Strength +10
 

I was on duty today in the playground, and some kids were playing dodgeball (essentially throwing a ball at each other, if they get hit they go out).

They were pretty strong with the ball, and they were only 14-15 year olds. They could probably throw it faster than me, I realised.

I've never been very strong with my arms. I'm ace at catching, and am accurate at throwing, I'm just not very strong. My leg strength and stamina is reasonably high, I'd like to think, as I do a lot of walking (I enjoy it, it helps clear your mind).

I was just wondering if any of you had any simple way of increasing my upper body strength? I don't know much about jargon, so if any of you are gym bunnies then put it in layman's speak for me please :P

I don't really want to go to a gym or spend much on getting fitter in my body.

Should I invest in something like dumbbells? Or just do a few pressups?

Advice?

Hey, just thinking - this could be my new years resolution :cool:


PS i don't want to increase my upper body strength just so i could beat these kids at dodgeball - teachers arent allowed to play, much to my disappointment :(

Re: Strength +10
 

Ive done press ups now and again (believe it or not). Theyre probably a pretty decent way to build upper body strength without actually needing any equipment, it's convenience more than anything else.

I know nothing about bodybuilding though, so take that with a shaker of salt.

Do you wear your cool hats at school?

Re: Strength +10
 

Kidnap one of your stronger students, cut off his arms and surgically attach them to your own body.

Re: Strength +10
 

Push ups are by far the easiest option, they are one of the best ways to increase upper body strenght.
You work your arms, triceps, shoulders and upper back.
If you get a set of dumbells then you can work your biceps, chest, shoulders, and so on...but start off with the push ups and see how you feel.
Try to increase the number you do every second day.

Re: Strength +10
 

What if that starting number is zero? :(

Re: Strength +10
 

I go to the gym at my university.

£27 for the year. :cool:

If you were to do dumbells exercises and whatever, you're best to do them at least every other day. This gives you body to rest for one day at least. If your muscles still feel stiff (no jokes please) then do it once every 3 days.

I'm also trying to build my upper body at the moment. Sadly I'm doing it once a week. I've got other commitments.

Re: Strength +10
 

Then in two days time I'll do one!

Re: Strength +10
 

do it on your knees, like girls.

Re: Strength +10
 

As it's an additive action, rather than a multiplier, then you'll be fine. Mathematically speaking of course.

Re: Strength +10
 

If you just want to do it at home then buy a set of dumbels, you can train your chest, biceps, triceps, lowerarms, shoulders with them. Push ups aren't bad either but you can go far with a decent set of dumbels and exercises if you insist on avoiding a gym.

About doing a specific musclegroup every other day; That would be ok to gain a base strenght and fitness, when you start to get a decent amount of fitness you should do it once or maybe twice a week but with utter intensity for maximum strenght gainage. 9 to 12 sets a week is considered effective but you can experiment with this a bit as not every body reacts the same way.

In my opinion.


On a side note. When I started training 10 months ago, my weakest part was my chest. Because I like to have a brutal chest I concentrated a lot on this part and it's now my strongest part by far, I am just trying to tell you that you can get strong arms quite quickly if you show a bit of willstrenght. Within 3 months effective training with dumbels you'll notice a huge difference.


Edit:
Arm strenght doesn't really determine how far you can throw a ball, I recently read an article about some kind of test on a sport education school. A certain class did two contests. First they started a benchpress contest. The next day they did a contest consisting of throwing a ball as far away as possible. The guy who won the benchpress test (by far mind you, he's a bodybuilder) ended last in the ball throwing contest.

Benchpressing isn't mainly ment to train your arms I know, but someone who wins a benchpressing match doesn't have weak arms.

Re: Strength +10
 

This thread is now about silversmoke.




And I mean this thread is now about silversmoke.

Re: Strength +10
 

pff I knew I would get such comments, I will retreat from this thread then :(

Re: Strength +10
 

Why are you leaving your thread? Comeback please :(

Re: Strength +10
 

I like how I said I didn't want gym bunny jargon then you come out with this.

1. I don't know any musclegroups, so how would I aim for one specific?
2. Base strength and fitness? Sorry? I just want big muscles thx
3. What are "sets"?

But thanks for trying to help.

Re: Strength +10
 

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Tomkat again."
:(
Cracking post, made me laugh out loud.

I reccomend sit ups and press ups for upper body strength.

Re: Strength +10
 

1. You where speaking about arms, so you need to train the lowerarm, the bicep and the tricep. (eventhough I think it looks weird having trained arms while your chest and shoulders are lacking but hey).

2. If you want big muscles you don't just go on with a certain weight untill you can't anymore, like suggested above by someone. You take for example 4 sets (a set is an amount of repeats, like lifting 10 x 15kg). For quick visible muscle growth you do a 'pyramid' style set system. you start with 12 times doing a certain exercise. then you rest a couple of minutes and do it 10 times but just a bit heavier. the third set you repeat 8 times the exercises and again heavier. Last set you need to do it that you will probably fail the last piece of rep (a set has a certain amounts of reps, like what I drew in the first set, you did 12 reps). So the last set you make sure that you will have pain and have to pull out all you have to complete it or even fail.

3. I am not sure it's clear in point 2 but once again a set is a couple of exercise repeats in a row. Doing the steady amount of 10 pushups can be called a set. A set of ten reps (repeats).


By the way, the pyramid system I spoke about is something a lot of people 'in the know' prefer. I've been busy with most musclegroups by just doing sets of 10 reps, no matter what exercise and no matter what intensity and I see good results. The key lies in increasing the intensity of your sets, but that's pretty obvious.

Re: Strength +10
 

:confused:

Re: Strength +10
 

Just do as many push-ups as you can when you get out of bed in the morning. And do another set of push-ups whenever you get a boner.

Re: Strength +10
 

They help with your Ab's, so Tomkat can show his 6 pack off to the class.

Re: Strength +10
 

You won't see any muscle if there is even a minimal amount of fat on the surface by doing belly exercises without weights.

Re: Strength +10
 

If I did that I'd be doing push ups all the time :(


why has no one made RP jokes yet?

Re: Strength +10
 

He could always hold the yellow pages above his head whilst doing it?

Re: Strength +10
 

Then start ;) I mean.. think about how strong we would be by doing push-ups every time we had a boner :o

Re: Strength +10
 

I'm pretty sure through negative association I'd just stop getting erections. :(

Re: Strength +10
 

Unless it rains. It's hard to do push ups in the shower.

Re: Strength +10
 

I was only playing squash for for a couple of times a week for about a month and my right arm did becoming noticably bigger than my left. Cue lots of masterbating jokes amongst friends.

Re: Strength +10
 

Should have had more sex with yourself.

Re: Strength +10
 

I do pull-ups, rather than push-ups. Better for climbing, and lots harder. I guess they train different muscles though.
For core strength (abs and the like), these work wonders but are ridiculously hard, especially at first.

Re: Strength +10
 

Maybe it could be a good thing for you then, in case you got lots of presentations etc ;) I remember while being at primary and secondary school, that when I had to a presentation I was not thinking about how I should presentate my stuff, but how I should "disable" my penis for the time being.

Re: Strength +10
 

Have you tried walking on your hands?

Re: Strength +10
 

I have. I fall over after a few seconds most of the time though :(

Re: Strength +10
 

well what you need is a small girl with pigtails (lol dace lol). youthen proceed to pick her up by the pigtails and swing her round, at some point letting go. you can see the improvement from how far she flies.

Re: Strength +10
 

And as the girl grows so do your muscles. Like Milon's bull.

Re: Strength +10
 

He'll find it difficult to train his chest without a bench. Press ups also just basicially work your triceps in the main.

Yes train each individual muscle group if your a professional athlete, who has the time and inclination to do such things, but in all honesty its over rated, an all over work-out 2-3 times a week is prefectly fine.



Basicially Tomkat stop being a cheap arse, and go the sodding gym, that way you have all the equipment you need. As for increasing arm throwing speed, its not heavy weights you want to be doing but light weights alot of times. So say 25 bicep curls each arm with whatever weight you can manage that on.

Basicially you dont want to do heavy weights as you will cause yourself an injury when you come to throw, as i presume their not throwing 15kg balls at one another :(

Re: Strength +10
 

True. I didn't think of the bench but they aren't expensive anyway.

I disagree. I am moving to a specific muscle schedule because doing a complete effective workout 2 a 3 times a week takes more netto training time, makes you more tired for the rest of the evening and you aren't training in full intensity after a group or two.




Agreed (also you will meet fit girls :o )

I am not a ball throwing expert but I am pretty sure that the most effective way of increasing ball throwing strenght is by throwing balls, a lot. It's more about technique then muscle strenght. You have to make you arm muscles getting used of making the ball throwing movement.

Re: Strength +10
 

SilverSmoke lies. He knows all about tossing balls.

Re: Strength +10
 

Yes in theory its better, but given the fact hes not really serious about it (he doesnt want to join a gym), then keeping track, missing workouts, and just coming up with enough exercises to fill an hour can be a pain in the arse.

Agreed, your muslces become accustomed to the actual action of it. I was more disagreeing with your idea of doing heavy weights, rather than weights being the way to go. Heavy weights will do more harm than good, hence why cricket bowlers dont do heavy in gym, as they will get strains, tears and pulls when they come to bowl.

On a side issue, try doing the heaviest weight you can do Silversmoke for 10 reps, and then half the weight and double the reps immediately afterwards, works a treat :)

p.s. im bigger than you so stop arguing with me :((

Re: Strength +10
 

If you want to become stronger at throwing balls, then throw heavy balls lots. Training for muscle growth isnt the same thing as training for specific functional strength.

You'll find that a lot of it is technique too. Notice that most pitchers in major league baseball dont look like bodybuilders.


Low reps with heavy weights are generally better for increasing strength than high reps with light weights. But in any case, isolation exercises like dumbbell curls are the worst thing it would be possible to do if you were primarilly interested in strength or any kind of functional ability (they arent even particularly good for building muscle). He'd be best sticking to compound excercises, preferably ones that involved a lot of explosive power (bench press, rows, deadlifts etc).

Re: Strength +10
 

In any case, if you arent serious about it then theres no point even lifting weights because you arent going to see any real benefits unless youre eating right. You dont just go to the gym a couple of times a week and 'become big' independently of the rest of your lifestyle (primarilly diet).

Re: Strength +10
 

you may not be any 'healthier', but your muscles will become bigger. unless you were previously only eating salt and dirt with the rest of your ethiopian friends.

obviously going from a fat loser who can't lift up heavy objects to a fat loser who can won't help you at the beach.

Re: Strength +10
 

Its the other way round. You'll get a bit bigger during the first couple of months, but its unlikely you'll see much improvement after that unless you change your diet (specifically, eat a lot more). Your fitness (or rather, the specific type of fitness that youre training) should continue increasing though as long as you gradually increase the amount of exercise youre doing. Its just basic physics really - if you want to gain mass then your food input has to exceed the energy youre expending.

Re: Strength +10
 

assuming that before you started lifting your body was using 100% of its energy intake,

i guess that's fair enough.

Re: Strength +10
 

Out of curiousity, how much can you benchpress?


(I am not trying to come over as some kind of expert, I just try to be helpful. I am only training since a little year)

Re: Strength +10
 

Reading makes you a stronger person.

Re: Strength +10
 

This is true. I just met a fit blonde the other day I was at the gym (she can jog much further than me but I can benchpress more :cool: ).

Re: Strength +10
 

If you want to improve your ability to chuck balls around, try doing clapping pressups. They'll improve your 'explosive' strength.

Re: Strength +10
 

Wrong and correct.

If you throw heavier bals your technique in throwing them will differ more than likely.



Low reps with heavy weights increases muscle bulk. High reps with low weights increases muscle strength and is also a fantastic way to burn fat in the area also. Given the fact he also doesnt want to join a gym what sodding use would bench press, rows and deadlifts be, i cant exactly see him practising those in his spare room now can you?

Wrong again.

He probably wont develop "lean" muscle mass, but he WILL improve his strength a great deal. Its also not about eating "right", its about eating LOTS, most experts reccommend 5-6 meals a day if you want to increase muscle mass. Bare in mind though Tomkat does nothing at the moment though, meaning doing anything would be an improvement.

Re: Strength +10
 

Thats true for everyone though, as everyone will see rapid improvement the first few months, and then generally level off, with gradual improvement over time. As for fitness, you wont be seeing much muscle mass appearing if you are combining weight lifting with running, as around heartrate of 130 or more, your body starts burning muscle, and not fat.

Re: Strength +10
 

How much you can actually benchpress generally comes down to how much you actually weigh. I at the moment could bench press around 100kg, maybe a little more (set of 10), with me weighing around 80kg. However at this moment in time i use dumbells for bench pressing, and currently do 3 sets of 10, with 42-44KG each dumbell.

Re: Strength +10
 

Explosive strength in the tricep to throw balls? Interesting :rolleyes: