Exercise thingy (weight training - chest)
PostPosted:Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:59 pm
I've been working out at home a bit for awhile, since I'm not keen on joining a gym at present. The biggest problem I've had is an inability to exercise my chest muscles, since I don't have a bench or heavy dumbbells (all I have, actually, is two 15 and two 25-lb dumbbells, and 2 5-lb weight packs I can strap on my forearms, or calves if necessary.)
I might have just found an exercise that solves that problem. Lying on the floor, I had tried a set of "bench" presses with the 25's, but, not surprisingly, they're not heavy enough to provide any real benefit in that area. Since I used to weight-train in high school and am in fairly good health, I felt reasonably safe exploring some variations from that position.
I wish I had a diagram, but something I ended up finding was:
1. Start lying down, holding dumbbells, with arms fully, though not hyper-, extended (the classic bench press extended position). Palms are facing feet.
2. In a controlled manner, keeping arms at same extension, move arms in an arc, parallel to body, towards head.
3. At about 35-45 degrees off vertical, reverse direction and move arms back to starting position.
4. Twist forearms so palms face each other.
5. Keeping arms at full extension, move arms in an arc, parallel to body, towards feet.
6. At about 35-45 degrees off vertical, reverse direction and move arms back to starting position.
7. Twist forearms so palms face feet again.
2-7 constitutes one rep; do sets as with any other weight training exercise.
Wish I had a diagram to show this...basically, if you imagine the arms, fully extended, making an arc in rotation towards the floor in each direction (as if you were standing up and doing arm circles or similar), you'll probably get the idea.
I swear, I did three of those with a reasonably light weight (25 lbs in each hand) and my chest feels DEAD. Granted, I'd been doing pushups, and I played basketball for two hours today, but I'm still just feeling a wonderful burn. I'll probably try doing this again in two days, then trying some pushups to see how dead my chest really is, but I've never felt a burn like this from any chest exercise before, and I did weight training for about three years in high school. It feels like a burn throughout the whole muscle, sort of as if I'd done incline, decline, and horizontal bench presses all in a row.
Anyone heard of anything similar to this? If this builds muscle the way it feels like it's going to right now, this could be really great for my workout.
I might have just found an exercise that solves that problem. Lying on the floor, I had tried a set of "bench" presses with the 25's, but, not surprisingly, they're not heavy enough to provide any real benefit in that area. Since I used to weight-train in high school and am in fairly good health, I felt reasonably safe exploring some variations from that position.
I wish I had a diagram, but something I ended up finding was:
1. Start lying down, holding dumbbells, with arms fully, though not hyper-, extended (the classic bench press extended position). Palms are facing feet.
2. In a controlled manner, keeping arms at same extension, move arms in an arc, parallel to body, towards head.
3. At about 35-45 degrees off vertical, reverse direction and move arms back to starting position.
4. Twist forearms so palms face each other.
5. Keeping arms at full extension, move arms in an arc, parallel to body, towards feet.
6. At about 35-45 degrees off vertical, reverse direction and move arms back to starting position.
7. Twist forearms so palms face feet again.
2-7 constitutes one rep; do sets as with any other weight training exercise.
Wish I had a diagram to show this...basically, if you imagine the arms, fully extended, making an arc in rotation towards the floor in each direction (as if you were standing up and doing arm circles or similar), you'll probably get the idea.
I swear, I did three of those with a reasonably light weight (25 lbs in each hand) and my chest feels DEAD. Granted, I'd been doing pushups, and I played basketball for two hours today, but I'm still just feeling a wonderful burn. I'll probably try doing this again in two days, then trying some pushups to see how dead my chest really is, but I've never felt a burn like this from any chest exercise before, and I did weight training for about three years in high school. It feels like a burn throughout the whole muscle, sort of as if I'd done incline, decline, and horizontal bench presses all in a row.
Anyone heard of anything similar to this? If this builds muscle the way it feels like it's going to right now, this could be really great for my workout.