At the beginning of August, our friend Jenny gave Yulia and I a pile of her old boyfriend’s workout equipment. She is moving, and is getting rid of anything she can. Yulia and I were talking just the week before on how lousy it was that we didn’t make better use of the space in the office off of our bedroom. One of the comments that she made was it would be nice to have a space to workout at home in. Well, with Jenny offering a bunch of equipment, this seemed like a great chance to change something for the better.

I got a curling bar, plates, and a bench from Jenny. I took the easy chair out of the office, and moved the equipment into that corner. Then I went around the house and collected all the random home equipment that we had, which included a few light dumbbells, elastic straps for stretching, and a swiss ball. I went to the store and picked up a 12 pound medicine ball, and some dumbbell handles for the smaller plates. We also got a pull-up bar for the closet.

I went online to Menshealth.com and downloaded a bunch of exercise plans, and tried to figure out how to make a set of workouts based on what we have. After doing that for 4 weeks, I didn’t lose any weight, but dropped 2% body fat and gained 2% more muscle (according to our scale, which electronically measures that.)

Now, I have started adding kettlebell exercises as well, with a 35 pound kettlebell, and have more workouts added from ideas I got from Gymjones.com. Yulia got the P90x program, which includes a diet plan and 12 exercise DVDs. I tried a few and they are tough!

Having the ability to do this at home, and not run to the gym all the time is fantastic. Having equipment staring at you from the corner is fantastic for motivation, and with this here, the whole family gets involved. I added a corkboard to post plans for everyone. Feeling healthy for myself is good, but doing it with the whole family is even better. This is what I did this week:

Workout Blog Week of 9/7/9

Sunday

• Rest

Monday

• 35# KB Swings – 4 sets of 20 w/active rest
• 35# KB TGU – 4 each side
• 25# Dumbbell Man Makers 3 sets of 4

Tuesday

• P90X Yoga X – 1.5 hours

Wednesday

• 35# KB Swings – 20
• 35# KB High Pull – 3 each side
• 35# KB Clean/Press – 4 Each side
• 35# KB TGU – 2 each side
• 25# Dumbbell Pec Fly – 3 sets of 7
• 25# Dumbbell Military Press – 3 sets of 7
• 25# Dumbbell Chest Press – 3 sets of 7
• 30# Dumbbell Bent Row – 3 sets of 8
• 30# Dumbbell Bicep Curls – 3 sets of 7
• 35# KB Triceps extension – 3 sets of 10
• 20# Dumbbell Man Makers – 3 sets of 5

Thursday

• 30 min Treadmill – intervals HR 148/120BPM

Friday

• Medicine Ball – Tar Heels 400 – time 21 minutes

Saturday

• Rest

Not bad for an old man.