Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Making the Most of What You Have Available... no excuses

My gym is small compared to the more-visited Johnson center on UK's campus. Don't get me wrong, you can squat, bench, deadlift (we even have some bumpers!), get your cardio in on a machine or we have a sled, a full line of pin-select machines, core room, group fitness room, etc.

BUT...

Our dumbbells only go up to 95lbs... which for a seasoned lifter, could make you train elsewhere. I have adapted my training to only use barbell lifts first and use 1-arm dumbbell or higher rep sets with the 95lbs. Today that just didn't cut it. I did the following on flat bench as my first exercise:
135x15
185x12
225x8
275x6
315 5,4,3,3

then 225 for 16 reps for fun
you can check out my full workout at straighttothebar.com or on my tmuscle training log

My next exercise was DB incline.... but I am left with doing higher rep sets with the 95lbs.... so I ended up stealing this blurted out idea from Andrew Lewis (current training partner/make huge project) and threw one 5lb mini chain on each dumbbell, to make them both 100lbs, shown below.



Which I had to hold like a fat bar and produced hands looking like the following:I got them for two sets of six after hitting just the 95's for two sets of six... so next week I will just train with these for my second exercise.

My point being... make the most of what you have, add something crazy to the DB's if they aren't heavy enough, get stronger, and beat your hands up.

If we can't get new, heavier dumbbells due to university budget issues, at least I can borrow my buddy Seth's ipod...

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