08-29-2012, 10:12 AM
(08-29-2012, 08:14 AM)SunlightMeansStruggle Wrote: Lately I have started doing chin-ups whenever I've felt like it (basicly every other day or so). I'm not really out of shape, I'm just looking to gain some muscle. I've been taking long walks every day for about 6 or 7 years now, but I'm just not sure if just walking and doing chin-ups is very.. ergonomic.
I'm not really the kinda guy who goes to the gym though, I feel much more comfortable exercising at home.
Any ideas?
Oh, well that's simple enough, muscle building is effectively the opposite to cardio, rather than high repetition and low strain, you want low repetition and high strain.
Rather than making your muscles repeat what they can already do you need to push them to their limits, unfortunately you should know that since the idea is actually to damage the muscles so they heal back stronger (nature is weird like that), it does ache a bit.
Obviously the ideal would be to hit the gym and PUMP SOME IRON, but you could always get some free weights to do curls or lifting at home.
I'm afraid if you're looking for a cheap-as-free solution there aren't too many options, there's always the simple "find something heavy and lift it" answer, but for most people moving their furniture around that often just isn't practical.
However, what does work is if you can get hold of bottles to fill with water, water is heavy, a lot of water is a lot of heavy, you can use big bottles to lift with, and a backpack filled with water bottles makes any exercise a feat of endurance. (also you always have drinking water with you, win/win)
To give you some personal insight, what I used to do was load up a pack with water and go for a march, not only does this really work your legs and your core muscles but if you push yourself too hard (I am an idiot and usually did) you can just dump out the water and walk home with a bag that's only slightly heavier than air.