Greetings to everyone- Home Gym Problem

[bronzie]

Greetings to everyone, a great forum that I hope will compliment my plunge into the body for life program. I completed this program almost five years ago with great end results, and to the amazement of the staff/trainers at my local gym at the time. They were very surprised how I had transformed, and even more surprised how heavy I could lift with each passing week. Which brings me to my point in this post; I completed this program while in a commercial gym, with ample supply of weights in different sizes and increments. I am about to undertake the program at home, with a very decent bench press, but my problem is I am not sure what free weight combinations of dumbbells, weight disks and barbells I will need. I attempted day 1 and was bogged down during the workout because I didn’t feel I had the proper weights for the sets required. I have never encountered this issue in a gym centre, but it seems a little problematic trying to get my free weight configuration correct when doing this at home.
As I understand, this program requires minimum rest time between sets, and having the weights ready when needed is probably the easiest way to successfully finish each session without any headaches. In day 1 as mentioned I found myself fumbling around frustrated, changing disks on each dumbbell when I should be resting between each set.
I would much appreciate any feedback on my issue, perhaps other member’s completing the program at home have come across my problem
Cheers
Bronzie.

[BlakeD]

Working out at home can be frustrating, but at least you don't have to compete with others at the gym for the equipment you want! With that being said, it does take some forethought and diligence to do the weight work-outs at home. Here are some things that I've done to minimize the hassle:

First, to the extent you can, get your weights set up the night before, laying out all of the various weight disks you will need and pre-assembling the ones you'll use on your first set.

Second, think about investing in additional weight disks to make things easier. I went to a used sporting goods store in my town to pick up some weights, and I also hit all the thrift stores for different size weight disks and dumbbells. The best purchase I made was a pair of cheap adjustable dumbbells from a local goodwill (not nearly as fancy as the Bowflex kind). With these dumbbells, I can add on 2.5- and 5-lb weights to make different combinations. You'd be surprised what you can find at thrift stores. For example, I bought 2 large 25-pound plates at a thrift store for $2 each; at the local used sporting good stores those would have cost $12.50 each. In addition, I bought extras in the same size when I decided that spending $4 or $5 was worth it to me to save the extra hassle of constantly changing weights (what I mean by that is: I don't mind having several 5-lb disks so that I can have some for my barbell and some for my adjustable dumbbells; theoretically, I could share them, but it's a lot easier to not have to worry about changing them back and forth). And now, if I'm shopping at a garage sale or thrift store, I'll pick up a pair of dumbbells if they're in a size I need (like 10- or 15-pounds) and they're cheap, and so I'm to the point now where I hardly need to adjust weights during the workouts (and I use primarily dumbbells now anyway). I would say my entire weight set cost me around $50.

Third, I don't think it's a problem that you're changing weights during the 1-minute rest period. To me, rest doesn't mean sit down and don't move for 60 seconds; it means simply that you're not lifting weights. So even though you're spending some, most, or all of your 60-second rest period changing the weights, I don't think it's a problem.

Fourth, think about choosing the type of exercises and the order in which you'll do them based on the equipment you're using. For instance, there was a period of time where my weights for my shoulder and bicep exercises were the same, and so I made sure to do those one right after the other. In fact, there was actually a period of time when I was using literally the same weights for each set of shoulder and bicep exercises, and so I started combining my sets to save time on changing weights. I would do my first set of shoulder military press and then immediately do my first set of bicep curls (during which time my shoulders would be resting). I'd then change the weights and continue on to my second set of both, and so on.

Hope this helps, and I'm curious to learn any other ideas out there as well.

[bronzie]

Thanks for the reply Blake, fantastic, I got some good info out of what you said, especially having the weights set out the night before and performing exercises that allow me to use the same weights, it will take some planning.
I would love to visit thrift shops, as I know one can find all sorts of things at very low prices, but unfortunately I am living in a very remote area and nothing like that around here, for instance my nearest gym centre is 100 km away, that’s the very reason why I am doing this program at home, otherwise I would have done it at a gym.
Tomorrow, I will head off into another city to buy some more weights from a sporting goods store; will keep the members posted as to how I sort out the whole weight issue when doing the program at home.