How to get into shape at home on a budget, part one.

A few people have asked me for an "at home" training program, because they don't want to go to the gym or just aren't able to for some other reason. A good gym routine is always my preferred option but there's no reason you can't get great results through any number off different approaches.

In or out of the gym, you do still need to be training effectively and if your nutrition is appropriate you'll see great results.

Resistance tubes like you can see in my video below are one of... perhaps the best option on a tight budget to use at home. Even for those who do have some weights or a home gym, I often suggest resistance tubes as a nice and inexpensive way to add more options and variety to your training routine. We can replicate a lot of free weight, cable and leverage machine exercises with these... it's not quite the same thing, but for the price it is pretty good.

I'm also using my TRX here which if you shop around you can get at an affordable price too.



This video is just the highlight real, you can see the full thing with extra commentary over on my wordpress site filed under At Home Training Program Video.

I wanted to show you as many different options as I could think of, so here's what I came up with.

• Warm Up: TRX Reverse Fly & Vertical Front Raise
• TRX Hanging Row
• TRX Face Pulls
• Resistance Band One Arm Reverse Fly
• Resistance Band Upright Row
• Pull Ups
• Resistance Band Reverse Fly (again)
• Resistance Band Bicep Curls

This makes for one day in an effective home training split routine. We'll also need a pushing routine, and of course we need to train our legs as well.

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Weight Loss Before and After Videos

I thought I'd do a little before and after... well, really more like an "a while back and more recently" comparison of my own weight loss journey. I won't bullshit you like everyone else with some sob story about how I got too busy and started to neglect my own health or whatever nonsense people usually come out with. I was trying to gain weight, because my long term goal is to be bigger than I am now.

So in winter... well, you mostly want to just gain muscle but I often get to a point where I just think "I'm not gaining fast enough" and don't care too much if I put on a heap of fat so long as there's a bit of muscle in there somewhere.

Here's a video of me from March... I happened to look at it the other day and I thought "bloody hell, I was big!" March actually being quite early in the season, so I definitely would have been bigger (and fatter) by the end of winter.



Actually here's another video from a few months later, a few months bigger.



Now here's a video from this week. 6 or 7kg down from my highest weight in the winter, and stronger than I was in the first video. I had to get a couple new sets of holes in my belt, and it's getting a little loose again already.



So how did I do it?

Some new dieting protocol, or supplement, or a new training system?

Nope. I just stopped overeating and dialled in a plan I expected to maintain... actually I dropped a couple of kilos more than I expected. Within that plan I'm still smashing a huge pizza once a week, still including oven fry potato wedges at dinner if I feel like, still eating a heap of fruits, some bread, cereals... basically all the stuff I like, to an amount suitable to maintain a lean goal weight.

Simple innit?

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Training videos from Doherty's Gym, Brunswick

I treated myself to a new camera, and so here are some videos I shot while training this week.

First up is a pushing routine, and the next day I performed all the opposing movements aka pulling routine.

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3 PBs in 3 days!

Well, I've had a pretty good week so far!

Here's a video from today, setting a new personal best on One Arm Dumbbell Rows. 65kg, for 4 (and a half!) reps. You can see it's too heavy for me to control very much on the eccentric part of the exercise, but I'm was pretty damn pleased with this all the same.



Next up is a new 4 rep max on dumbbell press, 50kg each hand. Very happy with this!



Finally here is the big one... new deadlift PB from Monday. This is 165kg, close enough to double bodyweight. You can see it took me a couple of tries to get focussed enough, but I got there in the end!



Currently feeling VERY fired up about beating all of these in the weeks ahead!

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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day One

OK, back to the start again!

I've been posting videos most days for the past week or so, with a run through of what I did each day. Also every day I point out that the videos are kind of crap and there'll be some better ones coming before too long.

Today was back to Day 1 which is a big PUSH day.

Supposedly POWER day for horizontal pushing... but I dunno if it was the heat (we are in the middle of a record breaking heat wave down here at the moment and I am finding it hard to function) or what, but I couldn't seem to muster much power today. So after four sets instead of going heavier as planned I decided to go lighter and get a decent amount of reps out instead.

I dunno why my legs look so skinny in this video either! Here it is:



After the POWER horizontal pushing section we move on to a Precision move, in this case Hyght Flies. These are quite unpleasant but I find they force a really hard contraction in my pecs, which is where I want it.

Next up, PUMP stuff for lower body. I considered doing some supersets here but then I decided that was a bloody stupid idea in this heat, so it was Leg Extensions followed by Hack Squat. Hard work at the best of times!

Finally I always finish this routine with prefatigue supersets of Dumbbell Lateral Raises into Machine Shoulder Press.

Really a hellacious day, and tomorrow I get to do it all again in the opposite direction for Pull day!

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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day 8

I missed a few days of training reports & videos, but I'll catch up on those in the week coming. Again in case you missed it in earlier entries, the videos are crap but we have plans of doing some better ones soon. This is just me leaning my phone against something while I'm training, and hoping for the best.

So Day 8 on my program is PULL day and also double duty for legs!



I started out with deadlifts. I'm just easing back into these after some time off them and to be honest I'm not that impressed with my form on this video. I'll work on that next time and do a better job, and hopefully pull some better numbers too. I followed these with some Reverse Hyper Extensions which I'm in love with lately, before moving on to my upper body section.

First up here was High Row machine. On my card this is a "high to low" pulling movement, opposite to Incline Press which I did at this point yesterday. You see how it works? The video shows my last set on this exercise, not so heavy, lots of reps.... pulling back hard and fast.

Next up I decided to try some pull ups for something different, instead of latt pulldown which I do more often. Pull ups usually aggravate some problems with my forearm tendons but I figured I might get away with a neutral grip. I figured correct, but only 8 reps at a time? That's crap, I'll have to improve on that.

Finally some straight arm pull downs. I mix these up as I see fit on the day... sometimes with a rope, sometimes a little wider like this. Once again I watch the video and think to myself "wow that's a bit fast isn't it?"

To finish up it was back to hamstring and hip extension type movements, and for something different I decided to superset Reverse Hyper Extensions with Glue Isolation machine. It was quite horrible, I liked it!

That was it for Day 8! Tomorrow, back to Day 1!

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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Day 5

OK here we go with day five, push day.

First off in case anyone missed it in the previous entries, I'm well aware that these videos are crappy as hell! I'm just leaning my phone up against stuff and hoping it is pointed in more or less the right direction. We ARE going to do a proper video soon though.

Anyway day five is a lot like day one, except we start with the vertical pushing movements and accessory exercises. Except for me, my "vertical" movement is more like a incline press. A little steeper than usual for an incline press... sort of half way in between. This program is designed to be customisable to each person's individual requirements, and this suits mine. On day one I do a stricter vertical push as you'll see four days from now.

So... watch the video and you'll see my "almost vertical" press from various angles... the first angle being not particularly dignified. I worked up to 40kg dumbbells in each hand for 6 reps here, which I was quite pleased with. I throw in some Dumbbell Flies after this just for good measure (that's not on most people's cards) and then move on to Side Lateral Raises.



Take a good look at my Side Lateral Raises for two reasons. One, the video is crappy as hell, and two this is how I want you to do them if you're on my program. Start out standing at attention, then rotate your shoulders in slightly. Now lift out to the side keeping your arms straight (but not locked out at the elbows), a little pause at the top, and lower down sloooowly. You'll see people do these a million different ways but in my opinion this is the best way to isolate those middle deltoid muscles. At the top of the movement, imagine you're pouring water out of a jug or something... that's the position your arms should be in. Pinky finger higher than thumb, you dig?

Next up is LEGS and today I supersetted some 45 Degree Leg Press with V Squat Machine. It was horrible. 240kg leg press in this video though. I was pretty happy with that.

Finally you have me doing some Cable Flies. A lot like the Dumbbell Flies earlier (and the Pec Dec the other day), I am trying to keep my shoulders back, squeeze those pectoral muscles, control the weight on the way back to the starting position and release the contraction slooowly. Sorry the camera positioning was a bit crap on this one. More so than usual.

I finished up with some flat Barbell Press (aka horizontal pushing), but I was knackered so that shit was NOT worth recording! Great session all up though!

Now, the drive home on the other hand... that's a different story!

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DHPT Power Precision & Pump Day 4

Yesterday I spontaneously decided to record some of my training and post it up here, and then today... about half way through training, mind you... I decided I should do that every day until there's a video and a post for each day on my 8 day split. Yeah, 8 day split. You heard me.

This is my Day Four of my Power, Precision & Pump Program, and it's a PULL day. 

POWER movement is DEADLIFTS. I did an OK job of these and worked up to 140kg for 3 reps which was quite satisfactory after having a couple of weeks off deadlifting with some tenderness in the lower back. Also I did some Reverse Hyper Extensions after this, just to stretch out a bit.

Now... today's a bit of a weird day on my card because I have a few movements where I'm focussed on going as heavy as I can aka POWER mode. Of course you always want to go as heavy as you can, but usually there's only one POWER movement and then some stuff that's more about doing more reps, more precise techniques and so on.

Anyway. After Deadlifts and Reverse Hyper Extension I did a little warm up for upper body and then went into Upright Rows. I recorded a set, watched it back, and noticed that I wasn't terribly happy with my technique. In the first set on this video you can see my elbows coming backwards a bit... which I don't want. This is one of the few exercises where I want to rotate my shoulders forward a bit, rather than pulling them back. I'm happier with my form on the second set in this video. Oh also with these pulling movements, we do want to pull nice and fast to really activate those back muscles (trapezius in this case)... so, this tempo is fine IMO even though it looks kinda fast and uncontrolled on the video.

Next up is shrugs on the Hammerstrength Machine. I love this machine cos I can pile a lot of weights on to it (140kg today) and it makes me feel like a big strong man! You can see in these videos I'm trying to keep my shoulders back, chest up, and squeeeze up nice and high. You'll see a lot of people doing more of a rotating type of shrug, but IMO that's no good. We're trying to work our traps here, and they're on your back. Pulling your shoulders back from the start of the exercise pre-engages the targeted muscle group and makes sure you get a strong muscle contraction.

All of this is moot if you're a woman though because I'll probably swap this exercise out and give you an Assisted Pull Up instead.

Next up in the video is Face Pulls which is one of my favourite exercises these days. In this one I'm really trying to hit the rear deltoid muscle which is at the rear of the shoulder. This is a precision movement and I'm focussing on keeping my wrists, elbows and shoulders even. There's a tendency with these to rotate from the shoulder and end up with your forearms more vertical.... that's not what I want though.

Finally some Hamstring Curls to finish off, and then I did more Reverse Hyper Extensions. I'm a bit embarrassed to include these Hamstring Curls in the video... they are WAY too fast and I'm not resisting / controlling the weight enough on the way down. This is why it is good to take videos once in a while if you train on your own and don't have a trainer or a lifting partner, you can spot any little mistakes than you'll know to keep in mind next time.

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DHPT Power, Precision & Pump Training Videos

We're going to do a proper training video soon, where my friend & photographer will bring a good camera and I talk and stuff as well as showing how I train. These ones are just me leaning my crappy phone against a wall, pointing it in the general direction of where I'm training and then hoping for the best! Just for a bit of fun really.

Let's run through today's session.

It was PUSH day, one of the big legs days on my card. I started off with some hack squats to warm up, just using the machine with no extra weights on it. Then into my POWER movement of the day, which was barbell lunges. I recorded my final, heaviest set which was 80kg for 6 reps. I feel like I can probably go a bit heavier next week.



Next up and not shown in the video was some Standing Calf Raises.

Moving on to upper body, first off a little warm up on the Pec Dec before moving on to some PUMP stuff. Watching this back I feel I could have gone a bit slower on this... my focus here was on keep my chest up and my shoulders pulled back to really activate the pectoral muscles. You see a lot of people leaning into this one, with shoulders pulled forward and I just don't think that's a very efficient technique. Lighter weight here, and lots of reps, stretching out at the end of the movement, and then squeezing in again.

Now PUMP movement for upper body. Decline Press. Again, it always seems a lot slower when I'm doing it than it looks when I watch the video later! On this one though we're using a lighter weight (relatively speaking) than we would in POWER mode, so we can really focus on technique and tempo. Again shoulders are pulled back to activate more pectorals, and on the downward part of the movement I want that bar coming down SLOOOOOWLY like you're a bit afraid of it or something. And then an explosive movement to push it back up again. You can hopefully see that even at the top of the movement my elbows are not locked out and my shoulders are still retracted. The last few reps start to speed up cos I was feeling the fatigue and wanted to make sure I got a few 12 reps. This was also 80kg!

Not shown in the video, I hit some cable flies and machine lateral raises next before heading back to the leg room for something horrible in the form of a Hack Squat & Leg Extension Superset. Straight from one to the other with no rest, just trying to squeeze every ounce of energy out of those quadriceps and get them pumped up full of blood and nutrients. In those Hack Squats I'm focussed on getting as low as possible, and on keeping my butt and lower back against the pad. There can be a tendency to roll the hips underneath at the bottom of the movement, and that's not good. Again, we're using a relatively lighter weight on these PUMP rep ranges so really lock in some solid and safe technique.

And that was it for today! Thank goodness the weather is a lot more mild today, so I didn't end up as much of a disgusting, sweaty stinking mess as usual the past few weeks!

There are also some Power, Precision & Pump Resistance Training Videos from last week, in case you missed those.

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Power, Precision & Pump Training Videos

Oh, just a couple of videos of me training at gym this week.

First up, from day 1 of my Power, Precision & Pump Multiple Angle Movement Based Training Program.



On this particular split, the POWER phase of the program is the horizontal pushing movement. In the video you can see I work my way up from 45, to 47.5, to 50kg. That's about 120% of my body weight.

A nice man volunteered to be cameraman for the last set.

The next video is from day 2, and my POWER movement is horizontal pulling.



Here I'm pulling 55kg in the first set, and 60kg in the second.

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