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Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I'm losing access to my gym for the next few months. I've been doing the 4 major lifts (deads, squats, bench, OHP) and some accessory lifts. I also do some mild cardio, about 10-15k/week.

What would be a good stopgap program to prevent me from losing too much strength/muscle mass? I have the following equipment at home:

  • Pull-up/dip bar
  • Dumbbell set (up to 30kg)
  • Ab wheel

I was thinking of just doing some random grab bag of isolation exercises (curls, flies, etc) but if anyone could recommend a coherent dumbbell program with good coverage, that would be awesome. I'm most worried about upper body (my legs are already huge).

If you want to keep up the weights, buy a foldable bench. I have one by Flybird I picked up for $50 on Craigslist. Fits easily in a closet when not being used.

This is a decent program: https://old.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/2e79y4/dumbbell_ppl_proposed_alternative_to_dumbbell/

However, a few months off is not a big deal. Your strength and muscle will bounce back quickly. Maybe a good time to explore some other forms of exercise.

Thanks, I was considering getting a bench after seeing the other comment and that's a pretty reasonable price point. And as much as I hate to admit it, this is probably a good time to focus on cardio.

30kg per DB, or 15kg per DB? Without a bench DBs are only good for shoulders and arms. If you have 30kg DBs, two foam rollers (long smooth ones, not lumpy tubes) taped together make for a serviceable ghetto bench to do chest presses.

I would do pull-ups and dips for the chest and back, weighted if needed. Get a belt you can hang your DBs from.