Strength & Conditioning on a Budget
Looking to make some changes to your physique-changes in strength, muscle, and power? Have you always wanted your own home gym but thought it was too expensive to do so? Not only can I help you achieve this in 90 days, but I can help you look and feel better also. You don’t need a fancy gym membership with all the frills and televisions everywhere you look. I’m going to help you with your conditioning on a budget. Those are merely a distraction anyway from you focusing on what you came to do anyway-train hard. What you’re doing isn’t for everyone, and that’s what sets you apart from the rest.
Conditioning On a Budget — Equipment You’ll Need
Like I mentioned above, you don’t need a fancy gym membership for conditioning on a budget — in fact, I can save you a lot of time and money. For less than $1,000 (which equates to about 2 years worth of a gym membership depending where you go) you can build yourself a nice home gym that will suit you well. I would recommend looking into adjustable dumbbells. There are several brands out there that range from 2.5 pounds to anywhere from 50-to-120 pounds depending on the set. These adjustable dumbbells will not only save you a lot of money, but also a lot of space.
Related Article: An Interview with Strength and Conditioning Coach, Travis Reust
The last thing you need to look for is an adjustable bench for your conditioning on a budget. Look for one that adjusts from a decline position to an inclined position and has about 6-10 different position adjustments to give you a good array of decline and incline positions as well as a flat position. The bench should be of good quality and doesn’t wobble when sitting/laying on it. In terms of cardio equipment, one can easily use the great outdoors to do your cardio. Walking, jogging, running-all of which is sufficient for cardio.
It would also be wise to pick up a plyometrics ladder and some cones. These are compact and can be used to work on footwork and agility as well as be a great form of cardio.
Recovery
Before getting into the workout I need to touch on something that many people don’t realize. Most people underestimate how important rest is to your progress. Many believe that muscle growth takes place while working out, when really it takes place during rest. You stimulate the muscle when weight lifting, but at that particular time you are simply breaking down the muscle fibers. It’s after your workouts that is most crucial. Feeding and resting of your body also needs to be considered.
Getting between 8-10 hours of sleep a night will give you the proper amount of time for your body to start rebuilding the tears in the muscle fibers you created during your workout. When these fibers recover and rebuild, they come back bigger and stronger (which causes size and strength gains). So one needs to understand that stimulating the muscle is not the only part of the equation, it is the re-feed and rest which can make or break your progress.
Strength And Conditioning Workout
So what workout will help you get the best and quickest results toward your goal? Having a 4-day split with 3 strategically placed rest days is ideal. I laid the training program out so that you will have 2 heavy days and 2 moderate days (for the first 2 months). Between each grouping will be 1-2 rest days depending on the time of the week. Each workout will take you no more than 45-60 minutes.
The first 2 months of the program will consist of hitting each muscle group twice a week. Those 2 months, as mentioned, will have both heavy and moderate days. In the third month everything will be changed up and you will be pounding 2 muscle groups per day and will be training in the 8-12 rep range to specifically work on hypertrophy and make the muscles grow. Strength will be increasing the first 2 months of the program which will allow you to load a heavier weight for your exercises on that particular month of training and still reach the higher rep range. Each workout will start off with 5 minutes of cardio to warm up the muscles and then at the end of each workout you will finish with 5 minutes of cardio to cool down.
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