nothing fancy, my partner is just starting out but wants to become a muscle girl as she works to conquer her PCOS and i'm down for it :panting: hand weights are fine, or something with a small bar. as cheap as possible without being terrible if anyone's had personal experience
If you're on a budget, gymnastics rings will get you farther than hand weights.
The other cheap option is bags of play sand from Lowe's taped together and stuffed in a duffle bag.
Even just 45 lbs of weight is more than 100 dollars if you buy real weights
gymnastics rings
How do they work though? I mean it, never really was able to do much with them.
You start by just holding yourself up over them or hanging from them with your shoulders engaged.
Then you do pushups and rows on them.
Then you do pullups and dips.
After that, you can start progressing to the fancy stuff. Muscle ups, front levers, back levers, L sits and planche progressions.
Or to harder dips and pullups. Archer pullups, L sit pullups, dips with the rings turned out, L sit dips.
Gym equipment is incredibly overpriced right now. If you want a home gym for weightlifting even something as basic as a squat rack, bench, barbell, and plates will set you back a pretty penny.
Luckily, you can do great things with a bodyweight routine like the one r/bodyweightfitness recommends. A pull up bar and a set of rings is all you need, and will get you far.
Make sure to get nutrition in check too, as it's important a component to fitness and building muscle as actually working out is. The r/fitness wiki has a good primer for that.
And if she's still interested in weightlifting once the pandemic is over, keep and eye on your local marketplace forums, because I guarantee you'll be able to snag equipment at a steep discount.
Wait, working out helps PCOS?!
I have that, but I never thought you could do anything for it.
it does but only as part of a multi-faceted plan to attack insulin resistance PCOS causes. my partner is starting a low glycemic diet (basically cutting excess sugar, switching to whole grains and slow carbs) and combining it with that. the insulin resistance and testosterone are basically tied together, so if you lower your blood insulin it starts to reduce some of the symptoms of PCOS. i'm not an expert it's just something she's been researching lately while she tries to find a decent doctor that isn't just a fertility doc
Sugar causes protein cross-linking. In other words, it makes the structures in your body fucking collapse.
Yeah, and it kinda gets worse the more you know. Like, your pancreas is home to a very very complex organ called the Islets of Langerhans (which is 1% of the Pancreas' mass but uses 10% of its blood supply) and this is the only thing in your body that can process sugar. Any damage to this organ cannot be repaired, ever. Of course, fucking sugar of all things damages the Islets of Langerhans.
Aside from the bodyweight comments, NYBarbell and Titan Fitness tend to be so cheap it almost worries me, but every anecdote I've heard makes them sound fine. I think Titan was once selling a barbell for literally less than the components it took to make it.
I would start with Bands
Pullup bars are dope too.
Maybe get a Slam Ball if you have concrete to slam it onto
Amazon Basics has pretty cheap dumbells if you want some of those too.
Might be kinda hard right now, but I've gotten almost a full set of dumb bells and a bowflex off of craigslist. With some frequency I see weights for free there as long as you pick them up.
