In this Introducing series, I’m trying to cover exercises that aren’t run-of-the-mill in all training environments.
That doesn’t mean that you won’t have heard of them but hopefully they won’t be so familiar that there isn’t a tip here somewhere that might help. And as you might expect, most of the tips relate to doing the exercises in the limitations of your own garage gym.
OK, I get the idea. So what have you covered so far?
These are some of the exercises I’ve covered so far, along with the reasons why:
The weighted pistol - I think many people write the pistol off as a bodyweight only exercise (in fact I know they do and it really gets my goat). But it’s actually really simple to load up with dumbbells or kettlebells. The advantage is that you take the load off the lower back while really working the legs. In this post, I link to a number of basic pistol tutorials and show you how to load up easily.
Farmers’ walks - These are under-rated by many people and are actually really hard to do with proper weight. In this post, I’ve covered how to improvise your own farmers’ walk bars quite quickly using easy to obtain climbing equipment.
The assisted glute-ham raise - As I show you in this post, I think there are two easy ways to make your own glute-ham raise set-up. One, using resistance bands and a pull up bar. And two, using two pull up bars, a pulley and some cord.
Lumberjack squat - For ages, I kept Googling this exercise and never found very much about it. So one day I just put it in my programme and it works really well. It’s brutal, makes you keep your chest up when squatting and doesn’t load the spine. I couldn’t ask for more. See my pictures (in a very tasteful red T-shirt) as well as a crucial tip for adding extra weight in this post.
Assisted one-arm chins - If you want a one-arm chin, then this post shows you the easiest and most elbow-friendly way to do it. I don’t believe you can do it just loading up weighted chins (and I speak from experience).
The floor press – I tried this exercise for the first time recently and thought that there was a lot of mileage in it. Besides, it’s one of the good oldtime strongman movements. I did a post on it because many people think that it’s a hard movement to set up in any gym without a really good power rack, let alone a garage gym. I found that with two plyometric boxes and a certain amount of wilful determination it can be done.
Zercher squats - Another exercise I only tried recently and one I’m still getting the hang of. It’s very much like the lumberjack squat but the stresses seem to fall in a different place. One to watch and learn from, I feel.
The viking press - This is an exercise I used to do quite a lot and then for some reason abandoned in favour of more conventional presses. I’m coming back to it now for the sake of variety more than anything.
So there you have it. Eight slightly off-the-wall exercises perfect for the garage gym. There’s nothing there that costs more than a few bob to make, buy or scrounge.
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