Skip to content

Comment on Hacking strength: Gaining muscle with least resistanceparent

Comments

If you're "starting out", then bodyweight exercises...

Bodyweight exercises can be extremely frustrating when you are really just starting out. When I first started, I couldn't do more than 5 pullups or about 20 pushups, which made it unnecessarily hard to progress. I switched to weights so that I could lower the load and do 3 sets, and immediately made much better progress.

You can drop load by putting a knee down during a pushup.

Pullups I don't know how to adjust.

Or put a chair or stool out in front of you and rest one leg on it. Try to take as much weight as possible with your arms, basically just resting your leg on the chair as opposed to actively pushing off against it. As your arms get stronger you'll naturally use the chair less until you can remove it entirely.

Also nice to essentially do a pull-up strip set. (Get a few extra pull-ups in when your muscles are fatigued and can no longer lift your whole weight.)

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.