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Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast, episode 22.
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I'm Muscle Deficient Vegan here with the Protein Deficient Vegan.
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Do you wanna say hi?
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Hi.
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Hi everybody.
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We're gonna talk this week about what equipment you really need to do home workouts.
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Depending on your goals, you might have different pieces of equipment that are essential or important for that.
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So we'll get into some of those and then we'll also discuss maybe some creative solutions so you don't necessarily have to buy equipment.
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Before we get into all that, do you think we should have a theme song?
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What does anyone else think?
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We should have a theme song?
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Can you let us know?
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Yeah.
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A theme.
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A theme jingle.
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A theme jingle.
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Yeah.
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So for equipment for a home gym, you wanna make sure you don't fall into the trap of thinking you need a whole bunch of stuff or everything all at once, right?
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If you're out there on social media, you'll see a lot of really overcomplicated gym setups and really extravagant things.
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It's a trap.
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But on the flip side of that, you'll also see people who are super in shape doing calisthenic workouts in a park with just monkey bars or a pull up bar or something like that.
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And calisthenics is basically just purely using your own body weight.
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Now, if you want to do a workout like that, you really won't need much at all.
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A lot of people don't want that or even maybe can't do some of those things as a beginner.
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So, uh, it really just depends on your goals and your current fitness level and things like that.
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So, and I think in most cases, some level of equipment will help optimize things at least a little bit.
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So we wanna focus on which equipment actually makes a difference for the goal you have.
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So as a beginner or somebody who just has a general fitness goal with no specific type of workout in mind, some of the things you can get are resistance bands is a really popular kind of first thing to have at home.
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A resistance band is basically just a big strip of elastic.
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And it kind of mimics the weight of a dumbbell or something.
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So they'll be basically harder to stretch certain ones and you can get 'em up to 20, 30, 40 pounds of resistance.
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And that's kind of where they top out.
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I think there are some like really professional ones that are a little heavier, but they start out pretty light.
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And then there are some heavier ones.
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Honestly, after having too many ponytail holders snap on me, those things stress me the hell out.
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Yeah.
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There are a lot of movements with the resistance band where you're pulling it directly at your face.
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Yeah.
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And then you can see the little, like the white wear marks and the rubber were starting to wear out a little bit and a little nerve wracking, but um, usually.
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They don't hurt you too bad when they break.
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I'm like turning my face away, holding my breath and praying.
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Yeah.
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That is a good option.
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Especially good for like traveling and stuff.
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They're like, they basically take up no space.
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You can stick it in your pocket.
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They're really popular for rehab work.
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If you have an injury, they'll probably have you using resistance bands , so that's definitely one option.
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The next step up there is gonna be a set of adjustable dumbbells.
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You can also just use normal dumbbells.
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They're called fixed dumbbells, which is like, this dumbbell is 20 pounds, right?
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Mm-hmm.
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But the problem is, over time as you work out, you're gonna need a lot of different weights of dumbbell and buying individual dumbbell pairs gets like super expensive.
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So you can go and find what are called adjustable dumbbells, which is effectively one pair of dumbbells that you have some kind of selector on to pick which weight it is.
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Sometimes it's like you turn the handle, sometimes it's a lever or a knob or whatever.
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They all do it a little differently.
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But the general idea is it's just one pair of dumbbells that can basically replace an entire dumbbell rack.
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Yeah.
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And they even make loadable ones.
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Yeah.
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That are similar to like barbells.
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But those are a lot cheaper than the adjustable ones even.
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Yeah.
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But they don't go up that high.
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Right.
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And you gotta deal with putting the plates on and off.
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Yeah.
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That is a good option too.
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It's like a tiny barbell.
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And you, it has tiny plates and you kind of add 'em to it.
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I think I finally got to 15 pound dumbbells after going up in two to three pound increments before I was like, wow, this takes up a lot of space and I wasted a lot of money.
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Yeah, for sure.
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I mean, it makes sense in a commercial gym because you have multiple people trying to use 'em at once and they're like swapping 'em in and out real fast.
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But if you're the only person or you have one or two people at home doing dumbbell workouts, you don't even need multiple sets for the most part.
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So adjustable dumbbell is one pair will last you, a decade or more probably as long as you're careful with them.
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That that is one thing.
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An adjustable dumbbell set is like a little more fragile when you drop it.
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Yeah.
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Whereas the fixed dumbbells at the gym, you can pretty much throw those around without breaking 'em.
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So with an adjustable set, you do have to baby it a little bit.
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The other thing for like general fitness is a yoga mat or some kind of floor padding.
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There are a lot of floor exercises and stretches and flexibility routines and stuff like that you might wanna do on the floor.
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If you have a hard floor or a carpeted floor especially, it might be a little better to get some kind of mat to lay down that you can do that on.
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So if you want to focus specifically on hypertrophy or growing muscles the adjustable dumbbells become almost a necessity.
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Resistance bands aren't gonna get you super far there at least for more than a month or two.
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And then something else you'll wanna definitely try to get is an adjustable bench.
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Which is just a bench that can go up and down at angles.
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It can be flat or the back can be vertical.
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So you can do like sitting things with back support or you can do like a laying down bench press, something like that.
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Yeah.
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And you can find those pretty cheap.
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Yeah.
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I was part of a, like a Facebook group a few years ago, and girls in there were talking about doing, um, bench presses on their couch.
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Yeah.
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And I was like.
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I probably wouldn't do that.
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Yeah.
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'cause it's squishy.
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Yeah.
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You know, like I feel like he could definitely pull something or.
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Yeah.
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Not a good idea to do it on something that isn't like stable.
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Yeah.
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I remember we went to a hotel once and I was doing like shoulder press on a couch and I tried it on the bed and it was like, you know, kind of bouncing every time.
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It was not a good experience.
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Yeah.
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I wouldn't recommend that.
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Also another thing for hypertrophy specifically is some kind of pull up bar.
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You can get like a fixed pull up bar or you can attach it to a door frame in some cases, although I think you really want to get one that's trusted 'cause I think there are cheap ones that can just basically break the whole door frame.
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I've never used one of those, but I've definitely seen some videos that looked like they weren't much fun.
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Mm-hmm.
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But yeah, some sort of pull up bar situation.
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Is a good one to use because like pull-ups and static hangs and stuff like that are really useful.
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And then as you move more into strength training, so hypertrophy and muscle building is usually like you do more reps with less weight.
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So you don't necessarily need super heavy weights, at least not right off the bat, right?
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You can probably make it a year working in like mostly the rep ranges that dumbbells can provide.
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But if you go beyond that or you wanna go into strength training, you'll probably want to get at least one barbell and some actual weight plates to put on the barbell.
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This is gonna take up a lot more space than the dumbbell, so it's something you would maybe wanna reserve for later down the line.
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So you can get one barbell that'll last you probably your whole life, um, as just a single person user, and the same with the weight plates to go with it.
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And you can get really cute ones in different colors.
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And I have one that says, fuck the patriarchy.
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Yeah.
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In pink.
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Yeah, rogue will customize barbells and lots of different companies have colorful weight plates and stuff like that.
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And again, if you don't wanna buy something new, you were saying you were part of that Facebook group.
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Mm-hmm.
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There's a bunch of marketplace apps and Facebook marketplace and stuff like that.
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You can find people selling those all the time.
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And also for strength training, if you're gonna have the barbell, you probably want some form of squat rack.
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It doesn't necessarily need to be like a full rack, but something you can do squats on and also sometimes the squat racks have safety bars that you can use to do bench press in, which I highly recommend, especially if you're trying to do bench press at home.
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You definitely want to use some sort of safety setup.
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Yeah.
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And then if you're just trying to do cardio workouts, you don't always need equipment, obviously.
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You can just go outside and run until you get tired of running.
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Right?
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But, uh, if we're trying to do something in the house indoors, maybe it's winter.
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I don't know.
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It can be helpful to have equipment.
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Again, though, you can do like follow along with a cardio video, no equipment at all.
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Do jumping jacks and all kinds of calisthenic cardio stuff.
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Or like dancing.
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Dancing, yeah, anything really.
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But if you did want to use some equipment for it, you can use something like simple as a jump rope.
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Boxers use jump ropes a lot for cardio.
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That's pretty common.
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But if you wanna get a cardio machine, it's gonna be up to your personal preference.
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Like, uh, if you can do an elliptical, a rowing machine, exercise bike, pretty much anything like that, you can get one again, like off a secondary market.
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Or you can go fancy and buy yourself a Peloton bike so you can follow along with the trainers and have an app.
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Underrated Cardio, I would say is like video games.
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Yeah.
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Like I really like some games that are on the switch.
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And I also like, um, that VR headset, the Oculus has some pretty cool stuff you can do.
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Yeah.
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You do cardio with the beat Saber.
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Yeah.
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Until my face was so sweaty that my glasses, the, like VR glasses are so fogged up.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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The good thing about cardio is like, as long as you get your heart rate up, everything's pretty much equally effective.
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But if you were somebody who likes to actually go out and ride a real bike in the warmer months, then you might want to get an exercise bike to have for the cooler months.
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So you're still staying in practice with like that specific thing you like to do?
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Yeah.
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But if you're just generally like: I just want to get moving and do cardio, and I'm not real picky and I don't run marathons.
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I don't bike, I don't do anything like that.
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Oh, also another good one is swimming.
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So yeah, a lot of options for cardio.
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When I was living in an apartment, I actually bought this like stand that my bike could mount onto.
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Oh yeah.
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That added resistance to the wheel and I could basically use it like an exercise bike, but it was like so much cheaper than buying an exercise bike and took up obviously a lot less space since I already had a bike in my apartment.
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Yeah, that's a good tip.
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And then like if you're, that's the bike you ride, you're used to being on that bike.
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Yeah.
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That's pretty cool.
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Yeah, so just in general, as you're getting new equipment to put into your home gym or just into your house, if it's not really even a dedicated gym situation.
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I think the most important thing is like start small.
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Start with like only what you feel like you really need to get started and you can just build up over time.
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I've like never taken that advice myself.
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I remember when you moved in, you were like, uh, because I had like multiple punching bags and like a treadmill and an elliptical and a bike.
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Yeah.
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Well, luckily we end up using most of it.
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Yeah.
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On a rotation.
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So, but yeah.
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I mean, different strokes for different folks.
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Right.
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But if you're just starting to get into fitness especially, I would definitely recommend just starting with a couple of things, if any.
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Especially if you're in like a, an apartment or something.
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah.
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If you foresee.
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If you run outta space pretty fast.
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Or anywhere where you like foresee you're gonna be moving in the near future.
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Yeah, I would definitely think hard about what you want to be running around.
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Unless you can make your work pay for the movers.
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Yeah, that would be nice.
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Also like just being consistent with doing some kind of workout is gonna be a lot more important than like having the best equipment or the right equipment or even equipment at all really, if you're doing anything without equipment, it's gonna be better than doing something like, almost never once you buy the equipment.
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So, focus on consistency and just whatever minimal equipment you need to get that done.
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I feel like a wearable tracker is also kind of a big component of like a home gym.
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Like if you're gonna be working out, you probably should have something like that.
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Yeah.
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If you're taking it seriously.
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Yep.
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And if you hadn't listened to the last episode we just did yet we talked all about those, so you can go back and check that out.
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So, for resistance training specifically especially if you're trying to do bodybuilding, hypertrophy, muscle growth focused type of workouts, you can get a really long way with just an adjustable bench and a pair of adjustable dumbbells.
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And P90X.
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Yeah, P90X is good, but you can probably get a year or two into a pretty advanced workout plan with just the adjustable dumbbells and adjustable bench.
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So I wouldn't think that you need much more than that right off the bat or even anytime soon.
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If you can manage to get your hands on those you'll be really set.
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Yeah.
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'cause we had a pair of the Bowflex ones, I think.
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Yeah.
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And those were, those go up to 52 pounds?
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Yeah, I think so.
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52 pounds.
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Yeah.
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And then what is the, what's the brand we have now?
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We have power blocks now.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Oh, they have like one for, uh, smaller hands, which I really like.
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And then, there's another set where it's like expansive.
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Then it can go up, I think, to 90, I think they actually have a pair now that goes up to like 120.
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Oh, wow.
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Yeah.
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So yeah, you can get the ones with the expansion kits or any kind of adjustable, just super nice.
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We use 'em, you know, several times a week.
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And also if you are gonna go and find something secondhand on a marketplace or maybe even just from somebody, you know, um, if it's gonna be something that has a safety component, like you don't really have to worry about this as much with like a dumbbell, but for something like maybe even a barbell, but a, definitely like a squat rack or a bench or something like that.
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You wanna make sure it's not damaged and it's still safe.
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Yeah.
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You don't wanna be lifting on an adjustable bench and it collapses because something was worn out or broken or something like that.
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That can be really dangerous.
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So you just wanna make sure.
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Yeah.
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I really try to follow this one rule in life and it's if I die doing this thing, are people gonna think I'm an idiot and then I don't do those things?
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Yeah.
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That's probably a pretty good rule.
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Yeah.
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I think a lot of us guys could, uh, learn to live by that a little more.
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I think it's built into our DNA to do very stupid things.