Help Me Setup My Dorm Room Gym

[Psilokan]

The gym at my school sucks so I finally gave in and started to buy my own weights. So far I've picked up the following:

-1 dumb bell (very nice one, rubber grips and the thing that holds the weights on screws in).
-1 bicep curl bar (of the same design as above)
-1 "speed rope" for cardio
-four 2.5lbs, two 5lbs and two 10lbs plates for dumbbells and bicept curl bar.

I plan on grabbing some more weights to add to the above, plus another dumbbell bar so I can work out both sides of the body at once.

A few other pieces of equipment I've considered are wrist/ankle weights for adding resistance when I practice karate, and even jogging or jump rope. Plus I've eyed this tension strap for 10 bucks that could be good for keeping in my backpack.

Other than that I cant think of anything else to add. I'm not planning on buying any large pieces of equipment because I lack the room for it and the cash to purchase it. But is there any key things you guys can think of that I'm missing here? I've always prefered to do everything with dumbbells so not having a barbell is no problem for me.

The only other thing I can think of now is something to lay on when I do bench presses, perhaps one of those inflatable exercise balls I've heard so much of.

Anyways, thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Yanick]

A swiss ball will work for bench presses and other such exercises. Also, you really should get more weight, because on things like DB rows and DB presses the amount of weight you can use will really be a lot and by the looks of those weights you will not be able to have sufficient resistance.

 

[Mifody]

hmm.. how can your school gym have less equipment than that?
perhaps a membership at a real gym. depends on what you wanna do though i guess or how into bodybuilding you are.

 

[Psilokan]

I dont have a vehicle to drive to the nearest gym, nor the money to sign up there. I'd rather get my own equipment so I can train when I want (I like to do it early in the morning, long before the school gym opens).
And obviously you havent seen my school gym, I swear that not a dollar could have been invested into it during my lifetime. For example, there's three 15lbs dumbbells, no 20 lbs, and one 25lbs dumbbell. So you have to make a jump from 15 to 30lbs when you're curling weights. Thats just one of the many problems it has.
And the reason why I dont have more weights than that is for 2 reasons. The first being I just havent gotten all of it yet (gotta carry it from the store to my place, so doing it all at once would make it quite the walk home). The second reason being that I believe fully that its not how much you lift, but how you lift it. I like slow repititions that focus one technique rather than just making loud noises as you _throw_ excessivly heavy weights to and fro.

But what is a "swiss ball" I ask? Is that the inflatable ball I was mentioning? I'll hopefully grab one of those next week then.

Anyways, thanks for the input.

 

[Scotty the Body]

A good source of cheap equipment would be your local bargin finder, you can often get stuff for 1/4 of what it would be new and its near impossible to wreck iron weights.

 

[Yanick]

Originally posted by Psilokan
The second reason being that I believe fully that its not how much you lift, but how you lift it. I like slow repititions that focus one technique rather than just making loud noises as you _throw_ excessivly heavy weights to and fro.

You may be correct that form is very important, but you gotta understand that you could DB press 20lbs as slow as you want it doesn't mean you'll be making any gains. Working out is all about lifting as heavy as you can in a specific rep range (everyone has different opinions on this, but the reps are usually no lower than 4 and no higher 15 for hypertrophy).

Originally posted by Psilokan
But what is a "swiss ball" I ask? Is that the inflatable ball I was mentioning? I'll hopefully grab one of those next week then.

Yes, a swiss ball is an inflatable ball you can use to sit/lie down on.

 

[Psilokan]

Never heard of a "bargain finder," but that's alright, I've never been a fan of used stuff. I like the "new" look, rather than the rusty, and old look.

I never said I was going to be benching 20lbs. I usually do 25-35lbs in each hand when I do the bench press, and the higher of that is quite the strain on my arms.

But I thank you all for your suggestions. I already went and grabbed two 10lbs and two 2.5lbs plates for this week. For now I'm out of cash till monday.

 

[LiftHardGainBig]

If you are straining to bench press 25-35 lbs, how the hell were you able to walk it all home? What are your stats? Height? Weight? BF %?