Various Things

This post won't be that exciting, I'm just writing about things that I would like to do with working out.

First off, my dad and I might be getting Plant Fitness passes soon! He wants to get in shape and lose some weight for tennis, and I want to get stronger and faster for track, soccer, and Ultimate. I don't have a ton of good equipment: I only have are a pull-up bar, a homemade forearm roller (too easy now), a heavy hand gripper (awesomely hard), two 20 pound dumbbells (and a way so I can combine them while doing curls), a 10 pound medicine ball (doesn't do much), and last but not least a 40 pound vest (the killer). That's probably more than your average 'home gym', but I can't do any heavy weight lifts with my legs. So going to the gym will give me many other weights, machines, and a good way to workout my legs!

A couple other things I would like to do is get 10-20 pound (per ankle) ankle weights. I mentioned this before. These are great for leg and ab workouts, and if they fit on your wrists, they could be great for arm workouts! The only problem is that to get good quality, heavy ankle weights is that they cost a lot.

Another tool that would be nice is a dip station. With one of these you can do much harder dips, body weight rows, and ab workouts.

Now, if I have the gym pass, I probably wouldn't want these as bad, but it's always nice to have things at home. Also if I get both of those (ankle weights and dip station), I might not really need the gym. I wouldn't have as heavy weights, but I could still do extremely challenging workouts. The main muscle group that a gym would be much better for is the legs. These are the heavy weights things I could do at a gym, but not at home: squats, leg curls, leg extensions, and leg press with calf raise. I guess that eventually the weighted vest and ankle weights with Plyometrics would be almost as good, but kind of hard on the joints.

I guess I'll add these to my wish list! For now, I don't really need the ankle weights or dip station, but in a few months I probably would like to have them. For example: Dips are already getting easier and easier: I dip 5 sets of 50 with the weighted vest on yesterday. That's a lot of toning, but not a ton of strengthening.

Now, to finish this off I'd like to mention that going to the gym would be great for me right now. Not only is it good for building leg strength, it has a much greater variation of weights and machines. The right now the best thing I can do for my chest (probably my weakest [comparatively] muscle group) is a push-up (with variations). At gyms they tend to have a bunch of chest machines and bench pressing benches. That would be awesome for me. Another thing is that my dumbbells can do 20 or 40 pounds. Right now I can curl 40 pounds only 7 times. Usually a good rep number is 10-15. So I'd say a 35 pound dumbbell would be perfect. Also shoulder pressing is very awkward and dangerous with two dumbbells in one hand, and none in the other, while doing one in each hand is too easy. To sum it up, I'd say I would benefit greatly from working out at a gym!