Spec me some exercise!

mistercrabb · 16 Sep 2010 at 19:14

Hi all,
I posted here quite a while ago to do with fitness, and got pointed along the HIIT route for cardio training.
Fell out of practise, but now Im going to get back into it again, however I would also like to work on a bit of upper body muscle gain.

First though, HIIT on the running machine should take 15-20 minutes, apparently. Now, does that time include warmup/cooldown? Because that would make it 5m warmup, 5-10m HIIT, 5m cooldown.

Nextishly, I'd like some upper body strength. My legs take care of themselves because I ride MTB a lot, so Im just looking for arms/shoulders/back/abs (I think?).
I can't go to the gym as nobody wants to go with me (lazy sods), so I was thinking of getting some Dumbbells and training with them.
Can anybody recommend me some adjustable weighted dumbbells that don't cost the earth?
Also what exercises should I be doing? Was thinking of doing press ups because they are also good for core strength apparently.

Cheers,

Rob

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 19:21

Hmm. I'll get it out of the way first, MTB is not enough. If you are going to train, train your legs.
Go read the sticky.

Now that's out of the way...

Adjustable dumbbells and a Swiss ball is all you need.

Skull · 16 Sep 2010 at 19:54

Morba I remember you mentioning this swiss ball before, really how much weight can they actually take?

DanH84 · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:01

if you're mountain biking often enough that you don't need to work your legs do you really need to worry overly about HIIT or any form of cardio?

Doughnut007 · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:11

You can do a compleat body workout useing just bodyweght exercises.
The only equipment you need is a pullup bar. Bout £12 from argos.

For the exercises and scedual etc check out this

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:21

Skull said:
Morba I remember you mentioning this swiss ball before, really how much weight can they actually take?

Quite a lot! I can lean on mine and bench my 45s comfortably without thought of it going bang

Skull · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:23

You're about 110kg aren't you? Sounds fairly strong.

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:24

Doughnut007 said:
You can do a compleat body workout useing just bodyweght exercises.
The only equipment you need is a pullup bar. Bout £12 from argos.

For the exercises and scedual etc check out this

You can yes, however you will hit a limit very quickly.
Muscle is built through progressive overload.
You can't overload for long with body weight only.

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:24

Skull said:
You're about 110kg aren't you? Sounds fairly strong.

My fat ass is around 130 atm

DanH84 · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:25

Morba said:
You can yes, however you will hit a limit very quickly.
Muscle is built through progressive overload.
You can't overload for long with body weight only.

not strictly true, you can but not maintaining the same moves, change the leverage and difficulty can ramp up madly.

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:26

Oh, there are some awesome things that you can do on a ball if you learn to be stable!

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:26

DanH84 said:
not strictly true, you can but not maintaining the same moves, change the leverage and difficulty can ramp up madly.

There's only so far you can go though before you need to add resistance

Skull · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:27

Morba said:
My fat ass is around 130 atm

Boom, with buttocks that heavy you needn't even squat!

DanH84 · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:29

Morba said:
There's only so far you can go though before you need to add resistance

true but by the time you get to that point you'd be crazy strong anyway. If you took the moves necessary for say gymnastics to their natural limit I think the odds are most people would be fairly content with their condition.

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:30

Skull said:
Boom, with buttocks that heavy you needn't even squat!

Tell me' about it! Makes even light squats heavy haha

crunchman · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:48

DanH84 said:
true but by the time you get to that point you'd be crazy strong anyway. If you took the moves necessary for say gymnastics to their natural limit I think the odds are most people would be fairly content with their condition.

But isn't he wanting to gain mass ?

DanH84 · 16 Sep 2010 at 20:54

you would gain mass? you'd be progressively increasing the resistance, it's not something I do, and it's much simpler in a gym but someone with dedication and an intelligent approach could pack on decent size and strength through body weight work.

mistercrabb · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:33

Thanks all, I shall have to look into leg exercises.
Dumbbells shall be bought, I have had a look at the sticky before but I shall look again...

Any recommendations for the Dumbbells and specific exercises?

And I'd like to keep the cardio going, It stops me getting fat from my office job

Morba · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:54

But you are doing lots of MTB?

DanH84 · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:59

chest press, standing shoulder press, bent over row, you could do pullovers as well I guess, shrugs, farmers walks, squats with progression to increase difficulty, lunges. if you get the pull up bar then pull ups obviously.

Then get someone with some idea to come round and show you how, and then watch you, clean, jerk, and snatch.