What equipment u got at home...

[Suntzu]

just curious..... and bored....

>Impex 'squat' rack and bench w/ leg exts and lat bar...
>300 lbs oylimpic set
?36lbs KB
>8 lbs Nike medicine ball
>adjustable standard dumbells and barbell with assorted plates from here and there
>that wheel thingy
>double end bag

[Shaolin-Do]

>30 lb, 20 lb, 10 lb dumb bells
>40 lb steel bar
>55 lb bar
>10 lb ankle weights
>2 80 lb heavy bags
>giant spring for pecs
>weights on pulley
>weights on string tied to round wood
>ozarka bottle filled with water(5 gal)
>focus mitts
>jump rope
>dip set up with pull up bar
>stretching rack
>Bout to get a medicine ball

[Vash]

Well, let's see . . .

An 8' tall chinup bar (that high because it's generally used to hang deer for skinning)

Pair, 5lbs dumbbells

Pair, 20lbs dbs w/removeable weights.

Lots and lots of uneven ground.

Oh, and a pool.

[fa_jing]

3, 5, and 15 pound dumbells

1 lb. weighted jump rope

two 53 lb. kettlebells

Power Pushup 2

one 80 lb heavy bag with no where to hang and no where to practice on it.

I just bought a pair of focus mitts.

[IronFist]

20lb dumbell
30lb dumbell (just one of each of these)
Parallettes (homemade)
Captains of Crush Gripper Trainer
Captains of Crush Gripper Level 1
Wing Chun Wall bag (on the floor)
Wooden Dummy (homemade except for limbs, see sig)
Pro Force rebreakable board (thickest one)
Two focus mits (Pro Force I think, they were like $30 for the pair)
Some Sparring and bag gloves
An ab wheel thing ($9 Champs one)


I've accumulated that stuff over the years. I lift weights at the gym.

[Serpent]

I have a large brown bear chained up in the back yard that I wrestle every morning.

What more do you need?

[Toby]

Olympic barbell
400lbs weight
Body-Solid power rack
-- " " -- flat bench
Skipping rope
Homemade janda machine
-- " " -- evil wheel
17lbs medicine ball
Swiss ball

Iron, I've got a question for you (and anyone else that can help) - I've been thinking about getting some Captains of Crush grippers. I've got a dime-a-dozen gripper at home, and I can do 70 reps in a row fast or slow. I also sometimes do that exercise where you have a round bar with a rope tied to it and a weight hanging at the bottom and you hold it out in front and lift up the weight by rotating the bar using your wrists so the rope coils around the bar (wow, long sentence). I do that with 22lbs. Anyway, I was thinking of getting the No 1 and No 2 grippers. What do you reckon? Am I overestimating my strength? I want a gripper that I can struggle to do sets of 3-6 reps on and I thought I'd be able to do that with the No 1 and build up to the 2 eventually. Should I go with the trainer and No 1 instead?

Thanks in advance.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Toby
Homemade janda machine
-- " " -- evil wheel


What are these?

[Toby]

G'day Serpent,

I've recently jumped on the Pavel bandwagon :o and bought PTP and Bulletproof Abs. However, I made up my "evil wheel" before that. I got the idea from here:

http://www.t-mag.com/html/body_96ab.html

That's Pavel in the photos, anyway. I think the photos come from Bulletproof Abs. The wheel is pretty cool. I made mine up with a wheelbarrow wheel, piece of dowel and bmx grips. I do sets of 6 or so on my knees. I tried on my feet, but after a certain point I just collapse.

The Janda machine is used to do the 1st exercise in the photos. Got a rough idea of how to build it from here:

http://www.geocities.com/briangl2002/janda.htm

I gotta say, I was skeptical, but the Janda's really work. I'm still not doing them 100% correctly, but I struggle to keep form and control when in the negative phase of the exercise. If I then do a situp without the machine - no problem. For the concentric phase, my form sucks too. To get up, I have to just give'er. I'm doing slow sets of 6 reps.

That T-mag article also covers full-contact twists, which are truly awesome. I was doing those with 20 and 25kg on an Olympic barbell and they really worked my obliques. They became rock-solid after a few weeks of doing those. Now that my shoulder's stuffed, I haven't done them for a while, but I'm hanging out to start again. You really feel like you have some rotational power, too. Highly recommended, with definite carry-over to MA.

Lastly, I've started one-arm deads as an alternative to the F-C twists while I try to recover my shoulder and they are good, but not nearly as good IMHO. 60kg feels about right, and I feel the obliques straining, but I prefer the rotational movement.

Sorry about hijacking the thread.

[Serpent]

OK, so an evil wheel is an ab roller. That's easy enough. However, I still don't understand the janda thing.

Are you supposed to pullagainst the hands (i.e. pull your heels towards your butt) or push up (i.e. push your feet away from your butt)? And how does this help isolate the abs?

[Toby]

LOL! I thought the ab roller was like a frame that you lay in, like the ones advertised with the free steak knives on Demtel or Danoz or GMA ads :D

With the Jandas, you pull against the hands as though you're doing hamstring curls. The premise is that by activating the hammies you're deactivating the quads and hip flexors while you do the situps. I'm a cynic, and like I said I was skeptical, but even with my cr@ppy form it makes the situp much harder. You have to do them right, though. If you relax and stop pulling with the hammies and driving your feet into the floor the effect lessens and you end up doing a normal situp. If you've got a training partner, it's easy to do them. If you don't, either buy Pavel's "Ab-pavelizer" (without free steak knives) for US$180-odd plus postage to Oz, or build a substitute like I did for about AUD$20 of pine and bolts.

Hope that helps.

[Ka]

2xBar Bell
Dumbbell assorted plates
Chin up and Dip station
Rock Rings
Medicne Ball 5kg ,Sand Bag
2x 20 l Water Jerries
Hang Board
Skipping Rope
Grip Machine + COC
Paraellettes
Thai Pads, Focus mits,16Oz gloves,4 Oz gloves,head gear.

Toby, Full contact twist are the stuff
I think you would like this article(if you haven't already read it)
www.t-mag.com/articles/205abs.html
And you know you can just do a BB rollout or Butt Ups rather then make the ab roller,lest you didn't buy it.

[Toby]

Serpent,

Bit more on the isolation Q. Most normal situps don't just use the ab muscle, but a lot of quads and hip flexors and lower back. The theory behind the Janda situp is that forcing an opposing muscle into action deactivates the one you're interested in (like I just said). I'm kinda skeptical, because you can flex both your tricep and bicep at the same time, and they do opposing tasks, but whatever. It works for the Janda situps, so try it out. Prof Janda has a bunch of papers published. I haven't tried to find any of his research or papers written about his situp ideas, but if anyone has a link I'd be interested in reading them.


Ka,

I'd forgotten about that article. Thanks for reminding me. I used to do bent presses. I really liked them. I found 6 reps hard with 44lbs. I also used to do Saxon side bends. Funny to struggle doing them with 15lb dumbbells in each hand. What's a BB rollout or a Butt Up? Brand names? I built my wheel, for AUD$20 or so, so I'm happy.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Toby
LOL! I thought the ab roller was like a frame that you lay in, like the ones advertised with the free steak knives on Demtel or Danoz or GMA ads :D


No, that's the Love Harness. ;)



With the Jandas, you pull against the hands as though you're doing hamstring curls. The premise is that by activating the hammies you're deactivating the quads and hip flexors while you do the situps. I'm a cynic, and like I said I was skeptical, but even with my cr@ppy form it makes the situp much harder. You have to do them right, though. If you relax and stop pulling with the hammies and driving your feet into the floor the effect lessens and you end up doing a normal situp. If you've got a training partner, it's easy to do them. If you don't, either buy Pavel's "Ab-pavelizer" (without free steak knives) for US$180-odd plus postage to Oz, or build a substitute like I did for about AUD$20 of pine and bolts.

Hope that helps.

OK, I understand the theory now but I'm still skeptical. Especially as the "equipment" costs US$180! :eek:

A chin up bar low down in a doorway would do it, but I guess that would also effectively booby-trap the doorway! I'll have to find a way of giving them a go.

[IronFist]

Toby said:
Anyway, I was thinking of getting the No 1 and No 2 grippers. What do you reckon? Am I overestimating my strength?

Yeah, you are probably overestimating it. The 70 reps you can do with the regular kind is such high reps that it's only endurance you've been gaining for a long time, and not raw strength. CoC grippers are for developing grip strength. If you can do a lot of reps on them then you're awesome. But I think IronMind says that they're not designed for cranking out tons of reps.

But yeah, get the Trainer and the number 1. Haha, the only problem with those two is that the number on the bottom... the T looks just like the 1 except for the little flag part on top of the 1, so you have to look closely to tell them apart. Hehe. You'll see. But even IronMind recommends to start with the Trainer no matter how strong you think you are.

Also, I found that a) they almost feel like they're a little too big for my hand. I'm 5'9" and I don't have the biggest hands in the world. Like, I have to position it in my hand with my other hand before I can squeeze it. b) the aluminum (titanium?) knurled <sp> surface can be rough on the hands.

[Ka]

Toby
BarBell Roll Out is just a standing ab roll out with a BB instead,and a butt up is best demostrated by the lovely lass at BB.com,search Butt Ups and Bar Bell roll outs are there too.
Personally Saxons, Windmills,FC Ab Twist,plus Vups and crunchies and my Abs are toast.
Good to find someone who likes T-mag excerises.

[IronFist]

Toby said:
I also used to do Saxon side bends. Funny to struggle doing them with 15lb dumbbells in each hand.

Holy ****! You can do Saxon side bends with 15lb dumbells in EACH HAND? I never got past like 5lbs in each hand. Now, to make myself feel better, I'm going to say that I have a huge range of motion in this exercise and obviously this is a movement that gets exponentially harder with each degree you bend down.

[IronFist]

People said:
Janda situps

Ok. I think they are awesome, but it's to the point where I HATE showing this exercise to people. I try to explain to them how they work, and they're like "ok." So I get down and pull on their calves (doing it the partner way) and I tell them to contract their hamstrings as hard as they can and they say "ok." Then they go and crank out rep after rep and say "yeah, that feels a little bit harder than normal."

:rolleyes:

Then I say "no, if you were doing them right you wouldn't have even gotten one rep."

People will invariable pick up their feet while doing this, even if they're contracting their hamstrings, and the lifting of the feet activates the hip flexors and then *bam* you're back to a regular situp. :rolleyes:

Telling people to push their feet diagonally DOWN into the ground and BACK toward them tends to get their feet pressing in the right direction and gets their leg muscles doing the right thing. Then they try to sit up, can't, and once again lift their feet. Well, they had it for half a second.

So once again, if you can do a complete rep on your first try, you're doing it wrong.

[Toby]

Originally posted by Serpent
I have a large brown bear chained up in the back yard that I wrestle every morning.

Just get your bear to hold on to your ankles and try out the Janda exercise to see if you like it.

If you do, I used 4 100mm bolts, 4 nuts, 8 washers, 4 6g x 50mm screws, a couple of metres of 40x30mm or 50x30mm pine and a spare bit of thick ply. Tools required? A saw and a drill. A 9.5mm drill bit for the bolt holes and the screws don't really need predrilling in pine. I also used a sander to round off corners on mine. I basically followed the dimensions on that link I posted, but ended up changing it a bit. E.g. you don't need the vertical part to be any higher than about 200mm if you put the dowel through the top part of the vertical bar instead of halfway up like on the website. I'm also going to put rubber on the bottom of mine to stop it slipping on our floorboards.

Iron,

Thanks. I always overestimate. Must be ego or something ;). Every now and then I need a reality check. I just thought (in my dreams) eventually I'd be using the No 1 and aspiring to No 2, and since 2 grippers will cost me AUD$100 to get here (~US$65) I didn't want to get 3 of them. If they were titanium, I'd understand the cost, but it sucks paying so much to get things down here ... I like having rough hands, so that doesn't bother me. I've had calloused hands for pretty much the last 15 years or so, so I'm used to it. My wife doesn't like it so much though :D Apart from the obvious reasons, just last week, I was trying to get crusty sleep crap out of my 2 boys eyes one morning and managed to draw blood on the side of both their noses with my rough fingerpads.

Re the Janda stuff: like I said, my form sucks. On contraction I find myself cheating and lifting my feet. I do 2 sets of 6 (the cheat's way). Still find them hard, though. At least I'm aware of the correct form and aspire to it. I realise that when I said "If you've got a training partner, it's easy to do them" that that sounded like Jandas were easy to do. What I should have said was the technique is easier to get right with a partner than with my homemade machine, not the exercise itself is easier. I've heard about the theory that you shouldn't be able to do 1 rep with proper form the 1st time. My abs (both lower and upper :D) are reasonably strong to start with anyway compared to my fellow MA students so I was hopeful of completing a rep or 2. I feel I get correct form on the eccentric phase of the situp, but definitely not the concentric. Part of the problem is my homemade machine slipping when I pull against it (see my rubber comment above for a hopeful fix). Am I right in thinking that if I get maximal contraction in the hammies (like I'm doing a hamstring curl) in both concentric and eccentric phase, that I'm getting the right action? That's when it feels right to me, anyway. Thanks again for the tips.


Ka,

That makes sense. I had heard of those before but forgotten. I'll go searching for that BB.com lass now to read up on butt ups ;).

[Ford Prefect]

I don't have much:

1 pood Kettlebell
Dragging Sled
200 lbs of plates
Wrist Roller
Captain of Crush Grippers (Trainer and No1)
Mini Bands (jumpstretch)
Blue Bands (jumpstretch)
Chin Bar
Neck Harness
Agility Ladder
2, 5, 8, 10, 15 lbs dumbells
Ab Wheel
Power Wheel
Jump Rope ;)

[rubthebuddha]

30 lb. dumbbell
10 lb. dumbbells (2)
lifeline tnt cables
ab roller
jumprope

and something we all need ...

my computer hooked up to a phat stereo with a zillion mp3s. :)

[FatherDog]

I have a big, hilly yard.

That's about it.

Fortunately, I also have cheap access to the Princeton University gym, which has just about every piece of equipment you can imagine.

Except a glute-ham raise bench. :mad:

[Toby]

Originally posted by IronFist
Holy ****! You can do Saxon side bends with 15lb dumbells in EACH HAND? I never got past like 5lbs in each hand. Now, to make myself feel better, I'm going to say that I have a huge range of motion in this exercise and obviously this is a movement that gets exponentially harder with each degree you bend down.
Yeah, it's probably due to the ROM. I do it in a mirror and get down to about 30-40 degrees off vertical. Doing it now with empty hands in the air, I struggle to get much lower than that anyway without compensating by moving my hips in the opposite direction. I must have tight obliques. I gotta say, when I first tried doing them I tried 22lbs in each hand and then 18.7lbs in each hand and hurt myself. 15lbs is really pushing it, right from the 1st rep. I break out in a sweat after my 12 reps. L-R is 2 reps for me, so 6 on each side. 2 or 3 sets. I'm relatively big, 6'3", 215lbs, so 15lbs for me is counterbalanced pretty well by my spare tire ;).

Did some more Jandas last night and yeah, I suck. I can't maintain form going up and struggle on the way down. I know what feeling I'm aiming for. I get it (like you said) for 1/2s at a time.

[IronFist]

Toby said:
Re the Janda stuff: like I said, my form sucks.

Dude, when I was talking about people not being able to do them, I was reffering to people in general, not you. You've studied them and know what to feel and what to do.

Yes, you want to keep your hamstrings contracted, and I find it helps a lot if you keep your feet pressed into the floor as this further contracts them and helps prevent you from trying to lift your feet.

[abobo]

Wrist roller (made a new one, slightly thicker)
CoC - T,1
Paralletes
Jump rope
hip belt

[abobo]

b) the aluminum (titanium?) knurled <sp> surface can be rough on the hands. [/B]

It only takes a couple of weeks to get good calluses.