One of the most frequent questions I get is you guys asking about what weights to buy for a proper backyard workout.
Lots more interest ever since I launched the complete God Bod training system last week.
God Bod is a whole body system, it’s actually not a minimalist program. You do need some resources to make it happen correctly. But it’s less than you think. After some experimenting, I discovered it’s even less than I thought was necessary as well.
I’m going to list these in ascending order, starting with the easiest and cheapest through to the largest tools that need the most space or budget.
Please buy these. Most are cheap and they will enable you to have a workout anywhere. There is no excuse to not give yourself these tools to improve your body and health. This will change your life.
I don’t know if this needs to be said, but I don’t do affiliate links. I have no incentive to promote any these products.
BANDS
They weigh nothing, and high quality bands are super cheap. This is the ultimate anywhere workout tool.
You can’t go wrong, just buy bands of lots of different widths i.e. resistances. I’ve used many over the years, but this is the literal set I bought just a couple weeks ago. It’s $37 and they can give you a complete workout!
From a physics perspective, bands work like a spring — start with no tension, wind them up, then lots of tension, release the tension.
Here is the important thing you need to know when training with bands.
If you really want to get the muscle gainz, be slow and intentional with your reps, more so than other lifting tools like iron. Even more important, spend most of your time on the back half of the rep, i.e. releasing the tension in the spring. Winding up the spring is important for sure, but the most muscle development will happen on the other side when you are releasing the tension. This is called the “eccentric” or “negative” part of the rep in bro science circles.
DUMBBELLS
After years of consideration, I’ve decided to come down in favor of dumbbells. Don’t get me wrong, I have dumbbells, kettlebells, and tons of other fun tools. But if you have to choose one — choose dumbbells. Yes there are some exercises, like swings, that are ideal with kettlebells. But a set of dumbbells simply gives you access to more variety and options than an equivalent set of kettlebells. For the most part, you can do all kettlebell exercise with dumbbells.
You can never have too many dumbbells. But if you have to choose just one weight for God Bod, you don’t need more than a single set of 20-35 ish pound dumbbells. Remember, if a bell is too heavy, you can double hand it, which doubles the usability of that weight. And by now you’ll have bands to cover circumstances where the dumbbell will not work.
PULL UP BAR + RINGS
The biggest regret I have from these past few years is waiting too long to buy a pull up bar for my backyard during quarantine. There is a park near my house with a pull up bar, and I have rings, so I always told myself I could just go over to the park and exercise there.
Wrong.
Having a pull up bar and rings ready to go in your backyard whenever you want it might be the biggest game changer of them all. This should be your biggest priority, but because of price and more importantly space, I realize it can’t be everyone’s first move.
Good news though, if you are short on space or budget, a doorway pull up bar + a set of parallettes is a great choice.
Another hack: if you choose the right set of dumbbells, you can use them as a set of parallettes as well!
BONUS: WATCH
How can you be effective without keeping time? I’ve tried several gym timers and they were all bad. I’ve spent a small fortune on activity watches and they were all really bad as well.
Fitbit sucks so much. It feels like you are wearing a ladies tennis bracelet.
Whoop I was very excited for, and they do some things really well, but holy moly did they screw up some key features. Epic fail.
Garmin felt like I was wearing a Tamagotchi pet but even worse. Though to be fair, it wasn’t the top of the line model, which I hear can be really good.
The only watch watch I’ve loved is the G-Shock smart watch, my GBD-200. It’s classic, stylish, gets great reactions, and I’m pumped to put it on every day. And most important, it does a great job with helping me workout. I even wear it with suits sometimes.
Nate