Jaekus wrote:
Yeah, home gym. I currently own a set of dumbbells, a barbell, a flat bench and an incline bench. Also have a pull up bar (can't even do one lol! - using a chair for aid) and an exercise matt for my ab routine.
I'm just focussing on form at the moment as I'm new to barbells (only started using it when I bought it last Friday). I've upped my dumbbells to about 6kg for a lot of exercises, which I'm getting to 12 reps on. I'm going to up those ones a bit more next week, see how I go on 8 reps of 7.5kg.
The big thing for me is to lose the belly fat. I'm getting better at the ab exercises but the belly fat was going, and now it seems to have stalled. Maybe I'm just looking for results too soon. I'm trying to gain muscle whilst losing fat at the same time, something I've read is hard to do? I've taken a few pics and noticed slight change over 4 weeks. I did have a week off and at a few too many carbs and beers over that weekend. Diet is back on track now though.
When I can afford it I'm going to buy some 10kg plates for the barbell, and a squat rack. I tried lifting the barbell up and over onto my back last week, but found that if I made the weight greater I'd also risk injury. Safety first.
To get the right height for the bar when deadlifting with smaller weights, use this technique:
And yes, building muscle while trying to shave off fat isn't the easiest to do, but it should be quite doable when you have excess fat. Ab exercises might make your belly a bit more tight, but it won't make the fat go away, this is where the cardio comes in (you do HIIT, right?).
About the pullups - don't worry about them! When I first started out I had trouble doing 3 in a row, now I can easily do 20 with strict form. It's a good thing you're using the chair, you can use it to get to the highest point and then drop down as slow as possible (= eccentric movement), keep doing this and you should be able to manage a clean pull-up in no time!
About the squat rack. I'd never dare to do a squat without a proper squat/power-rack. That said, the weights would be to hard to jerk on my back anyway. Look for a power- or squat rack somewhere
By the way, don't sweat (?) your diet that much. It's a good thing you're making a conscious effort to maintain a healthier (and better!) lifestyle, so rewards are in place, to a certain degree
Sounds like you're doing great, keep it up mate!
Last edited by Jebus (2010-12-23 15:13:15)
