HOME GYM WORDS YOU NEVER HEAR

A home gym never closes. You can use it anytime, and it’s quiet.

After years of public gym life, a home gym can be a relief. But it eventually gets old and routine.

What follows are gym rat conversations you miss after believing you never would.

“You’re not doing it right.”

“Are you using this machine? It’s not a recliner, you know.”

“Oh, excuse me. Did I wake you up?”

“See the sweat soaked man laying on a mat? Those are the same mats you lay on.”

“I never clean up a bench after I use it. Half of these wimps could use more of me.”

“Do you mind if I use the other side of this cable stack? You’re not.”

“I don’t put my hair up because it makes me look like a goddess in the mirror.”

“This place is called a weight room. We lift weights. Go to the yoga studio if you’re not going to lift something.”

“You want to work in? Here, I’ll take some weight off for you.”

“This your first time in a gym?”

“Mind if I borrow these weights? You don’t look like you’ll use them.”

“I don’t interrupt people and change the subject and make it all about me, you do.”

“You might as well take a picture of me and photoshop your head on it, because you’ll never look this good.”

“You’ll never be as strong as you used to be.”

Home Gym Difference

During the coronavirus quarantine of 2020 to prevent it from sweeping the deck, the importance of a back-up workout plan grows, or dies.

24Hr Fitness sent an email today to stay in touch. It had exercise suggestions.

Exercise suggestions feel like I haven’t learned anything since joining 24Hr. But I have. I’ve eavesdropped on trainers and workout parters; watched fitness experts do routines that looked like they could have come from the Olympic Training Center.

I’ve talked to a guy who said he was on the Persian Olympic Team in Rome and met Cassius Clay. I saw Rowdy Roddy Piper working out with his MMA fighter son. I ignored LaMichael James when he was undercover.

The best was talking to the utility baseball player from the Cleveland Indians. He got a little balky, like I was going to ask for his autograph. No, Babe Ruth, I wasn’t going to ask.

Instead of the distractions, home gym workouts help you decide if you’re a member of gym life, or just part of it when there’s a gym to go to.

This is the home gym lifting routine I follow on the First Day Push

Walk it out and shake it out before warming up, then start on Day One:

Twenty reps on just the bar on the bench with a close grip, not a wide grip.

Fifteen reps on light weight triceps extensions leaning forward.

Fifteen reps of body weight squats.

Fifteen reps of light weight front shoulder raises.

Fifteen reps of light weight overhead triceps extension.

Go through the same routine there or four times, adding weight each time through.

Put a thirty-five pound plate on the bar and do ten reps with a normal width grip.

Ten reps of dumbbell dead lifts.

Use the bench bar for fifteen reps of shrugs.

Add weight and do this routine there or four times.

Cool down, stretch, have a beer. Try that in a public gym.

Second Day, Pull

Warm up and shake it out first.

Twenty reps of light weight bent rowing.

Ten dead lifts with the same bar.

Fifteen reps of curls with the same bar.

Twenty reps of one arm rowing each sider with a hand and knee on the bench. Be sure and get a good squeeze at the top.

Fifteen reps of light weight shoulder raises. Stop at shoulder level and pour the kettle, slowly return back down.

Find a pull-up bar for three reps of slow, full extension, pull-ups. Stop and hold at the top each time.

Do this routine three or four times, adding weight each time through, but at the pull-up bar, do ten faster half reps.

After the last time through the workout, hang on the pull-up bar and flex your lats.

Cool down, stretch out, have a beer.

Protect the gains you’ve achieved.