[Hades]

There's a lot of anxiety and nervousness in the strength and fitness community that frankly pisses me off to no end.

People have a huge hard-on for the "perfect" program. The "perfect" diet. The quest for not wasting a single bit of unnecessary effort, as though maintaining your body should be a nickel-and-dime effort of half assedness. I propose a different mindset entirely. It's an act of self-love to lift a lot of weights, eat right, and try to become leaner in a healthy fashion.

For instance, I do not have a gym membership. Why bother? The entire world is a gym. Look around.
Today I did a lot of chinups off a rope I tied to a tree. The rope was made out an old bed sheet. Who cares if somebody watches me in my cutoffs, smoking cigarettes, and getting strong as hell? It's silly to give a fuck about somebody else's opinion when you have your own mission.

A few days ago I got drunk and took an old wagon axle, rusty - steel wheels on either side, maybe a hundred pounds, and did dozens of snatches, cleans and presses, heaves, and throws - just for the hell of it. Picked up some huge rocks too. Why not? You can tell a lot about somebody by how they treat themselves when they are alone. I like myself a lot, so I treat myself on a frequent basis to lots of exercise, alcohol, cigarettes, and whatever else I feel like having. Just tonight I went on an eight mile stroll across town. If you don't enjoy being by yourself you will always have that fear and anxiety.

So yeah, W&F forum, consider this the lounge for posting pictures of redneck weightlifting setups. I have large stones, axles, a tractor tire (buried) and soon a sledgehammer and decent manila rope. Get strong as hell, men, there is no shame in looking foolish, and do it outside if possible!

[OGNorCal707]

Word I like your line of thought, I remember when I was 20 years old I went to Costa Rica with a buddy of mine, we were at Cahuita a little beach town on the Caribbean coast when my friend met this older black dready local guy who was basically homeless and lived in a crude shack between some palm trees on the beach. Anyway this guy was in his 40's, poor and homeless, but what really stood out to me was how incredibly ripped and buff this guy was. At the time I thought the only way to get strong was spending countless hours in the gym pumping iron, which may be partially true for most people.

Anyhow I made a point to ask him if he worked out and he said that yes he did, but I scratched my head and said how do you work out if there are no gyms and you don't have any weights, which was apparent by the way he was living. He proceeded to walk over towards the beach and grab two huge rocks which he began to curl, then he did side raises, and over head presses, basically he used rocks and whatever was available to him, pull ups from tree branches, dips off of ledges, etc.

He really opened my eyes to the possibilities, and on my past travels whenever I wanted to try to stay in shape, I'd kind of emulate this old dreads approach, using whatever I can find to get a little work out in. My buddy and I have gone to the river and beach and did entire workout with rocks, it's actually pretty cool.

All in all, I'd still rather go to the gym where I have access to bench presses, squat racks, dumbbells, etc., but if you're traveling, in a remote location, or simply don't want to pay for the gym then you can still work out on your own, sometimes you just got to think outside the box.

[KeeperNine]

Personally I've always found that gyms are too 'clinical'. Everything is ergonomically designed to be just the perfect size to fit your hand, the perfect nonabrasive levels of grip and so forth. Improvising from the world has always been much more stimulating for me.

[TigerMandingo]

I agree with OP but all of that is kinda hard when you're living in sterilized suburbia that is packed with nothing but strip malls, gas stations, supermarkets and.....gyms

So for now I'm just gonna have to make do with my current location.

[Hades]

For some reason my browser is not able to quote. Tiger Mandingo - when I visit Minneapolis I'll do dips off bike racks. Why not? Sterlized suburbia, if anything, has bigger potential just due to the large assortment of various stuff everywhere. Deck ledges for chinups, that sort of thing. I did handstands in the back yard (poorly but it's getting better all the time.

[Ringo]

I love this approach and always practice it when I'm away travelling or away from the gym.

It's easily doable for short periods of time - and it's fun.

However it can be tricky to do longer term because the lack of reference makes me not push myself harder.

Like if on one day I can do 60 total pullups off a tree, and in the next I can only do bodyweight rows using chairs and manage to get 100 in 20 minutes, it's difficult to measure the progress. Same if you're doing HSPU on one day and OHP with stones on the next.

In that respect, I like having strict routines longer term - either with bodyweight exercises or weights - because it keeps progress measurable. That's when the gym (measurable weights), the park (same setup) or using the same few BW exercises come in handy.

[IDrinkYourMilkShake]

The titel of the thread reminds me of Ross Enamite

Even if you live in a small apartment you can invest in some dumbells and get pretty good results with just that, plus some calithenics. Not to forget about using your local playground for a workout.

[HonantheBarbarian]

Yeah man, I am definitely on the same page as you OP. I haven't visited a gym in over 6 years, and yet I look a lot better than a lot of my friends that go to the gym. Just the other day a buddy of mine asked if I go to his local LA fitness and I was like na fam, I workout in my garage and use trees and ropes. He didn't seem to believe me.

In the other thread on Fitness Gurus, I mentioned Big Brandon Carter. This guy helped me go from pretty decent wiry Michael Phelps-looking physique to noticeably muscular. I mean I didn't look bad before, but now I constantly get comments from people at work while I'm fully clothed.