at home, minimalist workout

[matadorpoeta]

my gym membership expires in a couple of days and i'm not going to renew it. i don't want to deal with the traffic and added hassle.

so i'm thinking of what exercises i can do at home with little or no equipment. i have a set of dumbells and nothing else. i've come up with this so far:

crunches
push-ups
shoulder press (w/ dumbells)
bicep curls (w/ dumbells)
lunges and squats (w/ dumbells)

so far i don't know what exercises i could do to work my upper and lower back. i also doubt the lunges would work my hamstrings.

 

[wEstSidE]

Search on google. You can do all sorts of variations on crunches for your back. Reverse crunches are also good for your lower stomach and inclined crunches are good too. Here's some: http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightl...sampleback.htm

 

[designprofessor]

get a heavy medicine ball and work your core while you watch the evening news.

 

[coachvu]

You can do dips with a couple chairs.

 

[globetrotter]

kettlebells

 

[Saucemaster]

Not sure how much weight you have in dumbells, but once dumbell military presses get too easy, you can do handstand wall "pushups"--kick yourself into a handstand with your feet steadying you against a wall, then simply lower until your head is a couple centimeters from the floor, push back up, repeat as many times as you can.

I like clap push-ups and one-arm pushups, and try to get a few good work sets of each in at least once a week (in addition to a day of weighted chest work); I also like chair pushups, though I hate doing high reps, so I usually save it for the last exercise of the session, when my pecs and shoulders are already burning, then do a few sets to failure.

One-legged squats are good. There's a lot of stuff you can do for your legs, actually--everything from "Hindu" squats (aka deep knee bends) to sprints to various jumping exercises (basically, jump as high as you can, no breaks in between jumps, pulling your legs up to your chest at the height of each jump--repeat until exhausted; or do a long jump from rest, as far as you can, then turn around and immediately jump back to where you started, repeat until exhausted, and make sure not to give yourself any rest!). But one-legged squats are my favorite. A guy I knew at my last gym used to do explosive one-legged squats that would send him into the air, then land on the other leg, go straight down, and keep alternating. It looked goofy as hell, but it was a pretty impressive display of strength and balance.

There are probably tons more. I'm kind of interested to hear what other people do, myself. I use weights, but I like mixing things up and adding bodyweight exercises into my routine as well.

 

[Rome]

I think Goodmornings will hit both your back and hams and these can be done with the equipment you have. I would also recomend getting an adjustable bench.

 

[seanchai]

One-armed pushups, one-legged squats and pullups, all done "grease the groove" style. Say you can do three of each of these exercises before failure. Do sets of one throughout the day so you don't get tired, focusing intensely on the movement and keeping your body tense. In a day, doing sets of one throughout, you can easily get 30-50 reps in. Surprisingly you can quickly work up to doing 10 or more in a row this way! It's a good way to get tow truck strong with no apparati other than a pullup bar (and you can even use a sturdy door in lieu of one). Check out Pavel Tsatsouline's "The Naked Warrior" for more information.

 

[Matt]

this canes