Too Much Heavy Cardio for Strength?

Training Beginners
1

Hey!

I’m currently in the process of moving to my own place, meaning I have to start saving every dime I have, so gym will be out of the question (also, haven’t trained properly for about half a year…)

I just want to know whether or not I’m killing myself with what I’m currently doing (unlikely), or the opposite, not doing much at all, or maybe just needs some tweaking.

I only have dumbbells in my possession, and I mostly focus on strength/cardio, but I still want to have at least SOME decent progress with my mass (upper body obviously, cant really do legs with whats available to me).

This might be horribly bad, so I’m open for you telling me that I’m completley wrong/retarded.

So I basically split it to three days, training ABC rest AB. I play basketball alot and involve it with my “training”:

A = 3/4 / 1 hour of basketball, followed by running for about 20 minutes, 3 sets of chinups, 3 sets of pullups, 4 sets inverted pushups, 4 sets of dips, 4 sets of pushups.

B = 3/4 / 1 hour of basketball, followed by running for about 20 minutes.

C = Upper body workout with the dumbbells (biceps, shoulders, tricep) and 4 sets of pushups.

I know and I’m sorry that this might not be the correct forum for this, but I won’t have interent available for I don’t know how long, and I always kind of leeched out of T-Nation :stuck_out_tongue:

If this is terribly wrong, please suggest a better plan but take under considreration my limited resources.

Thanks alot in advance!

2

Just make sure you drink like 10-12 glasses of 2% horizon organic milk DAILY. and you’ll be fine

3

Since you got no cash, get a part time job in a gym.

Your routine is good for killing time.

4

Anyone with something a little bit more constructive?

There’s no need for your amazing wit/sarcasm by the way, unless your English is even worse than mine, it’s rather easy to understand that this is just a temporary solution, and I don’t intend to exactly attend BB comps by doing this :slight_smile:

I’ve been doing this for about a month, and I definitely got in to a better shape, lost some body fat without too much of an evidential mass loss, and increased my performance, but this could happen if I were doing ANYTHING at all after a lengthy inactivity.

I guess I’m merely asking if I constructed the routine right or not and wonder if I’m not doing anything horribly wrong that will just hurt me in the long run. I don’t plan to do this forever, but for the next couple of months I have no choice.

All best!

5

Leon, you are not going to gain much mass with that routine. If you have no choice for the next few months, here are some of my favorite poor-man’s exercises for the legs:

  1. Walking overhead lunge (pick up anything heavy and hold it high)
  2. Walking in-front lunge (hold it straight out in front of you)
  3. Overhead squat
  4. In-front squat
  5. The original good morning (read Hamstring Training article, I think)

Reduce some of the running and basketball to make time for these exercises, that is what I suggest.

You can be equally creative for the upper body, but considering you have DB’s, you probably don’t need to look for rocks or scrap metal.

6

Get yourself a sandbag.

Deadlift, Clean and jerk, floor press etc.

7

Thanks a lot for these! definitely going to get myself a bag and replace it with B.

8

As long as you are lifting something heavy in the following: Squat, deadlift, Horizontal and vertical push and pull, you have it covered. Your existing routine was ignoring your lower body. You were also probably using too little weight to be challenging. The sandbag is definitely something you should look at. It’s hard to get progressive weight increases though. A lot of small bags inside the big bag will make that easier.

9

In addition to what has been said already: Have you considered sprinting? Here’s an example of how to set things up…