Back Exercises
Chin-ups - Chin-ups are a great upper
body workout, particularly targeting your biceps, deltoid
and lat muscles. Use a doorway chin-up bar, ceiling rafters
in a garage or grab the moulding of your door frame, position
your hands with an under hand grip and hang down stretching
the lats, slowly raise your body until your chin reaches
the bar level.
Pause a moment before slowly lowering yourself back to
the starting position. Don’t swing or use momentum
to get your body to the top, just use the target muscles.
Doorway chinning bars remove from the doorway when you are
not using them and can be put up and taken down in seconds.
Bent Over Row - Take up a position with
your right hand and right knee braced on a sturdy bed or
some other flat surface that will provide a good support.
Now pick up a dumbbell or something heavy that you can hold
onto with your left hand.
Visualize your arms as hooks and slowly bring the dumbbell
or object up to the side of your chest, keeping your back
straight, then lower the weight back down to arms length,
no lower, on extremes, safe form only please. Concentrate
on your back muscles. Reverse the whole procedure and do
the exercise now with your right arm.
Chest Exercises
Push-Up - The push up is used for building
chest, shoulders and arms. Lie face down on the floor with
your hands about shoulder width apart and keeping your palms
turned slightly inward. Now push-up until your arms are
straight, lower and repeat for repetitions.
To make it more difficult elevate your feet. Try placing
the toes of your feet on a stable, elevated surface such
as a bench, chair or a stair. Straightening your body, position
your hands on the floor at shoulder width, lower your body
until your chest touches the floor at the bottom, and then
return to the starting position in a nice fluid motion.
Dips - This exercise can be done between
two sturdy chairs or other surfaces that provide stability.
The dip is another great upper body exercise. It’s
a compound movement as well and involves working all the
muscles that the push up works.
Keep your head up and body as vertical as possible. For
the beginning of the movement, start at the top (arms fully
extended) and lower yourself until your upper arms are parallel
to the seat of the chairs, hold and then push up to the
top of the movement until your arms are fully extended again.
Keep looking straight ahead and don’t bounce at the
bottom of the movement.
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Adding Weight to Your Workout
Although the simple weight of your own body is enough resistance
to provide an effective workout we need progressive overload
(added resistance) to become stronger.
So all we need to do is add some weight wherever we can
find some. Because there are no metal plates and fancy machines
to use it doesn’t matter because the body doesn’t
care where it is as long as it's receiving resistance of
some kind.
You can use heavy books clasped in your hands. You can
buy some cheap weighted dumbbells or ankle weights. A weighted
vest will also allow you to add resistance for both chin-ups
and push-ups. Try to buy one that will let you remove and
add weight as you see fit. Also a backpack filled with books
can be perfect for most of the exercises and is a cheap
alternative.
How about a couple of buckets and fill them with a certain
level of water? As you get stronger fill them with more
water. This is perfect because depending on the exercise,
all you need to do is to increase or decrease the amount
of water in the buckets for the required amount of resistance.
To wrap things up…
We know that using free weights and machines are the fastest
and most efficient way there is to gain lean muscle and
strength, but by performing the exercises in this article
you’ll find that they will provide you with the same
benefits as going to a gymnasium but without the ongoing
costs and time constraints.
>> Click here for Pete Sisco's Maximum Strength Program
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