Thread: No Gym Membership, what are some good excercises for me...

You can increase your fitness to a reasonable degree using bodyweight exercises. There is a limit when it gets a little ridiculous safety-wise that prevents you from improving further, but that won't happen for a while.

You can probably Google bodyweight exercises or search the forums. The possibilities are endless. Consider especially unilateral exercises when you become more advanced.

If you can do a chin-up, chin-up bars are very cheap.

You can do bodyweight squats for your lower body. Or bodyweight jump squats.

Burpees, Reverse burpees, clap pushups, and if you have a table or bar you can do body rows.

You can do a variation of the military press by using a wall to stabilize your body and pushing off the ground with your legs in the air.

chinups/pullups with variable grips, with variable weight; pushups with variable elevation, with variable weight; dips with variable weight; one legged squats; sprints

Ok not being completely helpless here, but how am I supposed to do chin ups and dips at home?

Originally Posted by Uthinkso

Ok not being completely helpless here, but how am I supposed to do chin ups and dips at home?

Here is a version of the dip I think you could do. http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...tBenchDip.html

Find some stable chairs or whatnot around the place.

You can buy chin ups bars and install them in your house...pretty cheap.

garage or something have beams? if you can't get your hands over it thread a towel through it. jump squats / one legged squats, could set up two chairs for dips perhaps, sprinting is good

as i have said before......find a tree and do your chin ups.

turn your car off and push it down the street.

find heavy things to carry in your garage

do body weight circuits....etc....

Surely you can find a tree or somthing that you can hang on to and do chin ups. Do over hand, under hand and various widths. Go get yourself a cheap sack or two of feed and place them over your shoulders for squats and lunges. Curl and over head press the sacks. Just find things that are heavy enough to make you work. Do dips with your legs straight out in front of you. Move your funiture around and clean behind it all daily. Do start and stops by pushing your car. Do spints up a hill.

Or, you can go to whatever shcool is close to you and talk to the head coach and see if there is a time during the day that he would let you use his gym. There are some out there that will let you do this. Some colleges don't even check to see if you are a student or not.

Originally Posted by Fireplug

Surely you can find a tree or somthing that you can hang on to and do chin ups. Do over hand, under hand and various widths. Go get yourself a cheap sack or two of feed and place them over your shoulders for squats and lunges. Curl and over head press the sacks. Just find things that are heavy enough to make you work. Do dips with your legs straight out in front of you. Move your funiture around and clean behind it all daily. Do start and stops by pushing your car. Do spints up a hill.

Or, you can go to whatever shcool is close to you and talk to the head coach and see if there is a time during the day that he would let you use his gym. There are some out there that will let you do this. Some colleges don't even check to see if you are a student or not.

Ok I've gotten my answers. I was more looking for things I can do at the home that are convenient because of not having a gym membership.

I live in suburbia, so no chance on the feed store but I get what you mean. I want to work out and get in shape, but I'd say the chances of me pushing my car up and down the driveway and somewhere between slim and none.

With this one legged squat, I'm rather interested in that but can't seem to find any illustrations of this move. It sounds simple enough, would holding onto one the poles in my basement to stability be exceptable, or is that cheating?

Originally Posted by Uthinkso

Ok I've gotten my answers. I was more looking for things I can do at the home that are convenient because of not having a gym membership.

I live in suburbia, so no chance on the feed store but I get what you mean. I want to work out and get in shape, but I'd say the chances of me pushing my car up and down the driveway and somewhere between slim and none.

With this one legged squat, I'm rather interested in that but can't seem to find any illustrations of this move. It sounds simple enough, would holding onto one the poles in my basement to stability be exceptable, or is that cheating?

lunges
BW squats for time
jumping jacks
jump rope
step ups
planks
crunches
push ups
pull ups on a tree (lots of trees in suburbia!)
push ups with feet elevated
push ups on one foot
spiderman push ups

go to the army navy store and get a duffel bag. go to the home depot and get some sand. fill it....do clean and press with it, do bent over rows with it, do carries with it....etc....

Originally Posted by fufu

Here is a version of the dip I think you could do. http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...tBenchDip.html

Find some stable chairs or whatnot around the place.

You can buy chin ups bars and install them in your house...pretty cheap.

Good link there, lots of info and reading for me to do tonight.

Thank You.

Originally Posted by P-funk

lunges
BW squats for time
jumping jacks
jump rope
step ups
planks
crunches
push ups
pull ups on a tree (lots of trees in suburbia!)
push ups with feet elevated
push ups on one foot
spiderman push ups

go to the army navy store and get a duffel bag. go to the home depot and get some sand. fill it....do clean and press with it, do bent over rows with it, do carries with it....etc....

Agreed on the trees in suburbia, just not at my place. I think my neighbor might mind if I was hanging off his tree attempting to do a pull-up.

Originally Posted by Uthinkso

Agreed on the trees in suburbia, just not at my place. I think my neighbor might mind if I was hanging off his tree attempting to do a pull-up.

you don't have a tree in your backyard?

why would people mind if you were in the park doing pull ups? What about a play ground? You can do pull ups on the monkey bar.

I know there are alot of parks in my area that have "workout sections." The closest one to me has a few pull-up bars, even has a standard and bench dip station, along with other things like a balancing beam that I manage to fall off of every time. I'm sure there are things like that in your area.

Originally Posted by FatCatMC

I know there are alot of parks in my area that have "workout sections." The closest one to me has a few pull-up bars, even has a standard and bench dip station, along with other things like a balancing beam that I manage to fall off of every time. I'm sure there are things like that in your area.

where is stuart florida? I have been to a park like that in Coconut Grove (near Miami, don't know if you know where that is or not?).

Originally Posted by P-funk

where is stuart florida? I have been to a park like that in Coconut Grove (near Miami, don't know if you know where that is or not?).

Stuart is about an hour and a half north of Coconut Grove. Martin County actually just upgraded in the past few years, 8 skate parks, and they actually have running paths that have stations along the way, pull-ups, dips, sit-ups, etc. Pretty neat.

Originally Posted by P-funk

where is stuart florida? I have been to a park like that in Coconut Grove (near Miami, don't know if you know where that is or not?).

Coconut Grove is not only near Miami, it is in Miami. Sorry I felt obligated to clear that up.

Those are all great ideas... My head hurts thinking of all the exercises a person can do with next to nothing or nothing. If you are overweight and out of shape you need to work on your general conditioning. Just make a simple plan with 5 movements + some sort of cardio- like running, rope jumping whatever. I understand that you may not want to look foolish by doing pullups in someone elses yard or in a crowed park at lunchtime- at least at first- but what's worse being out of shape or sucking it up and doing what you have to do to make yourself healthy. It's always hard at the begining and some of the things people suggested you will not be able to do for a long time- like handstand pushups and pistols- so just focus on what you can do and start doing it three times a week.

1.) BW squats, bulgarian squats, step-ups, lunges- pick 1 or 2 movements 3 sets
2.) push ups narrow, wide, feet raised- whatever as many as you can for 3 sets
3.) chin-ups, pullups, one arm rows with something like a water jug filled with water or the duffle bag idea as P- funk said
4.) overhead presses with an object, clean and press a keg or a railroad tie
5.) make a sled out of a cheap plastic sled. Tie a rope to it then through a cinder block and or some sand bags on it tie it around your waist and run around with it in your back yard.

Do planks, boats and crunches... run, jump rope and do jumping jacks...
Just get used to moving your body on a regular basis...

Originally Posted by Bakerboy

Those are all great ideas... My head hurts thinking of all the exercises a person can do with next to nothing or nothing. If you are overweight and out of shape you need to work on your general conditioning. Just make a simple plan with 5 movements + some sort of cardio- like running, rope jumping whatever. I understand that you may not want to look foolish by doing pullups in someone elses yard or in a crowed park at lunchtime- at least at first- but what's worse being out of shape or sucking it up and doing what you have to do to make yourself healthy. It's always hard at the begining and some of the things people suggested you will not be able to do for a long time- like handstand pushups and pistols- so just focus on what you can do and start doing it three times a week.

1.) BW squats, bulgarian squats, step-ups, lunges- pick 1 or 2 movements 3 sets
2.) push ups narrow, wide, feet raised- whatever as many as you can for 3 sets
3.) chin-ups, pullups, one arm rows with something like a water jug filled with water or the duffle bag idea as P- funk said
4.) overhead presses with an object, clean and press a keg or a railroad tie
5.) make a sled out of a cheap plastic sled. Tie a rope to it then through a cinder block and or some sand bags on it tie it around your waist and run around with it in your back yard.

Do planks, boats and crunches... run, jump rope and do jumping jacks...
Just get used to moving your body on a regular basis...

Ok sounds good I just need a couple items explained as I've never heard of them. I will saw I have tow sets of dumbells, 20lb and 30lb. So I can use them insted of water jugs or something of the like.

I have upper body figured out, but for core excercises and lower body I am at a loss. Which is why I am disecting the aboove list so hard.

What is a BW squat? how is it done?
Same as above for bulgarian squat.

Would calf raises standing on a basement step be logical. I plan tog et together a routine and post it later.

Just google or youtube "BW squats" "pistols" and "bulgarian squats" or maybe someone will be kind enough to post a link of those exercises.
Yes, you can do single leg calf raises off a stair- with and without weight.
You can also do front squats with your DB's once regular BW squats become too easy as well as lunges and step- ups.

The routine P-funk suggested (in your other thread) is a good routine to start with... the main thing is starting slow and learning proper technique as well as being consistent.