Gentle Giant

It’s been soooo long since I posted so here goes a post I wrote during the pandemic and I’ve meant post earlier in the year. Better late than never as they say.

A bench, dumbells and maybe a pull up bar and a workout program. ( I put my recommendations

in the first sentence OMG)

Over this past summer dos of covid I had the honor of training the Gentle Giant. We had some fun training over a few months and he was super friendly and surprisingly engaging funny banter during our hot summer training sessions.

What was unique to this friendship (because all my clients become my friends) was at the beginning he had never lifted a single weight in his life since he was approaching middle age-ish. While never lifting a single weight he began our summer journey by stating up front I’m doing this for a few months and at the end of my “tour de Baizfit” I want to purchase the de minimus equipment to do the exercises on my own.

After all, this is the real reason I decided to write this blog post. What do you really need in your home gym to be effective? Some say you can do everything you need to do with body weight? I’d argue that some individuals cannot do much with body weight depending on their height, weight, muscle mass, fat mass and lastly exercise experience.

So my recommendation is simple - A weight bench. A decent bench that will hold your weight in addition to the weight of the dumbbells.

Dumbell - adjustable dumbbells will save you space and $$. They come in different max weights. Go the highest you can afford and handle with two arms because you’ll have to move them into place initially. Remember they are adjustable so just because you select the 70’s doesn’t mean you actually lift 70’s during your session. Over time, you body will need progressive overload aka heaver weight so that’s why we chose the ability to go higher.

Final piece of equipment which I think optional is a pull-up bar. I guess you could use a tree branch however that seems a little iffy sometimes.

I know what you are thinking, BF how much does all this cost me in this covid/inflation era?

~$200 Bench

~$400 adjustable dumbbells

~$30 for a pull-up bar

-Free online Weight program with instructions (google)

This is maybe around $630 hundo. I’m sure you can find used stuff or knock off lower quality stuff to lower this value but I usually select higher quality gear that I know are going to last a long time.

I know what you are thinking again - I’m a poor college/high school student etc I cannot afford it. There’s where I challenge you - if you want to reach your goals you’ll find a way to raise that money in baby sitting or chores or lawn mowing or start a website selling widgets…you’ll it figure out if you want it and yes the “juice is worth the squeeze!”

-BF