Free Weight Exercises!

[Gilroye]

OK I need a hand!
I have two 10k Dumbells, 2 and two 5kg dumbells
I need to some exercises to build strength not bulk.
I'm only doing shoulder press, bicep curls, tricep curls and flys. Maybe the odd lat pull too.
I do weights after running.
All ideas appreciated, especially if to do with Core strengthening.

[SkinnyDevil]

Sounds great. Maybe some rows, weighted squats & calf raises & lunges.

[HIT_it_RAW]

You could do the usual dumbell exercises. You will build some strength but very soon those 10k's are going to be way to little to produce any kind of overload. Heavy work for the legs should always be part of any tranings shedule desinged to improve strength and this is simply inpossible with those small dumbs. Sorry dont mean to temper your enthousiasm...

Weighted squats (heavy backpack with lots of weight(books)!!)
1 legg calf raises with dumbell in hand.
Chins
dumbell rows
Fly's
dumbell standing presses
Side raises
Dips (on two chairs)
biceps curls
triceps extension

That about all thats possible with your equipment. Of course all to failure, little rest as possible between excersises and stick to this order(largest muscles first) Lunges are dangerous for the knees so I wouldn't advice doing those.

[achillezzz]

Hey hit it raw long time no see bro!!  Why lunges are dangerous for the knees?

[HIT_it_RAW]

Hey hit it raw long time no see bro!!  Why lunges are dangerous for the knees?

Yeah I was otherwise occupied for some time. Got kicked out of my house so I just moved. Had to do a lot of work to make my new home winterproof. The good part is that I finally have a garden to start growing my own veggies and possibly raise some chicken. Anyways lunges are almost inpossible to do wothout momentum thus create high level impact forces. At the low point the forces inside the upper knee are very great. Because the knee is bent 90degrees or more the moment arm factor of the quadriceps is very great meaning that the quadriceps needs to generate very much force to initiate the movement because the angle of pull is wrong most of the force in not being used to straighten the leg but is absorbed by the already stressed knee joint. Add to that the impact force generated by the inertia of the body reversing its derection of movement and injuries are lurking nearby.

[billy4184]

There's a lot you can do with bodyweight. If you can do 20 handstand pushups, 20 pull-ups and 100 pushups, I salute you. That's my goal.

[HIT_it_RAW]

There's a lot you can do with bodyweight. If you can do 20 handstand pushups, 20 pull-ups and 100 pushups, I salute you. That's my goal.

Yes but it is very relative. A very skinny severely underweight individual may be able to do 100push ups because of its low bodyweight. Whereas someone heavier, who is actually much stronger, cannot do 100. Adding weight to your exercises increases the intensity of the exercise and therefore stimulates strength increases. One could be able to do 100 pushups and be a frail little man or one could be huge. The huge man no doubt has also done heavier, intenser exercise to stimulate muscular growth. Both can do the same bodyweight performance but both are not equal. The larger man has also much stronger bones, tendons, ligaments etc because he has subjected them to higher forces and the body reacts by increasing their strenght. Thus the larger man has a greatly reduced risk of injuring himself.

Bodyweight exercises have their value but only up to a point. If you can do more than 10-15 reps add weight to continue to trigger strenght increases in all tissues of the body.

[billy4184]

Yes but it is very relative. A very skinny severely underweight individual may be able to do 100push ups because of its low bodyweight.

I do pushups because I like the high reps.

Its handstand pushups and pull-ups/chinups that give good growth. I know few people who can do even 15 of either, and the ones on youtube that can are pretty buff. But if you want massive growth, then by all means go to the gym. If I was you, I would get to at least 15 with the hardest bodyweight exercises before I picked up the weights.
Cheers

[HIT_it_RAW]

Dont get me wrong chins, dips, (handstand)pushups are good exercises. Up to a point. than one should add weight. But this is still limited to the upper body. Name me one bodyweight exercise that wil produce significant growth in the legs. There is none. I can do 15 chins wich is rather hard but even 100 unweighted squats is not hard. Tireing sure but not hard, not intense. Weighted squats, chins, dips and either standing barbell presses or handstands pushupp will greatly increase muscular strenght and bulk. Probably rather close to ones max potential. However unweighted those same exercises wil only produce limited growth wich will manly be restricted to the upper body.

[billy4184]

True, there's no really difficult exercise for the lower body, but I think naturally the upper body is lacking in a sedentary lifestyle. We still do a lot of walking around but very rarely pull ourselves up trees in our daily lives. I rarely see puny legs but I've seen a lot of puny arms.
I agree 100% that if you're looking for serious growth, bodyweight cannot do it for you. But if you want to be cut, lean and have some good muscle, sort of like the beach body look, then I think bodyweight (and diet of course) can take you a long way.
Cheers

[Raw Kyle]

[HIT_it_RAW]

Advertising is an old game. So is fraud. Same BS as Charles Atlas who claimed to only use his own body to build muscle. Later in court he confessed to having used barbells to "test" his strength 2-3 times a week. He still claimed that had nothing to do with his strength that was of course produced by his "secret" training method dynamic tensioning...BS.

A single glance at this man's legs makes it obvious that he must have used some form of heavy weights to train his legs. Be it a barbell, a rock, a tree or whatever.

[KD]

Let me attack it this way: just for the 'simple' goal of doing 20 handstand pushups and 20 deadhang pulls you are not going to want to just do handstand pushups and pullups. You'll get there much more efficiently doing overhead press, weighted pullup, deadlift, powercleans and possibly more isolated exercises like curls and shoulder work. There are also various tricks to enhance your core for that which are BW exercises like hollow rocks and wall running for HSPU. These in turn might aid with the heavier exercises etc...

Here is some more talk about which exercises can buttress even gains in BW stuff like handstand pushups
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/journals/ramblings-of-a-madman/msg77581/#msg77581

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A place like cross-fit does air squats, handstand pushups, deadhang pull, pushups , burpees, pistols etc... as a significant portion of their program, but this is only in conjunction with heavy lifts, powerlifting etc... One doesn't have to ascribe to their model completely to realize that just doing BW exercises does not stress your body in the same way. This is not just to produce MORE muscle growth or size but general fitness. Its not about which things are possible with only BW (look at someone like Matt Fury who claims(ed) 3 specific bodyweight exercise: hindu squat, bridge, hindu-pushup) are all one needs for non-combat exercise) but which things work the best.

I'm not sure myself what the answer is, I know I disagree with HIT to some degree in many exercises or approaches being useless (say like kettlebells or some high rep things) but the idea that BW strength or fitness equates to powerlifting and the like is just not accurate. it isn't limited to abstracts about which kind of build one wants. There are indeed some people with great looking builds obviously not having alot of strength and tons of dudes at a gym with big arms but no real legs or core strength or ability to do real function exercise. Also some people with tons of strength per how much BW they can do but not translating strength to other things, or 'poor' builds arguably.

planche push up

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I know just the workout I did the other day that did 100 box jumps and a handful of other exercises and this just ripped my abdomen up like no other heavy deadlift etc... combination I have done lately. My calves throbbing more than heavy calf raises. So my current conclusion is both is needed - and a variety in general of workout methods. but still would say definitively that including heavy lifts is important -regardless of body-type goal- to make consistent progress, and not have a plateau of 'good enough'.

[KD]

as per the original post, I think you can find alot of exercises that you could get mileage out of smaller weights, even ones that are not high rep.

for me ~10 kg is plenty for doing Turkish Get Ups which is a bitch of an exercise. You can do this with free-weight if you aren't going super heavy. Anything involving shoulders being locked out overhead is going to be hell for most people, even strong guys generally that don't have alot of practice with it. Things like overhead squats which are harder with free weights than with a bar.

28 kg Turkish Get Up at 123 lbs bodyweight

Doing step ups on a high step (one where bent knee is completely parallel) using two 10 kg weights shouldn't be extremely easy to warrant 'too many' reps. Adding more weight like mentioned with a backpack could be enough for years growth. Lunges with the same setup should be safe as long as you step far with knee not going too past your foot.

[HIT_it_RAW]

Let me attack it this way: just for the 'simple' goal of doing 20 handstand pushups and 20 deadhang pulls you are not going to want to just do handstand pushups and pullups. You'll get there much more efficiently doing overhead press, weighted pullup, deadlift, powercleans and possibly more isolated exercises like curls and shoulder work.

That I 100% agree with.

I'm not sure myself what the answer is, I know I disagree with HIT to some degree in many exercises or approaches being useless (say like kettlebells or some high rep things) but the idea that BW strength or fitness equates to powerlifting and the like is just not accurate. it isn't limited to abstracts about which kind of build one wants. There are indeed some people with great looking builds obviously not having alot of strength and tons of dudes at a gym with big arms but no real legs or core strength or ability to do real function exercise. Also some people with tons of strength per how much BW they can do but not translating strength to other things, or 'poor' builds arguably.

Those apparent discrepancies can be fully explained by body(part) leverage, muscular fiber type, neuromuscular efficiency and a few other less important factors. A person with very poor leverage may have huge muscles but little functional strength but he needs those large muscles to overcome the bad efficiency of his joint due to leverage factors. Someone with very good leverage factor, great neurological efficiency and mostly fast twitch fibers will be very strong even with small muscles.

I know just the workout I did the other day that did 100 box jumps and a handful of other exercises and this just ripped my abdomen up like no other heavy deadlift etc... combination I have done lately. My calves throbbing more than heavy calf raises. So my current conclusion is both is needed - and a variety in general of workout methods. but still would say definitively that including heavy lifts is important -regardless of body-type goal- to make consistent progress, and not have a plateau of 'good enough'.

As usual we partly agree. To make progress heavy lifts are necessary. Agreed off course. However I don’t think it is necessary to do high rep work, at least not for strength/mass increases. If you can do 100 reps this mean it is not heavy because otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to do so much reps. And if it isn’t heavy, isn’t intense than it is already well within your current level of ability, thus no adaptation is required. Merely repeating the same easy lift doesn’t make this lift heavy thus won’t trigger adaptation. At least not in the form of strength increases. You might get some cardiovascular benefit from it since its tiring. It starts to feel heavy at some point but that’s because you get buildup of lactic acids and muscle-glycogen is being depleted.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by “ripped my abdomen up like no other heavy deadlift etc…” Does that mean you had some pump and tired feeling in your abdomen? Sounds plausible due to heavy breathing and stabilizing your core during those jumps. But if it was intense enough to trigger growth..? I doubt it very much. Anyway my abdomen never get ripped from deadlifts since those don’t target the abdominal muscles, not directly anyway. The lower back muscles do the work in the core in this particular exercise the abs merely assist a bit for balance.

Doing step ups on a high step (one where bent knee is completely parallel) using two 10 kg weights shouldn't be extremely easy to warrant 'too many' reps. Adding more weight like mentioned with a backpack could be enough for years growth. Lunges with the same setup should be safe as long as you step far with knee not going too past your foot.

Years of growth indeed. That same amount of growth can also happen in a few months by doing much heavier exercise using a barbell and a few machines.

[KD]

I guess it doesn't seem to matter how much we agree or have similar personal approaches. As usual the point is your theory about what is necessary or unnecessary is as incorrect as saying BW exercises are efficient and sufficient. Everybody might get results following any approach, but to say in various instances that higher reps CAN'T trump lower reps and heavier weights for a desired result is outright false. These things just function differently and should be exploited as such. That said NOT doing high reps of course is OK and sufficient to build real strength and size...but other kinds of workouts have their place and CAN be superior for various things.

as for jumping up on a box, this is a non-weighted exercise thus can't be improved upon or made more intense - 'low rep' except through height. I've done alot of weighted lateral jumping and the risk of jumping upward with weights hitting a target height is insanely dangerous. On top of that it is unnecessary as boxjumps are far better for abs as well as working other exercises (calves) than any kind of other exercise I have come across. If someone like me is actually doing barbell lifts or any other kind of possible workout, these kind of high-rep exercises augment those workouts. by ripped I mean days following of pain and recovery across every aspect of the abdomen as opposed to rarely having such extensive super sore muscle groups after doing just heavy lifts OR even doing the higher more draining jumps which I can only do 10-15 or so comfortably. Its just an example of how in this case high reps caused more end stress and gains.

As for step ups, these are weighted exercises. Years of growth meaning constant growth with that exercise alone. That with continually adding weights to these, as with weighted bodyweight like chins or dips one can actually circumvent alot of barbell lifts if they wanted (real powerlifters doing other free-weighted leg work periodically instead of squats for instance). The combination WITH barbell lifts being likely closer to an ideal than BW or machines or lifting alone.

[HIT_it_RAW]

when i say high reps i mean things like 100 pushups not 20chins. the latter, if failure is reached at the 20th rep, has real value insofar as increasing strenght is concerned. The former might have cardiovascular and endurance value.

if you make the jump hard enough so you can only do 15 than i'd say its hard and thus usefull if you could do 100.. you get the idea

i would never ever dream of doing any weighted excercise explosive. thats just begging for injuries.

what you describe as ripped is how my entire body feels after every workout. abs included.

we both know each other position on this subject. Let us agree that we disagree before we get stuck in an perputual motion.

[KD]

Well sure, but the idea that if failure is induced at 20 pulls that 100 has no strength value (other than cardio and endurance) as the end all be all of working out is what you are going to have to give up to be taken seriously. This idea that anything beyond a certain number of reps becomes detrimental is one of many philosophies on paper constantly being overturned in the real world. like with convincing BW folks, just because something is workable doesn't mean something else is unnecessary or detrimental. You need to prove it. I've done crossfit workouts that involve pullup after pullup after pullup interspersed with other exercises, doing so many that after awhile 2 or 3 was pure pain. . These workouts by far were more challenging and yielded better STRENGTH gains (not just cardio) then anything I've been able to rig up with lifts and low reps alone.

Anecdotally doing the standard powerlifting 3,3,3,3,3 or whatever variations indeed are always going to work better for serious strength which is why those are standard with people lifting way more than either of us. Perhaps at a certain point you will reach plateus with your own approach and be arguing something else entirely...you never know. I like doing the 1 set thing but really is not generally more challenging for me nor would ever argue it as any better than anything else I've done nor would I try to argue what is clearly working for other people. I will argue with lifts as superior vs BW, but If the pure BW people can show me they can do heavy overhead squats, deadlifts, bench and the like...then its another story.

Whether they are necessary or not, high rep workouts do have the ability to build STRENGTH (not just endurance or cardio) and in cases better than 1 set up to failure. If we are talking what to do as the core of a strength approach, Iower rep higher weight is likely going to win out as most efficient. But painting them ONLY as conditioning is not accurate as they can allow for better strength gains, particularly when part of an otherwise reasonable program. My point seems more agreeable, that many approaches are workable, and that you need to compare which ones are going to be right for which goals.  That there isn't going to be a single package that works the best all the time, only factors that are more often more correct.

[billy4184]

It all depends on what you're looking for. If you want bulk, then hit the gym, if not, then maybe bodyweight is right for you.

I have nothing against weights and where they can take you, but personally I enjoy very much the feeling I get from doing bodyweight exercises, rather than hauling weights around and I especially get no reward from isolation exercises. When I do pullups and dips and handstand pushups I feel like a monkey swinging from tree to tree.

When I get to 20 handstand and 20 pullups I'll post a pic. When I get to 50 of each I'll post another pic.
Cheers

[Raw Kyle]

A single glance at this man's legs makes it obvious that he must have used some form of heavy weights to train his legs. Be it a barbell, a rock, a tree or whatever.

What is that image advertising for? It's probably a promo for Gama wrestling guys in England, not for his workout routine or gym. Josh Koscheck, a pretty powerful wrestler in the 170 lb division of the UFC, said he doesn't really lift weights, that it's overrated for building muscle and that body on body contact is the best way to build real strength. I imagine that's what Gama did, Hindu squats and driving into guys during wrestling. Also he's naturally stocky so him doing Hindu squats would be yield different results than someone naturally lanky.

I'm not bashing weights but to claim that you know this or that guy is lying about their workout routine is a little strong.

[Fermenter Zym]

Dont get me wrong chins, dips, (handstand)pushups are good exercises. Up to a point. than one should add weight. But this is still limited to the upper body. Name me one bodyweight exercise that wil produce significant growth in the legs. There is none. I can do 15 chins wich is rather hard but even 100 unweighted squats is not hard. Tireing sure but not hard, not intense. Weighted squats, chins, dips and either standing barbell presses or handstands pushupp will greatly increase muscular strenght and bulk. Probably rather close to ones max potential. However unweighted those same exercises wil only produce limited growth wich will manly be restricted to the upper body.

I agree from personal experience. I used to do a lot of "bartending" (working out in parks doing pullups and body weight exercises on jungle gym equipment like these guys Bartendaz At It Again

but I didn't notice much improvement in muscular tone until I started hitting weights hard at the gym. Some of the body weight exercises the bartendaz do require a lot of initial strength to even make it a worthwhile workout. With weights you can start at whatever weight and increase it to always max out.

Interestingly enough (and probably not surprising to most people here) I didn't reach my ideal body weight until I started eating raw paleo. At different points over the past two years I have looked both emaciated or overweight from chronic disease, but only after eating raw for two weeks I'm at a body weight in which I look thin and fit.