On to the substance! My dear college associate Smegma Von Grundle (actual name) heigh hos me for a solid routine and purports that he has up to five (5!) days to commit to the gym. This makes my heart explode with joy, too often people come to Zoids asking for a 2 day workout that will turn them into Ed Coan.
The product of 2 training days per weekVon Grundle wanted a routine to do in a shitty gym, and so the Shitty Gym Dumbbell Workout ((C) Adam Goldberg 2008) was born. A lot of this may seem repetitive...but hey, fuck you buddy.
I can imagine the place Grundle is forced to exercise and I shudder because it's probably nothing more than a lot of machines and a paltry assortment of dumbbells. Regardless, I am positive I can provide a routine that is awesome because I am awesome, and no shitty weight room will stand in the way of iron progress.
Anyway, the key to your workout will be to use those dumbbells as much as possible. Machines blow, I don't want Grundle to use any machines if at all possible. The key to getting strong is, and always has been, "maximum strain." I harp about this constantly, whatever exercise puts the largest amount of your body into the largest amount of peak strain is the best exercise. I like to use the chinups vs. pullups debate to elucidate this maxim. People can usually chin a lot more than they pullup, but the consensus has always been that this is because you use more of your biceps when you do a chin and therefore you aren't working out your lats as much (which is the goal of the movement). This is clearly fallacious reasoning because when you chin more weight, you are placing your entire chain of muscles from your lats to your forearms into a larger amount of strain. The more you tear your muscles, the more they grow. Biceps will always be the weak muscle in that chain, so why wouldn't you perform the exercise that allows them to hang on the longest? Your biceps are certainly not stronger than your lats, so fears over training your biceps more in an exercise that primarily involve the lats are completely misguided and nonsensical.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling. With 5 days, Grundle can get a very balanced workout. I don't really know anything about his body type so I'll give him a good solid general template that is sure to work. I just want to mention a few things before I go into the details. First, I hope he is eating well. By eating well, I just mean eating a lot of protein. It is absolutely imperative that Grundle consumes at least 1 gram per lb of body weight. This goes before anything else. I suggest several scoops of whey per day. Also, I know his goal is "general fitness," which may preclude some cardio, but always bear in mind that cardio is the arch enemy of muscle growth. It is possible to get totally ripped and never touch hisrunning shoes, it just requires a fairly strict diet. So he can add cardio to this routine if he must, but remember that a real tough weight workout burns more calories than a 5 mile run, and runner bodies are gross.
THE SHITTY GYM DUMBBELL WORKOUT (C) Adam Goldberg 2008
Day 1 Legs, Abs
Day 2 Chest, Back
Day 3 Shoulders, Arms
Day 4 Crossfit, Abs
Day 5 Chest, Back
Day 6 Boozing
Day 7 Xbox
Seem repetitive? It's supposed to be. Train the biggest muscles the most, little ones will be forced to catch up, you don't necessarily need to train them every day to achieve the same goal. I can't help but mercilessly mock guys in the gym who curl endlessly for an hour 3 times a week in a desperate bid to increase their arms. Remember, its all about PEAK strain to the LARGEST amount of your body. Want to train your arms? deadlift. There are no men who deadlift 600 lbs with small biceps!
Anyway, the key to getting strong is and always has been constant punishment of the legs. As the largest muscle group in your body (by far), training your legs stimulates ridiculous testosterone production which helps out all of your muscles. Find me a guy who can't get strong on bench and I'll show you guy who doesn't squat. However, we have a problem, and that is Grundle's shitty gym has no squat rack. He can make do, but this really blows. Even though there is no rack, he shouldn't touch the goddamn machines. Use dumbbells. Sure, you'll probably be limited by your grip, but hey, his grip will get stronger. Also, Grundle can bend nails.
Grundle mentioned taking the weekend off, and I don't blame him However, I'd urge him to maybe stick one day off in the middle of this routine. It's pretty intense and his body may need the rest.
Day 1 Legs, Abs
1) Dumbbell Lunges, 4 sets of 6 (6 per leg). Make sure to keep the trunk erect and lower yourself until your knee almost touches the ground
2) Dumbbell Stiff leg or Romanian deadlift, 4 sets of 10. Check the interwebs for a definition of these lifts, then just use dumbbells
3) Incline sit up, 4 sets of 10 with as much weight as you can do. Let the grip recover here, and don't do reps! You don't need to do endless crunches to get strong abs. The key is weight!
4) Dumbbell Squat, 4 sets of 6. Heavy weight. Probably going to be grip limited.
5) Roman chair lifts. Hopefully he's got a chair or something you can do these on, otherwise he may have to do gay leg raises. 4 sets of to failure.
Day 2 Chest, Back
1) Dumbbell Bench, 5 sets of 6-8
2) Lat pull down or chins. I don't know if or how many chins he can do, so if he can't do chins use the pull down machine. If hecan, try and get 4 or 5 sets to 1 or 2 reps before failure
3) Dumbbell Flye, 4 sets of 10
4) Dumbbell Bent over row, 4 sets of 8
Days 3 Shoulders, Arms
1) Standing Dumbbell Press, 4 sets of 8. You have got to do these standing! People will cheat so much if they do them seated, don't lie and say it won't happen. Everyone who does them seated cheats and turns it into an incline press. Do them standing. It's a good balance workout or some shit. Anyway, make sure these are done all the way down. In fact, all these exercises NEED and MUST be done to the limits of your flexibility, which means touch the chest on bench and back, get your ass to the ground in squats, and contract the arms all the way for shoulders. Don't
cheat! Anyone who tells you that this shit will injure you is either a pussy, a liar, a dumbass....or a trainer. Listen to me, those guys are idiots. Do everything as far as comfortable and remember the effort you put in is equal to the results you get out.
2) Seated Incline Curls, 3 sets of 8. I hate curls. they are so useless. But I'll throw in this bone.
3) Dumbbell front raise, 4 sets of 10.
4) Tate press, 4 sets of 10. Do a google search for this one, words fail me in attempting to describe this exercise.
Day 4 Crossfit, Abs
I don't know if our readership has ever heard of crossfit, but basically it's a bunch of crazy weirdos who wave around weights until their hearts explode. I like crossfit because it is essentially a cardio workout for the lifter, and I never have to touch a damn treadmill. Also, some of their shit is so unbelievably hard it will make you see god. Here are a couple things Grundle can do on day 4, scale them up with weights and reps as proficiency comes.
Dumbbell Bear:
Every minute on the minute for 20 minutes perform: 5 dumbbell squats, 5 dumbbell cleans, 5 dumbbell thrusters. Perform this with 50% your bodyweight, but that may be a bit optimistic, I am still at 40% BW and STRUGGLING. So try 25s for the first time around. Good description and video.
-or-
Man-makers:
I'd do a google search to find out what exactly these entail, it's a bit difficult to do so in text. Try 4-6 sets of 25lbs for 6 reps, adjust according to how sick they make you feel.
-then-
2) Incline sit-up - same as day 1
3) Upper abs, you can try something like bosu ball sit ups or my favorite the serratus crunch
sets of 10 with whatever weight you can manage.
Day 5 Chest, Back redux
1) Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, 4 sets of 8
2) Pull down with the opposite grip you did on day 2. If you did pullup, do chins...vice versa.
3) Decline Dummbell Flye, 4 sets of 10
4) A different row from day 2. 4 sets of 8. If they have a seated cable row, do that, and try and pick a different grip this time (wide).
5) Hyperextensions, 4 sets of 10 with as much weight as you can bear.
Just remember..
1) Don't use machines
2) Eat lots of animals
3) Go deep and use full range of motion on everything
4) Try not to do cardio.
5) Don't ever sacrifice the workout of a larger muscle for a smaller one. For example, don't save yourself on chest so that you can get in a killer curl workout.
6) Fall in love with legs
I can imagine the place Grundle is forced to exercise and I shudder because it's probably nothing more than a lot of machines and a paltry assortment of dumbbells. Regardless, I am positive I can provide a routine that is awesome because I am awesome, and no shitty weight room will stand in the way of iron progress.
Anyway, the key to your workout will be to use those dumbbells as much as possible. Machines blow, I don't want Grundle to use any machines if at all possible. The key to getting strong is, and always has been, "maximum strain." I harp about this constantly, whatever exercise puts the largest amount of your body into the largest amount of peak strain is the best exercise. I like to use the chinups vs. pullups debate to elucidate this maxim. People can usually chin a lot more than they pullup, but the consensus has always been that this is because you use more of your biceps when you do a chin and therefore you aren't working out your lats as much (which is the goal of the movement). This is clearly fallacious reasoning because when you chin more weight, you are placing your entire chain of muscles from your lats to your forearms into a larger amount of strain. The more you tear your muscles, the more they grow. Biceps will always be the weak muscle in that chain, so why wouldn't you perform the exercise that allows them to hang on the longest? Your biceps are certainly not stronger than your lats, so fears over training your biceps more in an exercise that primarily involve the lats are completely misguided and nonsensical.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling. With 5 days, Grundle can get a very balanced workout. I don't really know anything about his body type so I'll give him a good solid general template that is sure to work. I just want to mention a few things before I go into the details. First, I hope he is eating well. By eating well, I just mean eating a lot of protein. It is absolutely imperative that Grundle consumes at least 1 gram per lb of body weight. This goes before anything else. I suggest several scoops of whey per day. Also, I know his goal is "general fitness," which may preclude some cardio, but always bear in mind that cardio is the arch enemy of muscle growth. It is possible to get totally ripped and never touch hisrunning shoes, it just requires a fairly strict diet. So he can add cardio to this routine if he must, but remember that a real tough weight workout burns more calories than a 5 mile run, and runner bodies are gross.
THE SHITTY GYM DUMBBELL WORKOUT (C) Adam Goldberg 2008
Day 1 Legs, Abs
Day 2 Chest, Back
Day 3 Shoulders, Arms
Day 4 Crossfit, Abs
Day 5 Chest, Back
Day 6 Boozing
Day 7 Xbox
Seem repetitive? It's supposed to be. Train the biggest muscles the most, little ones will be forced to catch up, you don't necessarily need to train them every day to achieve the same goal. I can't help but mercilessly mock guys in the gym who curl endlessly for an hour 3 times a week in a desperate bid to increase their arms. Remember, its all about PEAK strain to the LARGEST amount of your body. Want to train your arms? deadlift. There are no men who deadlift 600 lbs with small biceps!
Anyway, the key to getting strong is and always has been constant punishment of the legs. As the largest muscle group in your body (by far), training your legs stimulates ridiculous testosterone production which helps out all of your muscles. Find me a guy who can't get strong on bench and I'll show you guy who doesn't squat. However, we have a problem, and that is Grundle's shitty gym has no squat rack. He can make do, but this really blows. Even though there is no rack, he shouldn't touch the goddamn machines. Use dumbbells. Sure, you'll probably be limited by your grip, but hey, his grip will get stronger. Also, Grundle can bend nails.
Grundle mentioned taking the weekend off, and I don't blame him However, I'd urge him to maybe stick one day off in the middle of this routine. It's pretty intense and his body may need the rest.
Day 1 Legs, Abs
1) Dumbbell Lunges, 4 sets of 6 (6 per leg). Make sure to keep the trunk erect and lower yourself until your knee almost touches the ground
2) Dumbbell Stiff leg or Romanian deadlift, 4 sets of 10. Check the interwebs for a definition of these lifts, then just use dumbbells
3) Incline sit up, 4 sets of 10 with as much weight as you can do. Let the grip recover here, and don't do reps! You don't need to do endless crunches to get strong abs. The key is weight!
4) Dumbbell Squat, 4 sets of 6. Heavy weight. Probably going to be grip limited.
5) Roman chair lifts. Hopefully he's got a chair or something you can do these on, otherwise he may have to do gay leg raises. 4 sets of to failure.
Day 2 Chest, Back
1) Dumbbell Bench, 5 sets of 6-8
2) Lat pull down or chins. I don't know if or how many chins he can do, so if he can't do chins use the pull down machine. If hecan, try and get 4 or 5 sets to 1 or 2 reps before failure
3) Dumbbell Flye, 4 sets of 10
4) Dumbbell Bent over row, 4 sets of 8
Days 3 Shoulders, Arms
1) Standing Dumbbell Press, 4 sets of 8. You have got to do these standing! People will cheat so much if they do them seated, don't lie and say it won't happen. Everyone who does them seated cheats and turns it into an incline press. Do them standing. It's a good balance workout or some shit. Anyway, make sure these are done all the way down. In fact, all these exercises NEED and MUST be done to the limits of your flexibility, which means touch the chest on bench and back, get your ass to the ground in squats, and contract the arms all the way for shoulders. Don't
cheat! Anyone who tells you that this shit will injure you is either a pussy, a liar, a dumbass....or a trainer. Listen to me, those guys are idiots. Do everything as far as comfortable and remember the effort you put in is equal to the results you get out.
2) Seated Incline Curls, 3 sets of 8. I hate curls. they are so useless. But I'll throw in this bone.
3) Dumbbell front raise, 4 sets of 10.
4) Tate press, 4 sets of 10. Do a google search for this one, words fail me in attempting to describe this exercise.
Day 4 Crossfit, Abs
I don't know if our readership has ever heard of crossfit, but basically it's a bunch of crazy weirdos who wave around weights until their hearts explode. I like crossfit because it is essentially a cardio workout for the lifter, and I never have to touch a damn treadmill. Also, some of their shit is so unbelievably hard it will make you see god. Here are a couple things Grundle can do on day 4, scale them up with weights and reps as proficiency comes.
Dumbbell Bear:
Every minute on the minute for 20 minutes perform: 5 dumbbell squats, 5 dumbbell cleans, 5 dumbbell thrusters. Perform this with 50% your bodyweight, but that may be a bit optimistic, I am still at 40% BW and STRUGGLING. So try 25s for the first time around. Good description and video.
-or-
Man-makers:
I'd do a google search to find out what exactly these entail, it's a bit difficult to do so in text. Try 4-6 sets of 25lbs for 6 reps, adjust according to how sick they make you feel.
-then-
2) Incline sit-up - same as day 1
3) Upper abs, you can try something like bosu ball sit ups or my favorite the serratus crunch
sets of 10 with whatever weight you can manage.
Day 5 Chest, Back redux
1) Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, 4 sets of 8
2) Pull down with the opposite grip you did on day 2. If you did pullup, do chins...vice versa.
3) Decline Dummbell Flye, 4 sets of 10
4) A different row from day 2. 4 sets of 8. If they have a seated cable row, do that, and try and pick a different grip this time (wide).
5) Hyperextensions, 4 sets of 10 with as much weight as you can bear.
Just remember..
1) Don't use machines
2) Eat lots of animals
3) Go deep and use full range of motion on everything
4) Try not to do cardio.
5) Don't ever sacrifice the workout of a larger muscle for a smaller one. For example, don't save yourself on chest so that you can get in a killer curl workout.
6) Fall in love with legs
1 comment:
upon completion of day one my legs feel like rubber. i am pleased with this. i was not pleased to learn that whey protein will cost me like $1 per shake but at least my shitty gym is free. also, the shitty gym has no roman chair or any chair at all so gay leg raises it is for now.
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