found that if you have a park nearby with playground equipment then often a trustworthy steel bar mounted in a high place can be found somewhere out there.... this is something I've caught myself doing on more than one occasion while taking a run around the neighborhood.

For the relatively average of height: Monkey Bars with you knees bent (maybe) or the underside incline staircase/ladder of a slide (if it's angled enough). I've also found a swingset top bar to work - but sometimes they are too thick to grip. At my old house the rafters in the garage were just high enough that if I wrapped a piece of cardboard around them and taped it VERY securely that I could grip and pull-up without getting any splinters.

Good luck!! Any exercise is WAY better than none at all!

[ethernet_jock]

oh.... and obviously playground use/abuse was in the very early mornings... I tend to take my runs at 4:30 or 5am.... I wouldn't be so rude as to do that during the day when kids are actually playing and stuff.

Although.... that could get some attention from the mommy group...



hehehhe

[brent]

Marc has some great ideas, I'd like to add that a press-up is what we call a push-up here in the US. Also, most/all colleges have gyms, and most will let any students use them for free when a class isn't in them. You should look into your college. Just don't bulk up on beer!

[Marco_ukmus]

Thanks guys!

Yeah, Like Brent said, its certainly worth looking at what the college offer, prehaps speak to someone and see if they can't do something for someone on a tight budget/no budget. I think alot of places usually offer something.

Marc

[brutE GoLdeN 06]

Hey all that stuff that the other guys told u is good and everythin, btu if u want real results from bodyweight exercises (considering u cant use weights) u will want to do one arm pushups and one legged squats (aka pistols).....that is.....if u want max strength. If u want explosive power instead do clapping pushups and knee jumps. O yea! i forgot, and if u dont have a pull up bar, do pullups on a door! its really cool! And if u really want to hit them delts, do handstand pushups. There awesome!.........just go to http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/mahler57.htm
they got the best bodyweight exercises as well as the best cardio and muscular endurance exercise! ull c




And if ne1 could help me with some of my questions? I was wondering if headstand leg raises really did work ur abs because i usually feel it in myu lower back. Will they get me a 6 pack or not?

[Ogun]

Honetly, i don't work out much- I'm more of a dreamer anyway,I just found some ab tips on the net. Article.