Option 1: the gymnast

Taking the gymnastic option, I’ve found that all you need is a pull up bar and somewhere to do dips (I started out using two stools).  With a little bit of inventiveness and creativity, you can get a full body workout, hitting the basic pulls, pushes, quad-dominant, hip-dominant and ab work that you need to progress.  I like chin ups, dips, pistols, glute-ham raises and hanging leg raises.  You’ll be amazed at how much you can achieve in just a year or two.

Of course, it helps if you have a little bit of climbing kit, too.  I’ve written about how to get a full body workout using climbing kit before so you might find that article interesting if you’re curious about what’s possible.

Option 2: the weightlifter

Taking the weightlifting option, all you (really) need is a barbell and some weights plates.  You’ll appreciate a squat rack and a bench but these are nice-to-haves rather than need-to-haves.  With some guts and determination, you can get a completely different but equally effective full body workout, focussing on deadlift and squat variations, floor presses, military presses and the bent-over row.

I didn’t come this route but I include lots of the exercises in my programme now.  I took a walk down memory lane a little while ago and came up with a programme of what I would have done if I were starting out weightlifting as a teenager.  And I was surprised to see that the whole programme could be done with just a barbell and a chin up bar.  No squat rack or bench required.  It was almost spooky.

Where I am now

Nowadays, as I said, I mix and match both gymnastic and weightlifting options.  More recently, I’ve been experimenting with putting odd objects into my training as well.  Strongman implements like farmers’ walk bars, sandbags and fat bars now take up valuable garage space.  I’ve even had to build a shed in the garden so I could move our bikes out of the garage and make some room!

So I probably have more gym equipment in my garage than I really need, now.  But I really enjoy trying new exercises and seeing where that takes me in my training.  It keeps things interesting and varied and I feel like I’m developing a more well-rounded strength base.

I could probably go back to either option one or two for a while without feeling too hard done by.

What I really couldn’t do without 

The one thing I really couldn’t do without, though, is my wall clock.  I don’t really care what the time is.  I just want to see the second hand.

You see, most of the workouts I do are high sets of low reps.  Most often, I’ll do 10 sets of 3 reps.

As a former competitive swimmer, I’m used to doing intervals on a minute, or on two minutes, or whatever.  So I tend to structure my workouts in the same way.  I’ll do each set of 3 reps on 1 minute 30s, which means that sometimes I’ll get 1 minute rest and sometimes I’ll get 1 minute 15s rest, depending on how long I take to pick up the bar, do the set and rack the bar again.

But the whole exercise always takes 15 minutes so I know that if I put the weight up each time then I’ll have done more work in less time.  So my work capacity will have improved.

And all I have to do is to keep one eye on the nice, big second hand.

After all, when it’s the middle of summer and it’s roasting hot in your garage, you’ve just completed your ninth set of deadlifts and there’s sweat dripping down your forehead, it helps to be able to see when your last set starts without too much trouble.

Keeping track of progress

I can’t imagine trying to guess whether my power output has improved or not without knowing that I’ve completely controlled one variable in the equation.

After all, power output is work done / time.  So, for example, if I’m doing 10 sets of 3 reps of a military press and I use 50kg one week and 52kg the following week, then I know that since my arms haven’t changed length, the work done is greater with 52kg.

If I have done the work in exactly the same length of time both weeks, then I know that my power output has also increased by the same amount.  If I don’t then who knows whether it has improved or not?