What happened next! The ball gets rolling.

I’ve been brave about putting up “before” pictures. I hope they will be of some use. Soon I will be posting “during” picture of my workouts, and also some video.

But, onto what happened next:

Everything that has happened since that day when I put together that old weight bench has been intuitive.  I have executed exercise and workouts that felt right. I have done it all in a manner, timeline, and schedule that simply felt right.

That first day was so much fun that I decided to continue in that theme. I would only workout for fun and pleasure. Everything I did had to fit that mold. Funny how everything worked out to be in line with what experts would have told me to do anyway.

I learned that the “burn” that resulted from my workouts lasted for two days, so I resolved to work out every other day.

I start to consider my equipment. I had a standard bench with a leg lift thingy attachment. I had a barbell, and a curl bar, and two dumbbells. I liked moving quickly from one exercise to another. Dumbbell curls to bench presses to dumbbell presses to curls with the curl bar. Right away I noticed that it was annoying to have to change the weight plates on the bars every time I switched exercises. So I started shopping for more weight plates.

In my community there is a chain of thrift stores called Deseret Industries. The “D.I.” for short. You mostly find clothing at the D.I., but they have an “outdoor” section where you can find gardening equipment and sporting goods. I’m always on the lookout for weights and weight lifting equipment. I’ve been able to find plates that match my set. Now I have the weight I need on each apparatus without having to change between sets. As the amounts I’m lifting increases, I shop for more weights.

If there was only one weight lifting apparatus that I could recommend it would be a set of dumbbells. Any exercise with dumbbells is great! And most barbell exercises can be done with dumbbells in an very similar execution. Dumbbells are unstable, so they promote balance and grip. When you work with dumbbells, you immediately get a sense of accomplishment.

I like my curl bar because it is very straight-forward. Whenever I’m feeling like my workout is overwhelming, I move to sets of curls on the curl bar. It’s stable and easy to work with. I crank out a set and start to feel like I can continue with my routine.

We’ll talk later about specific parts of my workout equipment.

After the first few days of my program I was becoming a true weight lifter, and I had a definite workout program.