Help with my routine (strength / mobility exercises)

[Disco]

Hi everyone,

Due to a few issues such as lockdowns and time constraints, I have been doing my strength training in my small apartment with some dumbbells. I am unable to have/store a barbell. I understand I can't build any serious strength however having a regular routine helps for BJJ (particularly with random time off for lockdowns). I have a pair of dumbells and each can weigh as much as 30kg. So we are not talking serious weights, and I refer to what I am doing joking-not-joking as "mobility exercises".

With all that in mind, does anyone have input into the following routine. The goal really is to keep myself moving so I can minimise the injuries and "sore time" I have in my sport, and to keep off all the muscular signs of advancing age, at least until I have the capacity to go back to the gym and have access to a rack & barbell.

I have also had some recent issues with a hyperextended or golfer's elbow (physio not exactly sure) anything with an * is recommended by physio for now, and therefore not something I can drop. I will do a routine each second day so each routine happens once every four days. (I run or bjj on the other days. Occasionally I might back to back the routines due to my schedule)

A
Neck Bands
Weighted Step Ups
Triceps elbow extension*
Hip Thrusts
Curl*/Press (Arnies)
Stiff legged Deadlifts
Single arm bent over row*
Bench
Scaption
Reverse Flye
Ab work (overhead movement & lowering legs)
Neck Bands

B
Neck Bands
Front Squats
Triceps elbow extension*
Hip Thrusts
Press
Swings
Single arm bent over row*
Flat flyes
Curls*
Calf raises
Ab work (lateral movement & lowering legs)
Neck Bands

Most exercises are 3x6 except those that I struggle to put serious weight into like squats, hips etc. which might be 3x10 or 1x20.

 

[DEVILsSON]

Health Issues aside (once fully healed), you may want to incorporate push ups(one arm, clap, etc), handstand push ups(with or without a deficit), pull/chin ups(get an over the doorway bar), pistols(with or without extra load/DBs), etc. Doing calisthenics with your bodyweight is likely superior to doing exercises with light DBs.

 

[Blake_UK]

Hi everyone,

Due to a few issues such as lockdowns and time constraints, I have been doing my strength training in my small apartment with some dumbbells. I am unable to have/store a barbell. I understand I can't build any serious strength however having a regular routine helps for BJJ (particularly with random time off for lockdowns). I have a pair of dumbells and each can weigh as much as 30kg. So we are not talking serious weights, and I refer to what I am doing joking-not-joking as "mobility exercises".

With all that in mind, does anyone have input into the following routine. The goal really is to keep myself moving so I can minimise the injuries and "sore time" I have in my sport, and to keep off all the muscular signs of advancing age, at least until I have the capacity to go back to the gym and have access to a rack & barbell.

I have also had some recent issues with a hyperextended or golfer's elbow (physio not exactly sure) anything with an * is recommended by physio for now, and therefore not something I can drop. I will do a routine each second day so each routine happens once every four days. (I run or bjj on the other days. Occasionally I might back to back the routines due to my schedule)

A
Neck Bands
Weighted Step Ups
Triceps elbow extension*
Hip Thrusts
Curl*/Press (Arnies)
Stiff legged Deadlifts
Single arm bent over row*
Bench
Scaption
Reverse Flye
Ab work (overhead movement & lowering legs)
Neck Bands

B
Neck Bands
Front Squats
Triceps elbow extension*
Hip Thrusts
Press
Swings
Single arm bent over row*
Flat flyes
Curls*
Calf raises
Ab work (lateral movement & lowering legs)
Neck Bands

Most exercises are 3x6 except those that I struggle to put serious weight into like squats, hips etc. which might be 3x10 or 1x20.

I would echo what Devilson said - if you only have access to limited weights and your goal is more overall health/strength etc then calisthenics are the way to go. Just stick to compound movements as much as possible and push the intensity, maybe do a 10min AMRAP or similar as opposed to a 3x10.
As well as the basics with a few bits of cheap and easily available kit - push up bars/handles, weighted vest, pull up bar etc - you can get a lot out of a workout. 30 secs on 15 secs rest each of Burpees, single leg squats and tricep dips in a weighted vest for 8 rounds for example.
TRX is really good as well (knock off on amaxon for £40 or so) and very versatile in terms of isolating specific muscle groups.

 

[Disco]

Thanks everyone. I have knock-off TRX and never really liked it, I'll take a second look.

4 years of not lifting weights followed by 3 months of not lifting anything with my right arm has my goals such that strictly pressing 2x30kg dumbbells 20 times seem like a pipe dream.

Clearly my real issue is putting weight through my lower body and pistol squats are a great idea. I have to admit I could never do them (although I did think collective wisdom was they were bad for your knee?) even at my strongest which was HB squatting around 130kg. I guess it's a great time to learn!

 

[Martial Sovereign]

Thanks everyone. I have knock-off TRX and never really liked it, I'll take a second look.

4 years of not lifting weights followed by 3 months of not lifting anything with my right arm has my goals such that strictly pressing 2x30kg dumbbells 20 times seem like a pipe dream.

Clearly my real issue is putting weight through my lower body and pistol squats are a great idea. I have to admit I could never do them (although I did think collective wisdom was they were bad for your knee?) even at my strongest which was HB squatting around 130kg. I guess it's a great time to learn!

All in all your program lacks compound movements.
All ATG is good for your knee. Sissy squats are great. Split lunge, weight on front foot is great for knee and ankle and hip. Hand to toe stretch with DBs in hand is good for ankle, knee and hip (like an RDL but focus on RoM. check kneesovertoes guy for more info.) stand on a box and get a wedge of some sort to lift toes up then do a hand to toes stretch with some light weights -- get up to 25% BW in a couple weeks if you're not terribly broken. Treat stretches like exercising and you're all good. Stretches of course contract a lot of muscle if you're doing it right so treat it as an exercise and focus.
Isometrics above 70% max are great for recovery, and isometrics in general are great for "bulletproofing", bone and tendon strength, and just plain strength training. Overcoming isometrics involve a static object that you put your 100% into though doesn't move, and static isometrics are those like the plank. Handstand holds are very solid and build everything up so do those. I have had plenty of elbow issues growing up and it's just a sensation born out of weakness. More training is better. Work on side pressure -- like in arm wrestling. On a table take a light weight like 10 lbs and rotate the arm outward with elbow on the table like you're arm wrestling and losing. Forearm perpendicular to table starting. Go ahead and lean with it when it reaches end of RoM so you can get the weight down to the table then bring it back up. The stretch reflex is good just start light. Careful as this is very weak in most people and strong lifters can easily tear here if you start heavy. Do this exercise the other way as well, rotating the arm inward and lifting like it's reverse arm wrestling -- go ahead and lean in the opposite direction to get a bit of a stretch here in the rotator cuffs again. The stretch in the shoulder and elbow is critical. This is active stretch and trains part of the torque of the arm (shoulder blade muscles). Focus on reps and add some variation in position of the hand relative to shoulder and shoulder relative to torso, such as hand way forward, palm turned up or down or sideways, hand near shoulder, shoulder way forward, shoulder way back and chest turned away so chest is stretched rather than cramped/ shortened.
Shoulder blade muscles are very undeveloped so this is important. Go ahead and add weight after 200 reps both ways with lighter weight. Use variations. Progress each week. Easy. Or be prone to tears, lose in an arm wrestle, lose power generation and torque, have an unstable shoulder joint and punch like a girl or swing your fist wide like you're phoning into NASA so anyone with any fight instinct will crush you.
Next exercise is to have the arm out stretched in a front raise with a light weight in hand and just twist your hand while keeping your arm in front of you (another endurance event that you will easily fail within 30 seconds unless you train it). So you turn palms up to palms over to palms up over and over again at a slow pace and feel the atrophied shoulder blade/ rotator cuffs being used. You might need to go empty handed if you can't go for more than 2 minutes with both hands straight in front of you. 10 lbs each hand for 2 minutes is a good baseline. Work up to 20 lbs 4 minutes over the next 6 months or so.
For lower body duck walking with a long and controlled stride is very good. Since you can't pistol squat you can just do your best and go for time and distance until you can walk lower and with better stride and control. Duck walking backwards and sideways is good of course. Test your max time and distance then every hour go for a round at 70%. Once a week go a round every 30 minutes instead. Every 2 weeks test your max, no rest day. 70% of your max every hour isn't too difficult and builds up your capacity to recover and endurance. After a couple months go 80% every hour instead.
Food for thought: If you do 1000 push ups daily it's easy to add 5 lbs to a vest every other week for a year and wind up with a 415 lb bench when you step into the gym and touch a barbell for the first time.

 

[vision1]

Food for thought: If you do 1000 push ups daily it's easy to add 5 lbs to a vest every other week for a year and wind up with a 415 lb bench when you step into the gym and touch a barbell for the first time.

How much do you bench?

 

[monkeyrhythm]

Food for thought: If you do 1000 push ups daily it's easy to add 5 lbs to a vest every other week for a year and wind up with a 415 lb bench when you step into the gym and touch a barbell for the first time.

 

[Fahcough]

How much do you bench?

Shoulders would be melted goo. Tried the 100 push up challenge for weeks, lost 20 lbs on bench.

 

[monkeyrhythm]

Shoulders would be melted goo. Tried the 100 push up challenge for weeks, lost 20 lbs on bench.

I think 1000 pushups a day, for 365 days in a row, adding 5 lbs to a vest every other week, may be the craziest suggestion I've ever seen on here - and that really is saying something.

 

[DEVILsSON]

I have done weighted dips and weighted push ups with feet elevated on bench which translated fairly well to bench press but weighted push ups were by no means easy and required a second person to stack and remove the plates. I doubt you can comfortably add weight by yourself beyond some very light/superficial weight. I mostly did it just to see where I was with weighted push ups. Weighted dips were a lot more doable on my own but after 5 plates, it becomes very uncomfortable riding the plates.

When I had a 415 bench, I believe I did several reps with 7-8 45s stacked on my back and feet elevated on a bench at about 215-220lb bodyweight. Doing 100s or even 1000 reps a day of any exercise will have minimal if any carryover to maximal effort.

 

[Martial Sovereign]

Shoulders would be melted goo. Tried the 100 push up challenge for weeks, lost 20 lbs on bench.

lol that's what happens when your shoulders are fatigued.

I think 1000 pushups a day, for 365 days in a row, adding 5 lbs to a vest every other week, may be the craziest suggestion I've ever seen on here - and that really is saying something.

You don't start with 1000 push ups excuse any misunderstanding. If you start with 10 you work up to 1000. Point is that 1000 push ups means you're strong, and adding 5 lbs means mastering the increased load over the course of 1000 reps each day for two weeks. After a year that's about 130 lbs.

I have done weighted dips and weighted push ups with feet elevated on bench which translated fairly well to bench press but weighted push ups were by no means easy and required a second person to stack and remove the plates. I doubt you can comfortably add weight by yourself beyond some very light/superficial weight. I mostly did it just to see where I was with weighted push ups. Weighted dips were a lot more doable on my own but after 5 plates, it becomes very uncomfortable riding the plates.

When I had a 415 bench, I believe I did several reps with 7-8 45s stacked on my back and feet elevated on a bench at about 215-220lb bodyweight. Doing 100s or even 1000 reps a day of any exercise will have minimal if any carryover to maximal effort.

Absolutely false you can't even borrow the authority of sports science for this. Academia claims (their model is) that when the slow twitch fibers are exhausted you start using the fast twitch fibers. That's why when one reaches their limit in endurance your veins pop, you turn red, every muscle is bulging out and your muscles are extremely tight and you have no strength afterwards. If your endurance is 10 reps, going to 10 reps is the same as to failure with whatever high weight. If your limit is 50 reps, it's the same as going to failure with whatever high weight. If you can do 2000 push ups then 1000 is training but going to 2000 would be better for strength gains.

 

[Martial Sovereign]

How much do you bench?

205 lbs 5 years ago. I added 2 inches to chest in 2 weeks with a push up program I adjusted for more intensity a year ago or something though. I did figure 8s like you do with nunchucks on either side of the body but with a 5 lb DB the first week. I wanted to add rotator cuff strength and size and get more intensity on the chest while it was still tired from push ups. 39 to 41 inches after inflammation went down a few days after program was over. Focused on variety, full range of motion, slowed reps down or went quick depending on which was more intense, and had full scapula extension and retraction. As long as you train with endurance shot you will gain strength and size. If you do push ups after bench sets your chest and shoulders will explode.

 

[DoomPatrol]

Food for thought: If you do 1000 push ups daily it's easy to add 5 lbs to a vest every other week for a year and wind up with a 415 lb bench when you step into the gym and touch a barbell for the first time.

If you do a thousand pushups daily, you're going to a doctor for shoulder surgery in the near future.

 

[vision1]

205 lbs 5 years ago. I added 2 inches to chest in 2 weeks with a push up program I adjusted for more intensity a year ago or something though. I did figure 8s like you do with nunchucks on either side of the body but with a 5 lb DB the first week. I wanted to add rotator cuff strength and size and get more intensity on the chest while it was still tired from push ups. 39 to 41 inches after inflammation went down a few days after program was over. Focused on variety, full range of motion, slowed reps down or went quick depending on which was more intense, and had full scapula extension and retraction. As long as you train with endurance shot you will gain strength and size. If you do push ups after bench sets your chest and shoulders will explode.

So you bench barely over 200 lbs but you know an easy method to bench over 400 with one year's training?
You're telling one of the strongest guys on this board (someone who has benched over 400 and deadlifted 700) that he doesn't know what he's talking about...
Think about that.

 

[Martial Sovereign]

If you do a thousand pushups daily, you're going to a doctor for shoulder surgery in the near future.

lol record for going non-stop (without leaving plank) is 10k. https://www.recordholders.org/en/list/pushups.html
Someone did 5k a day for a year in this record list.

So you bench barely over 200 lbs but you know an easy method to bench over 400 with one year's training?
You're telling one of the strongest guys on this board (someone who has benched over 400 and deadlifted 700) that he doesn't know what he's talking about...
Think about that.

If I could do 1000 push ups my bench would be higher.

What he said is wrong. Even if you've accomplished something you can do so just by following programs and simple rules of thumb and having the 'emotional and mental strength' to follow through and do your best. Most people don't accomplish anything because they don't try that much for that long of a time. Wishy washy, distracted, whatever.
His methods are direct so he gets a direct result. It's agony and more difficult mentally to try and get a strength training response from high reps because you're waiting a while to reach your limit, and then you have to put in a bunch of effort and keep putting in a bunch of effort and prevent yourself from recovering in order to keep your slow twitch fibers exhausted and rely on your fast twitch. Like a burnout set except you keep burning out and burning out as soon as you get an ounce of strength. Do that for ~7.5 minutes each main movement 3-4x a week for a year and yeah push ups will get you to a high bench and everything else will increase too. The other method is to add a small amount of weight with a set amount of push ups or whatever exercise.
Higher reps means a small amount of weight really adds up.
Multiple ways to get the same thing done and the guy with the most direct way will claim his way is the only way in any domain you find such people.
EDIT: On the other hand people with the less direct or different way have their own ego but as long as the intensity is there progress in strength can be made.

 

[Martial Sovereign]

Basically, you got guys doing thousands of reps of something because it's a low relative % of their max and they do it all the time. So if a push up is 60% of BW and you're 180 lbs then that's ~110 lb for something approximating the bench. If you can do 1000 push ups straight up then you can probably bench 225 - 275 lbs but if you use a repeated burnout method daily where you are doing sets of 20 to 5 after your big 1000 because your chest arms shoulders are dead you are probably up in the 315 lb bench area or more. 110 lbs is only 40 - 50% of your max bench but for strong athletes 50% of your max is 200 lbs. Doing 1000 reps with 200 lbs would be killer but its nothing if you adapt to 110 lbs then go for incremental progression.
Getting from 110lbs to 200+ lbs for 1000 reps is where the real struggle is. People are talking about wear and tear but your body spends those 1000 reps learning how to adapt to wear and tear and succeeds, hence the 5k push ups a day for a year record. Adding 5 lbs is slightly more wear and tear but the body can focus on strength and endurance-relative-to-max gains then moreso than structural integrity.

 

[vision1]

Basically, you got guys doing thousands of reps of something because it's a low relative % of their max and they do it all the time. So if a push up is 60% of BW and you're 180 lbs then that's ~110 lb for something approximating the bench. If you can do 1000 push ups straight up then you can probably bench 225 - 275 lbs but if you use a repeated burnout method daily where you are doing sets of 20 to 5 after your big 1000 because your chest arms shoulders are dead you are probably up in the 315 lb bench area or more. 110 lbs is only 40 - 50% of your max bench but for strong athletes 50% of your max is 200 lbs. Doing 1000 reps with 200 lbs would be killer but its nothing if you adapt to 110 lbs then go for incremental progression.
Getting from 110lbs to 200+ lbs for 1000 reps is where the real struggle is. People are talking about wear and tear but your body spends those 1000 reps learning how to adapt to wear and tear and succeeds, hence the 5k push ups a day for a year record. Adding 5 lbs is slightly more wear and tear but the body can focus on strength and endurance-relative-to-max gains then moreso than structural integrity.

So you're suggesting someone, with a year of training, can get up to weighted pushups with 130 (26 * 5) on their back for 1000 reps in a row with no rest?

 

[vision1]

What he said is wrong. Even if you've accomplished something you can do so just by following programs and simple rules of thumb and having the 'emotional and mental strength' to follow through and do your best. Most people don't accomplish anything because they don't try that much for that long of a time. Wishy washy, distracted, whatever.
His methods are direct so he gets a direct result. It's agony and more difficult mentally to try and get a strength training response from high reps because you're waiting a while to reach your limit, and then you have to put in a bunch of effort and keep putting in a bunch of effort and prevent yourself from recovering in order to keep your slow twitch fibers exhausted and rely on your fast twitch. Like a burnout set except you keep burning out and burning out as soon as you get an ounce of strength. Do that for ~7.5 minutes each main movement 3-4x a week for a year and yeah push ups will get you to a high bench and everything else will increase too. The other method is to add a small amount of weight with a set amount of push ups or whatever exercise.
Higher reps means a small amount of weight really adds up.
Multiple ways to get the same thing done and the guy with the most direct way will claim his way is the only way in any domain you find such people.
EDIT: On the other hand people with the less direct or different way have their own ego but as long as the intensity is there progress in strength can be made.

You've never done it though so how do you really know?

 

[Martial Sovereign]

So you're suggesting someone, with a year of training, can get up to weighted pushups with 130 (26 * 5) on their back for 1000 reps in a row with no rest?

If they can do 1000 push ups in a row with no rest daily already then at least 100 lbs for 1000 reps daily after 1 year is possible yes.

 

[Martial Sovereign]

You've never done it though so how do you really know?

Well I'm willing to test it out. Get my push ups to 200 through volume, to-failure sets and burnout sets and see the result. Right now my max is 34 and I've been training my handstand hold time for about 2 months.
When it's time to test I have an 80 lb vest and can get another 20 lbs on my back, get some elevation on hands and feet for depth, and see how many reps I can do. I'm 175 lbs so that's about a 210 bench which is around my max right now. If I can do 10 reps then that's an improvement to my bench max for sure.
I can start Monday.