Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 What John said. All you're doing with press ups is increasing your endurance. You won't build muscle by purely doing press ups. If press ups are all you can do for now, try adding weight. Stick a rucksack on with something heavy in (anything, rocks if you lke, as long as you can add to it every week). And try elevating your feet while you do it (feet on a chair, hands on the floor, for example). THat'll make it feel heavier and also hit the chest from a slightly different angle. As John said, i fyou're interested in building muscle, you need to do weights, not just push ups. If you are only interested in increasing your endurance and doing more and more press ups, then take a gander at this That's a pretty decent program for getting yourself up to 100 consecutive pressups. Think it supposedly takes about 6 weeks, but that's probably from complete n00b to 100 press ups, so you might do it in less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 ok then say I did decide that I wanted to move onto weights (doubt I will but I am kind of condering it) how do I know what to buy to start with and how much do they typically cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 It entirely depends on what you do. But I'd say it'll cost quite a lot. The absolute minimum would be a dumbell set and a bench, but even those won't be that cheap and will take up room. I'd say have a look round here and see if you can find one of those beginner workouts that takes your fancy and that only uses equipment you could afford/store. However, I'd say it would be cheaper and more convenient to join a gym than it would be to buy your own stuff, especially in the short term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 I'm not dead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 to be honest the gym doesnt interest me at all, dont like the thought of having to do shit in front of other people, used to go when I was younger and the ammount of dickheads that you used to get in there was quite frankly unbelievable my main problem is that I am kind of confined to my house to do it, only thing I could do would be to go running but that dont really appeal to me either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 leemond, one thing I've learned is that you can do an amazing amount with just 2 dumbbells. Of the 8 upper-body exercises I do in the gym, I could do 6 of them with dumbbells* and 1 other requires no equipment. The only one you'd have a job emulating is the T-bar. While I do use the bench press, it's not essential. The trouble is I never knew what I was doing until I joined. * Obviously the weight would need to be increaseable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 I'm not dead On that note, I genuinely nearly got stuck under the bar doing Bench Press yesterday. I blame your tweet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 leemond, one thing I've learned is that you can do an amazing amount with just 2 dumbbells. Of the 8 upper-body exercises I do in the gym, I could do 6 of them with dumbbells* and 1 other requires no equipment. The only one you'd have a job emulating is the T-bar. While I do use the bench press, it's not essential. The trouble is I never knew what I was doing until I joined. * Obviously the weight would need to be increaseable. That sounds good, again though any idea how much they cost and what sort of weight I should be starting with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 I'd say you'd be looking at £50 ish for a decent set of dumbells off ebay. You can get cheaper ones that only go upto 30kg, which woul dbe fine to start. But you may as well invest a bit more and get up to say 50kg. You'd have to be in decent shape to exceed 50kg on a lot of the exercises! Bear in mind you'd really need a bench as well to do the exercises, you could probably pick up a cheap one for 30 quid, again from ebay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante_Lockhart Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 You're a very angry young man Lee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 Adjustable bench and dumbbells on eBay for .... £6 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 Wow, that's cheap (although the DBs are only 10kg, you'd need more weights than that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 Wow, that's cheap (although the DBs are only 10kg, you'd need more weights than that) It's worth it for the bench. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 18, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 18, 2012 Absolutely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 You're a very angry young man Lee. ha, why what have I done now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante_Lockhart Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Just the general way you post, it comes off aggressive. Might just be me. Your rants in the piss me off thread are the same. You've just basically generalised the entire gym culture because of a few 'dickheads' in the gym when you were younger too. Can I ask why you feel like you can't do workouts in front of people and also why you're confined to your house to workout? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 In the things that piss you off thread I just vent in there and often throw a load of swear words in to make it sound like I'm more pissed off than I actually am as for the the gym culture I didn't mean to generalise it but that is just how I feel at the moment, I dont really fancy getting involved in the whole ''monthly payment'' thing because I am not overly serious about it, its just something I am thinking about getting into, and the fact that the gym I used to go to was indeed full of knob heads I could do it in front of other people but I suppose its a bit like playing the guitar I prefer to play my guitar in an empty room rather than having other people around, and I am pretty much confined to my flat to do it as I dont have a garden. again, appologies if my posts come across overly aggresive I am a big loveable hug in a mug really Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 18, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 18, 2012 So will you be driving to Manchester to pick up your new £6 adjustable bench then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted July 24, 2012 Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2012 Not happy with my bicep exercise. I'm going to see if I can get a better one. At the moment I'm sitting back on a 45° bench with arms hanging, bringing both up at the same time. I'm tiring without feeling like the arm has been worked enough. I'd hope and expect that the bicep would feel like it's about to explode afterwards; like my tricep does for it's exercise; but it doesn't feel anything like that and I'm seeing no progress with it either. Other than that, I need to re-visit my bent over dumbbell raise as I think I'm slightly botching the stance/technique. The rest is all good though. Apart from managing to tweak a back muscle when I lost concentration/technique doing my shoulder presses yesterday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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