After researching kettlebell workouts, I decided to wait until I’m fully healed before I start using them. I feel there is too much risk to them without having my hands 100%.

Instead I got You Are Your Own Gym and started it’s beginner exercise programs. You Are Your Own Gym is all about bodyweight exercises so it will be easier to get started with (no equipment) and I can limit my hand usage as needed.

Today during lunch I started with the Muscular Endurance block (week 1-2) using Ladders (I hate ladders. See the end for a description of a Ladder). The point of this week is to get my muscles so they can last longer (endurance) which has been a problem of mine, especially with my triceps. This would be considered a High Volume, Low Intensity workout (HVLT).

Push ups

7.5 minutes

Put my hands on the arm rest of the couch, a little more than 2.5 feet tall. The wide padded armrest also helped my hand, since my pinky didn’t have to grip.

• one ladder of 9
• one half ladder of 4
• Total: 91 push ups

Let me ins

7.5 minutes

Used the garage door for this. Left hand started hurting before I got tired so I couldn’t give 100%.

• one ladder of 8
• one ladder of 4
• Total: 80 let me ins

Seated dips

7.5 minutes

Used the armrest of the couch again for this.

• one ladder of 7
• one half ladder of 6
• Total: 70 dips

Let me ups

7.5 minutes

This was the hardest of them all. I used the overhang of our kitchen counter for this but I had to use an underhand grip on it. This put a lot of stress on my finger and as a result I could only grab with 2 fingers and my thumb on my left hand.

• one ladder of 6
• Total: 36 let me ups

Overall

It was a good workout to get started. I’d say I put in a 7/10 effort on it with finger pain keeping me from really pushing myself. It did take over an hour to perform everything though, including warm ups and cool downs. The biggest problem was I had to look the exercises up and then find the best place in the house to perform each one. Next time it should get easier.

Ladder

For those who don’t know, ladders are a way to progressively increase the number of times (reps) you do an exercise. For example a 4 ladder would have you do an exercise like so:

• 1 rep
• rest
• 2 rep
• rest
• 3 rep
• rest
• 4 rep (top of the ladder)
• rest
• 3 rep
• rest
• 2 rep
• rest
• 1 rep (done)