Fun strength training ideas?

[amytug 996]

Cardio is 100x my favorite exercise. Walking, running, biking jumping in the trampoline, that hardly feels like exercise because its so fun!

Strength is nice sometimes because it calms and centers/focuses me, but it's pretty dreadful otherwise. I like it at the gym but can't afford that atm, so I'm doing it at home with hand and ankle weights. I think my ADHD has something to do with my lack of interest in standing/laying still and counting to 15-30 for an hour. Oh my gosh just thinking about it makes me shudder. I LOVE the after workout high I get from it and I DO it because I know how good it is for me, how it burns calories when I'm sitting still afterwards an I want to be toned, but... Are there actual fun strength moves to do?

I still want to get a sledgehammer for the shove glove that looks kinda fun.

http://www.shovelglove.com/

[aroundhky 1,174]

Have you tried flipping tires? Actually since you really enjoy cardio, adding a steep incline can add in an element of resistance training to your cardio routine or maybe add some weights to your body while running/walking.

[DonRodolfo 1,416]

Have you tried flipping tires? Actually since you really enjoy cardio, adding a steep incline can add in an element of resistance training to your cardio routine or maybe add some weights to your body while running/walking.

Amy is probably going to have a hard time explaining to her hubby why there's a tractor tire in the middle of the living room .

[Snufflegus 80]

Go to the hardware store and get a decent sized pipe (3-4 inch pipe) that is about 10-12ft long put an end cap on one end and a twist off cap on the other fill with Water. Now carry said pipe in a crooked arm carry around the yard, now lift the pipe over head an do it again. You can vary the exercise by adding more water or also try walking backwards. One of the best core work outs I've ever done...using these slush pipes seems to target your weakest muscles in the back, core, and arms so it seems to work different things each week.

[mark! 449]

You can make sandbags, get a duffle bag, and some plastic sheets, fill the plastic with sand, duct tape the crap out of it, and put it in the bag. You can make the sandbags smaller that way you can add/remove weight from the larger bag depending on what you want to do. You can do overhead press, squats, firemans carry sprints, sandbag toss, farmers carry with 2 of them, and many other things. With the tire (go to an old tire store and ask for one, even a semi truck tire is decent to start with), and get a sledgehammer, beat the living crap out of the tire. Just be careful when doing these outside, your neighbors will think you're insane. I frequently take my 500 pound tire to the front and flip it down the street and back, I've had neighbors come out and join me, and other just look at us like we're freaks. It's good times had by all.

My backyard has numerous tires from 250lbs to 800lbs, several homemade sandbags, kettlebells and dumbbells (the old ones that have either chipped or cracked that I no longer care about), some atlas stones, a few farmers carry handles, an old Water soaked heavy as hell punching bag with 25 foot rope attached for carrying or dragging, and a homemade wooden push sled.

[Fiddleman 4,376]

Amy- I still think that sledge hammer idea sounds great. I almost was going to do this, but got hooked on full body workouts instead.

There are also a billion full body strength training exercises you can do and you do not need any equipment at all, just you!! These are a lot of fun and you can do them anywhere.

The following is a beginner workout you can do with just your body and should keep you busy for 3x a week for about 3-4 weeks until you are ready to move onto intermediate body weight workout.

You can start a warmup with 5-15 minutes of running. this is not meant for speed, just to get the blood flowing before the next set of warm up exercises. You should run between 1/2 and 1 mile. when you come back, start by doing push ups, planks, sit-ups, air squats, lunges, etc. These kind of exercises suck at the beginning, but after a while they are a lot of fun and you can increase intensity by just varying the exercise a little. Do 10-20 reps for each warmup. You should have a light sweat going by the time you are done.

If you have a roller, spend a few minutes rolling out your muscles: hamstrings, calves, back, etc.

One exercise I like also doing as a warm up is like a push up but you hold the top and bottom for 10 seconds at a time before switching to up or down position. Repeat for 10 reps. It will give you a great upper body warmup, a little fatigue but not much.

Do your stretches. I like doing arm shoulder rotations, forward circles, backward circles, full body circles, forward in place lunges and plank variation that involves starting in a push up position, dropping to elbow one at a time and raising to full push up position, repeat 10 x.

A beginner body weight exercise is the dynamic sumo squat where you start with feet together and then jump into a sumo squat with butt back, flat back and hands on ground. Jump back and repeat for about 20 seconds, rest 10 seconds, repeat for 4 sets.

A second beginner body weight exercise is combination backwards lunge and 4 count ladder. Start standing up straight, do two deep lunges backwards with back straight, chest up and hands together on back up head. Next go directly into a 4 count. A four count is 1. Drop down with knees bent, 2. Jump directly back into push up, 3. Jump directly back onto feet in dropped down position and 4. Stand up straight. Repeat up the ladder 1 rep, 2 rep 3 rep and 4 rep. Then repeat down the ladder 4,3,2,1. Go up and down the ladder 1 more time.

A 3rd beginner weight exercise is combination pointer and thumbs up ladder. The pointer exercise starts with you on you hands and knees. In a controlled movement, lift you right arm and left leg up, keeping both straight with shoulders and hips parallel to the ground. Hold for 1/2 second. Lower. Repeat with left arm and leg. This is a great back stabilization exercise. That is 1 rep. For thumbs up, lay on the ground with you arms perpendicular to your body, out to the side. Now lift both arms up and squeeze your shoulder blades together with your thumbs in the up position. Really feel the squeeze as your chest and chin come off the ground. Bring your arms back down to complete 1 rep. Complete a ladder of pointers and thumbs up from 1 to 4 reps performing first pointer and then thumbs up in each set up and down the ladder.

Finally, do your cool down stretches to reduce lactic acid and make recovery far easier. Always eat a lean meal after your strength training workout out. It can be a recovery shake or it can be a good balance of macronutrients including lean Protein, good carb and good fat. I like to have a few teriyaki meatballs or a chicken skewer, a 1/2 banana or apple with a spread of 2 tbsp nut butter. If I have a shake, I like to have something that is high whey percentage with BCAA chain and creatine hgc. There are a lot of good shakes out there if you want to drink a shake post work out.

Again, there are a billion different body weight exercises you can do. When you want more, just ask. I find these enjoyable and the workouts are short. Each exercise is slow and controlled so you never feel rushed. Yet, it is a really challenging way to build up your strength that you can get real results from in a short amount of time. In as little as 3 weeks, I promise you will like the results. It would take months of isolation exercises to achieve the same results, maybe years. And then you might not get there because free weight exercises are non functional a d generally not natural movements for your body. Body weight exercises are functional exercise and feel natural to you. That makes them much more enjoyable to perform once you get the basic movements down.

As an aside I like to have 6-7 small meals a day focusing on protein to hit about 1 G protein per ideal body weight 180 for me). I do workouts like these 3 x a week and cross fit 2 x a week. The core of these workout is 20-30 minutes ( does not include warmup or cool down). That is over before you know it, but you will get an excellent full body strength training workout.

Keep all movements controlled and in good form. Make each move deliberate and in clockwork. It may feel a little slow. that is ok as you are aiming for good form and activation of many muscles groups for each body weight exercise. I promise you will get a good body strength workout after these. Your shirt will be soaked. The important thing is to keep showing up for every workout 3x a week. These body weight exercise will be a very effective use of your time and your wallet. I find these to be fun workouts.

[amytug 996]

Amy- I still think that sledge hammer idea sounds great. I almost was going to do this' date=' but got hooked on full body workouts instead.

There are also a billion full body strength training exercises you can do and you do not need any equipment at all, just you!! These are a lot of fun and you can do them anywhere.

The following is a beginner workout you can do with just your body and should keep you busy for 3x a week for about 3-4 weeks until you are ready to move onto intermediate body weight workout.

You can start a warmup with 5-15 minutes of running. this is not meant for speed, just to get the blood flowing before the next set of warm up exercises. You should run between 1/2 and 1 mile. when you come back, start by doing push ups, planks, sit-ups, air squats, lunges, etc. These kind of exercises suck at the beginning, but after a while they are a lot of fun and you can increase intensity by just varying the exercise a little. Do 10-20 reps for each warmup. You should have a light sweat going by the time you are done.

If you have a roller, spend a few minutes rolling out your muscles: hamstrings, calves, back, etc.

One exercise I like also doing as a warm up is like a push up but you hold the top and bottom for 10 seconds at a time before switching to up or down position. Repeat for 10 reps. It will give you a great upper body warmup, a little fatigue but not much.

Do your stretches. I like doing arm shoulder rotations, forward circles, backward circles, full body circles, forward in place lunges and plank variation that involves starting in a push up position, dropping to elbow one at a time and raising to full push up position, repeat 10 x.

A beginner body weight exercise is the dynamic sumo squat where you start with feet together and then jump into a sumo squat with butt back, flat back and hands on ground. Jump back and repeat for about 20 seconds, rest 10 seconds, repeat for 4 sets.

A second beginner body weight exercise is combination backwards lunge and 4 count ladder. Start standing up straight, do two deep lunges backwards with back straight, chest up and hands together on back up head. Next go directly into a 4 count. A four count is 1. Drop down with knees bent, 2. Jump directly back into push up, 3. Jump directly back onto feet in dropped down position and 4. Stand up straight. Repeat up the ladder 1 rep, 2 rep 3 rep and 4 rep. Then repeat down the ladder 4,3,2,1. Go up and down the ladder 1 more time.

A 3rd beginner weight exercise is combination pointer and thumbs up ladder. The pointer exercise starts with you on you hands and knees. In a controlled movement, lift you right arm and left leg up, keeping both straight with shoulders and hips parallel to the ground. Hold for 1/2 second. Lower. Repeat with left arm and leg. This is a great back stabilization exercise. That is 1 rep. For thumbs up, lay on the ground with you arms perpendicular to your body, out to the side. Now lift both arms up and squeeze your shoulder blades together with your thumbs in the up position. Really feel the squeeze as your chest and chin come off the ground. Bring your arms back down to complete 1 rep. Complete a ladder of pointers and thumbs up from 1 to 4 reps performing first pointer and then thumbs up in each set up and down the ladder.

Finally, do your cool down stretches to reduce lactic acid and make recovery far easier. Always eat a lean meal after your strength training workout out. It can be a recovery shake or it can be a good balance of macronutrients including lean Protein, good carb and good fat. I like to have a few teriyaki meatballs or a chicken skewer, a 1/2 banana or apple with a spread of 2 tbsp nut butter. If I have a shake, I like to have something that is high whey percentage with BCAA chain and creatine hgc. There are a lot of good shakes out there if you want to drink a shake post work out.

Again, there are a billion different body weight exercises you can do. When you want more, just ask. I find these enjoyable and the workouts are short. Each exercise is slow and controlled so you never feel rushed. Yet, it is a really challenging way to build up your strength that you can get real results from in a short amount of time. In as little as 3 weeks, I promise you will like the results. It would take months of isolation exercises to achieve the same results, maybe years. And then you might not get there because free weight exercises are non functional a d generally not natural movements for your body. Body weight exercises are functional exercise and feel natural to you. That makes them much more enjoyable to perform once you get the basic movements down.

As an aside I like to have 6-7 small meals a day focusing on protein to hit about 1 G protein per ideal body weight 180 for me). I do workouts like these 3 x a week and cross fit 2 x a week. The core of these workout is 20-30 minutes ( does not include warmup or cool down). That is over before you know it, but you will get an excellent full body strength training workout.

Keep all movements controlled and in good form. Make each move deliberate and in clockwork. It may feel a little slow. that is ok as you are aiming for good form and activation of many muscles groups for each body weight exercise. I promise you will get a good body strength workout after these. Your shirt will be soaked. The important thing is to keep showing up for every workout 3x a week. These body weight exercise will be a very effective use of your time and your wallet. I find these to be fun workouts.[/quote']

Okay guys (especially fiddle) that was a LOT to read and I'm very exhausted. I plan to come back tomorrow evening and respond. Just didn't want y'all to think I was just gonna "like" and run.

[Fiddleman 4,376]

Didn't mean for it to be so verbose Amy. It just sort of came out like that. Fitness is something I really enjoy now and like sharing with others. I hope you find some good ideas in any of the posts above.

Like you, I was never focused enough at the isolation lifts in a gym like 24 or LA fitness. Don't know why. Perhaps I get bored easily when doing something like that in a gym atmosphere.

I found full body exercises as a post op to be much more fun. This also includes weighted exercises like kettle ball swings and olympic lifts. Even lifting tires looks like so much fun and that, my friend, is a killer full body exercise.

I also like working out with someone to keep me going, whether that is an instructor on one of my DVDs or a personal trainer. They always keep me interested and the end of a workout feels well done.

For this reason, you might still like to do a workout with, say, Jillian because I know you have and enjoy many of her exercise videos. She probably does full body training videos like pdx90 or insanity. Those are all going to be fun when compared to isolation lifts in a gym somewhere.

Hope you find some information that is helpful here, even if I am rambling a bit. Lol.

[amytug 996]

iwasn't saying you were rambling.. I really WAS exhausted. some of the stuff you mentioned, I'm having a hard time envisioning. I'm a visual learner.. you should be my personal trainer Fiddle.. you tell ME what to do and when.. lol that would be cool! at least for a while, because I have problems with authority.. "/

I actually just have 30 day shred, it's NicolanZ that has all the different ones. I do like it enough though, and I definitely get a sweat and that whole hot face thing going on. I only did it once, maybe I'll do that thursday.

Hey fiddle, do you ever have "cranky days" or "tired days" where you just can't find the motivation? how do you get into it on those days? Just fake it til you make it?

[Fiddleman 4,376]

Yeah Amy, I have those days especially on a cross fit day or two. Not every time of course, but there are days when I am not super excited to go work out.

If my inner voice got the best of me, I would not be there on some days. I get tired. Not just from working out day after day or even from post op eating, but I have a job with long hours and sometimes, well, I do not sleep enough and it catches up to me. However, I still fake my motivation when I feel like this to get my butt to the training sessions whether that is with my personal trainer or at home.

After warming up, I am usually pumped enough that the inner voice of tiredness is replaced by Thor. I am then on a mission to get the most out of my short workouts. And I have a good workout.

Just showing up is like 80% of the work when you do not feel like it. Be consistent. That is where real gains will come from. Same applies to eating. Be consistent and the gains will show up over time. One session or one day of eating well followed by 5 days of not working out or eating crappy is not going to result in noticeable gains.

Not trying go be harsh at all, just trying to make my point of being consistent and showing up.

After a while working out becomes like a ritual where motivation comes naturally and purely within. If you look at my transformation thread in vets forum, I wrote some notes about different forms of motivation and the connectivity between the stages. Go check that out again if you like.

As for Jillian DVDs, you are right. My memory did mix up you two girls on this. Sorry about that!! you two are very alike in your cheerful personalities.