10 ms·

Why it's so hard to find dumbbells in the US

18 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

pmoriarty 6y ago
"Even casual gym-goers might be able to justify the spend since weights at home are the only option when gyms aren’t open" Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead. "You can overload the body with bodyweight, but at some point you are going to have to add more." That may be true, but I would bet 99.9% of the people buying dumbbells aren't anywhere near that point.
- niffydroid 6y ago
  They could be concentrating on isolating muscles. Doing dumbbells to build up some strength before doing bodyweight is also another possibility. But yeah if you can't get what you want you'll just have to make do and work around it.
- Darmody 6y ago
  The problem is you can't do every exercise with your body weight, specially if you want to build muscle.
  - tomcooks 6y ago
    Aren't there simple variations that specifically target those who haven't got the muscle power to do the proper exercise? Like negative pull-ups for those who can't do a pullup yet, or knee pushups, or many others you can find on any good bodyweight routine?
    - Darmody 6y ago
      Well, yes but I don't mean that. Even if you can do push ups or any other exercise with your body weight, there are some muscles that you can't exercise. Legs are extremely complicated to work out without weight. They carry your whole weight around all day so in order to make it suffer a bit, you need to add something on top of that. You can't do biceps or any other small muscle that needs to be isolated during the workout.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  The benefit of dumbbells could be the opposite: that they weigh less than the body and thus make the exercises more manageable.
  - jld89 6y ago
    For that there are always alternative body weight exercises to make the effort easier.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      Yep. Do push-ups on an incline. Get rings or a suspension trainer and do exercises from a more upright position. Rest feet on the floor when doing dips. Tons of ways to scale exercises down if you can’t do the normal version yet.
      - LanceH 6y ago
        While you are all technically correct for one reading of that one sentence, it can also be read that buying dumbbells is the only option for using dumbbells right now.
    - Demiurge 6y ago
      Not really. What’s a body weight alternative to shoulder lift? When I travel and stay in hotels without gym, I use chairs and furniture. However, holding on to them can be really hard and certain exercises are just impossible.
      - esrauch 6y ago
        You can do it with Resistance Bands which are super light.
        Demiurge 6y ago
        That’s a good point, and I try that as well when no alternative, but I prefer a chair and a dumbbell before those things because they pull in a specific direction rather than down. But these are not just using a body.
- whatok 6y ago
  Casual gym-goers are likely more familiar with random dumbbell routines than a myriad of bodyweight exercises. If you've been out of the gym for months and are out of shape, you're likely going to go with something that's familiar to you with proven benefits regardless of whether there are superior alternatives out there.
- polote 6y ago
  > Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead. lol, why dumbbells have been used for so long if they are useless ? bodyweights exercises are quite limited, only three of them can are usefull for athletic people, dips (triceps) and pull ups( back + biceps) and handstand press (this one is very hard, shoulders). Push ups are very limited in term weight, about 50kg bench press equivalent (which is nothing). Raw squat is the same , doing 100 reps is not the same as doing 10 reps with 80kg on the back. If you really want to exercise your legs, chest, biceps you have to use weights. But of course if you are not into gym but only into fitness, you can do anything bodyweight
  - nextos 6y ago
    You can add rings and then you have a lot more bodyweight options. But I agree weights tend to be more efficient towards developing strength.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    Or you could spend literally hours on bodyweight exercises, the athletes of yore used to do this... but it is indeed an inferior option.
    - Mindstormy 6y ago
      I wouldn't say its inferior by any means. I think the biggest difference is accessibility. When one uses weights, progression is very simple, just increase the weight. With body weight exercises one must switch exercises to increase / change the leverage and make the exercise harder to continue progression. A good example of this is going from a regular push up, to a diamond pushup, then moving toward pseudo planche pushups. The move from regular to diamond is not too bad as you only need to move your hands closer together, but to make progress towards PPPU, you have to learn how to do a planche lean forward a tiny bit more each time you attempt PPPU's eventually moving your hands from under your shoulders to practically under your hips for generating the push motion. So I guess the main point is body weight exercises require more study and coaching generally to see progression than exercises with weights and the progression you do see is less noticeable than simply adding more weight each time you workout, but they are both very good at gaining strength. edit - punctuation
- _tik_ 6y ago
  Based on personal experience. I need to set my exercises not too easy and not too difficult. Too easy will get me bored. Too difficult i will totally give up. For that dumbbells is easier to manage.
- technodelic 6y ago
  It doesn't take very long to get to a point where you can benefit from adding weight to chin-ups/dips. Someone able to do just 1 chin-up at the start of lockdown could have made some very good progress now depending on how well they trained, their physical proportions, and athletic history. Also, some people simply benefit from exercise variety. I personally get sick of certain movements after months of doing them and need to switch them up purely for mental motivation. Another issue with bodyweight training compared to free weights is training legs and hips effectively. Plenty people will be able to add resistance right away to something like a squat.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    Can you do a pistol squat?
- octygen 6y ago
  The debate is all about goals. The vast majority of athletic goals outside of bodybuilding and power lifting can be achieved with bodyweight and one kettlebell. The choice of that kb depends on your goals again. I have a 35lb and it's enough to get a hard workout.
GavinMcG 6y ago
Finally, halfway through the article: > [home weight] sales usually start in the fall, hit their peak with January’s New Year’s resolutions, then taper off as it gets warmer and people are more likely to venture outside or go back to the gym. > ... > 95 percent of the world’s dumbbells are made in China, Logan said. To curb the virus spread, China instituted strict lockdowns from January to April; > ... > “It takes a month or so to get the products made and get them to the port,” Logan continued. “Then it goes from China to the United States” — landing, she says in Long Beach, California — “and then if they’re going to the East Coast, they have to go through the Panama Canal.” > Once weights do get to America, ports, too, are subject to lockdowns and social distancing, adding even more delays.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  So, the supply shock is followed by an explosion in demand, and since "inventories are bad!", there is suddenly no goods available for purchase.
  - ch4s3 6y ago
    > and since "inventories are bad!" It's not that it's "bad" to hold inventory, it's just expensive and risky. Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time, rents are high, and you have to finance buying/holding things you aren't selling. Obviously, just-in-time inventory isn't super resilient, but it has a ton of advantages most of the time. Perhaps it doesn't make sense for NOTHING to be stored near the point of sale, but it's not clear to me at least how that should be decided.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      > Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time I think most of these don't apply to dumbbells. At least not on a short term. Now, the shortage seems to have kickstarted small shops dumbbell production lines (which are easier to put together than kettlebells)
      - 6y ago
leftnode 6y ago
Dumbbells may be harder to find, but Rogue has consistently had kettlebells (made in America, in various sizes) for the last several months. Kettlebells are amazing tools for exercise, and can offer more movements than just bodyweight alone. Shipping is not cheap, but you can outfit a perfectly good home gym with 3 or 4 kettlebell sizes and a jump rope.
- css 6y ago
  Yet, Rogue has been out of all of their plates, barbells, dumbbells (both static and loadable), and most racks since lockdown, all of which are supposedly made in America.
  - juvinious 6y ago
    Not true. They have a rotation of weekly stock in the last few months. You just have to be on top of it to beat everyone else as most items go OOS within 5 minutes. Barbells are consistently stocked weekly and plates as well. I've managed to build out my gym within the last 4 months with everything I need: rack, adjustable and flat benches, multiple barbells, over 700 lbs in bumper/iron plates, powerblocks and an echo bike. You can follow along (as well as tracking other companies stock) on the stock and shipping thread at r/homegym.
    - css 6y ago
      I've checked every couple weeks and never seen anything available for sale, I guess they moved onto the hypebeast business model.
  - pandemicsyn 6y ago
    If you look around theres a few Rogue stock bots. Sign up for some notifications and you quickly realize they do in fact restock weekly (most items at various times on specific days) but they just sell out incredibly quick. Between the bots and r/homegym I've been able to build out a complete home gym (squat rack, bar, milspec bumper plates, echo bike, bunch of accessories, few kettle bells). The thing that was the hardest for me to snag was the spotter arm's, they kept restocking right during my weekly sprint planning and by the time I got done would be sold out.
sawmurai 6y ago
We bought a home gym in March, just when the lockdown here was announced. We made the decision at 8am, picked up the stuff by 12am the same day and by 6pm all online shops were out of stock (within 24h after the lockdown was announced). Best impulsive purchase ever.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  FYI your times are out of order. 12AM is the one in the middle of the night.
  - sawmurai 6y ago
    Ah, thank you. Always confusing that :) I meant noon.
    - InitialLastName 6y ago
      The way to remember is that all the minutes after noon are definitely in the afternoon (including 12:01PM) so noon is the PM one.
aphextron 6y ago
I've taken to filling 5 gallon buckets with beach sand. Cheap and it works. Put a broom handle across two and you've got a 100lb bench press/curl.
- fullstop 6y ago
  Have they ever fallen off, spilled the sand, and then you find that you hate sand because it's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
el_don_almighty 6y ago
What is the community experience with resistance bands? I see them more frequently now and wonder if they aren't a reasonable alternative
- yesimahuman 6y ago
  They definitely are. I’ve been training with them exclusively and they work and are perfect for a home gym. For someone who needs much higher resistance it might not be enough but you’d need to be pretty strong for that to be the case.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  My experience is they are good, but it takes awhile to figure out the logistics. With bands like I mention below, you can get good resistance. Maybe not for serious hypertrophy training, but enough to keep you toned. I trained with weights regularly for about 8 years before switching to bands when I became more nomadic. Not sure about the availability, but I will attest to the quality of https://bodylastics.com/ https://bodylastics.com/ You may also want something like TRX. Last, conbody.com has good body-weight routines.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  Been using them for the last couple of months. They are a nice complement to bodyweight training, allowing you to add some resistance to bodyweight basics like the push-up or the squat (or to add assistance in the case of the pull-up / chin-up ) They are not nearly as good as free weights for certain things though. The strength curve is very different to that of a weight and it's not as easy to progressively overload (ie, add weight to) the exercises over time. You can use thicker bands, change your grip to play with the band tension or perform harder exercises (such as one-arm variations of whatever you're doing), but nothing's nearly as easy as adding heavier plates to a barbell or picking up a heavier dumbbell. They can be a great complement to other equipment, or if you're fully sold on calisthenics / bodyweight training, they might be everything you'll ever need. If however you're into traditional strength training or bodybuilding, they will fall short fairly quickly (personally, I can't wait to get back under the bar).
JackMorgan 6y ago
For anyone reading this, let me recommend an extremely easy alternative: sand packed into trash compactor bags and then duck taped into "bricks" of various weights. This plus a big canvas zippered duffle are plenty for some very excellent training. See https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/ https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/ for a commercial and readily available option. These suckers can get up to 200# really easy, and are an excellent way to stay strong. Flipping one of these into a clean then front squatting it is PLENTY for 90% of people wanting to stay fit. Plus, overloaded progression is easy, just add more sand bags. Another classic is just to pick it up to one shoulder, then drop over your shoulder behind you, then repeat. Deadlifts are just picking it up to thigh height. Add these homemade sandbags to a good rucking pack, and you're ready for an intense cardio session and strengthening routine. Just don't overdo it, rucking is really hard on tendons. Make sure to only ever increase weight or distance by no more than 10% a week. I made a set of them for rucking, and it's amazing how fast a ruck pack gets mind alteringly heavy. At some point the brain just can't think any more. It's very enlightening.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  you can also just do pushups and pullups, lunges, and other calisthenics. If you hit 100 push ups with a backpack full of something on your back then maybe you need dumbells. All kinds of way to make these things harder. Go slow, go down suuuper slow, use one arm.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    A good intro on Prisoner/at-home workouts can be found here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-workout/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-workout... I'll add in that Burpees are real gut busters and that the 'Deck of Pain' system is aptly named yet produces results quickly. I think it's the randomization element that gives you the extra 'umph'.
joezydeco 6y ago
Sounds about right. Now do office and children’s desks at IKEA...
akeck 6y ago
Rowing crews often make barbells and dumbbells out of steel pipes, small buckets, and concrete.
benbojangles 6y ago
I'm a parcel courier and I know first hand that not many postal companies will accept or burden their staff to handle 20kg or over and the few specialist heavy package postal companies that exist both struggle and churn through employees by the day. The reason is quite clear all postal companies are using zero-hour staff on minimum pay, and if you're a job seeker you will be better off being an office cleaner for the same rate of pay than to be ordered to deliver 20kg+ packages for 11hours a day with no time off, work health care plan, and the employers right to replace you at will. It's simple economics of health and well being.

18 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

"Even casual gym-goers might be able to justify the spend since weights at home are the only option when gyms aren’t open" Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead. "You can overload the body with bodyweight, but at some point you are going to have to add more." That may be true, but I would bet 99.9% of the people buying dumbbells aren't anywhere near that point.

niffydroid 6y ago
They could be concentrating on isolating muscles. Doing dumbbells to build up some strength before doing bodyweight is also another possibility. But yeah if you can't get what you want you'll just have to make do and work around it.
Darmody 6y ago
The problem is you can't do every exercise with your body weight, specially if you want to build muscle.
- tomcooks 6y ago
  Aren't there simple variations that specifically target those who haven't got the muscle power to do the proper exercise? Like negative pull-ups for those who can't do a pullup yet, or knee pushups, or many others you can find on any good bodyweight routine?
  - Darmody 6y ago
    Well, yes but I don't mean that. Even if you can do push ups or any other exercise with your body weight, there are some muscles that you can't exercise. Legs are extremely complicated to work out without weight. They carry your whole weight around all day so in order to make it suffer a bit, you need to add something on top of that. You can't do biceps or any other small muscle that needs to be isolated during the workout.
nicoburns 6y ago
The benefit of dumbbells could be the opposite: that they weigh less than the body and thus make the exercises more manageable.
- jld89 6y ago
  For that there are always alternative body weight exercises to make the effort easier.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    Yep. Do push-ups on an incline. Get rings or a suspension trainer and do exercises from a more upright position. Rest feet on the floor when doing dips. Tons of ways to scale exercises down if you can’t do the normal version yet.
    - LanceH 6y ago
      While you are all technically correct for one reading of that one sentence, it can also be read that buying dumbbells is the only option for using dumbbells right now.
  - Demiurge 6y ago
    Not really. What’s a body weight alternative to shoulder lift? When I travel and stay in hotels without gym, I use chairs and furniture. However, holding on to them can be really hard and certain exercises are just impossible.
    - esrauch 6y ago
      You can do it with Resistance Bands which are super light.
      - Demiurge 6y ago
        That’s a good point, and I try that as well when no alternative, but I prefer a chair and a dumbbell before those things because they pull in a specific direction rather than down. But these are not just using a body.
whatok 6y ago
Casual gym-goers are likely more familiar with random dumbbell routines than a myriad of bodyweight exercises. If you've been out of the gym for months and are out of shape, you're likely going to go with something that's familiar to you with proven benefits regardless of whether there are superior alternatives out there.
polote 6y ago
> Which is false, as you could always just do bodyweight exercises instead. lol, why dumbbells have been used for so long if they are useless ? bodyweights exercises are quite limited, only three of them can are usefull for athletic people, dips (triceps) and pull ups( back + biceps) and handstand press (this one is very hard, shoulders). Push ups are very limited in term weight, about 50kg bench press equivalent (which is nothing). Raw squat is the same , doing 100 reps is not the same as doing 10 reps with 80kg on the back. If you really want to exercise your legs, chest, biceps you have to use weights. But of course if you are not into gym but only into fitness, you can do anything bodyweight
- nextos 6y ago
  You can add rings and then you have a lot more bodyweight options. But I agree weights tend to be more efficient towards developing strength.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Or you could spend literally hours on bodyweight exercises, the athletes of yore used to do this... but it is indeed an inferior option.
  - Mindstormy 6y ago
    I wouldn't say its inferior by any means. I think the biggest difference is accessibility. When one uses weights, progression is very simple, just increase the weight. With body weight exercises one must switch exercises to increase / change the leverage and make the exercise harder to continue progression. A good example of this is going from a regular push up, to a diamond pushup, then moving toward pseudo planche pushups. The move from regular to diamond is not too bad as you only need to move your hands closer together, but to make progress towards PPPU, you have to learn how to do a planche lean forward a tiny bit more each time you attempt PPPU's eventually moving your hands from under your shoulders to practically under your hips for generating the push motion. So I guess the main point is body weight exercises require more study and coaching generally to see progression than exercises with weights and the progression you do see is less noticeable than simply adding more weight each time you workout, but they are both very good at gaining strength. edit - punctuation
_tik_ 6y ago
Based on personal experience. I need to set my exercises not too easy and not too difficult. Too easy will get me bored. Too difficult i will totally give up. For that dumbbells is easier to manage.
technodelic 6y ago
It doesn't take very long to get to a point where you can benefit from adding weight to chin-ups/dips. Someone able to do just 1 chin-up at the start of lockdown could have made some very good progress now depending on how well they trained, their physical proportions, and athletic history. Also, some people simply benefit from exercise variety. I personally get sick of certain movements after months of doing them and need to switch them up purely for mental motivation. Another issue with bodyweight training compared to free weights is training legs and hips effectively. Plenty people will be able to add resistance right away to something like a squat.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Can you do a pistol squat?
octygen 6y ago
The debate is all about goals. The vast majority of athletic goals outside of bodybuilding and power lifting can be achieved with bodyweight and one kettlebell. The choice of that kb depends on your goals again. I have a 35lb and it's enough to get a hard workout.

GavinMcG 6y ago

Finally, halfway through the article: > [home weight] sales usually start in the fall, hit their peak with January’s New Year’s resolutions, then taper off as it gets warmer and people are more likely to venture outside or go back to the gym. > ... > 95 percent of the world’s dumbbells are made in China, Logan said. To curb the virus spread, China instituted strict lockdowns from January to April; > ... > “It takes a month or so to get the products made and get them to the port,” Logan continued. “Then it goes from China to the United States” — landing, she says in Long Beach, California — “and then if they’re going to the East Coast, they have to go through the Panama Canal.” > Once weights do get to America, ports, too, are subject to lockdowns and social distancing, adding even more delays.

Joker_vD 6y ago
So, the supply shock is followed by an explosion in demand, and since "inventories are bad!", there is suddenly no goods available for purchase.
- ch4s3 6y ago
  > and since "inventories are bad!" It's not that it's "bad" to hold inventory, it's just expensive and risky. Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time, rents are high, and you have to finance buying/holding things you aren't selling. Obviously, just-in-time inventory isn't super resilient, but it has a ton of advantages most of the time. Perhaps it doesn't make sense for NOTHING to be stored near the point of sale, but it's not clear to me at least how that should be decided.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    > Tastes change, there's shrinkage, some things degrade over time I think most of these don't apply to dumbbells. At least not on a short term. Now, the shortage seems to have kickstarted small shops dumbbell production lines (which are easier to put together than kettlebells)
    - 6y ago

leftnode 6y ago

Dumbbells may be harder to find, but Rogue has consistently had kettlebells (made in America, in various sizes) for the last several months. Kettlebells are amazing tools for exercise, and can offer more movements than just bodyweight alone. Shipping is not cheap, but you can outfit a perfectly good home gym with 3 or 4 kettlebell sizes and a jump rope.

css 6y ago
Yet, Rogue has been out of all of their plates, barbells, dumbbells (both static and loadable), and most racks since lockdown, all of which are supposedly made in America.
- juvinious 6y ago
  Not true. They have a rotation of weekly stock in the last few months. You just have to be on top of it to beat everyone else as most items go OOS within 5 minutes. Barbells are consistently stocked weekly and plates as well. I've managed to build out my gym within the last 4 months with everything I need: rack, adjustable and flat benches, multiple barbells, over 700 lbs in bumper/iron plates, powerblocks and an echo bike. You can follow along (as well as tracking other companies stock) on the stock and shipping thread at r/homegym.
  - css 6y ago
    I've checked every couple weeks and never seen anything available for sale, I guess they moved onto the hypebeast business model.
- pandemicsyn 6y ago
  If you look around theres a few Rogue stock bots. Sign up for some notifications and you quickly realize they do in fact restock weekly (most items at various times on specific days) but they just sell out incredibly quick. Between the bots and r/homegym I've been able to build out a complete home gym (squat rack, bar, milspec bumper plates, echo bike, bunch of accessories, few kettle bells). The thing that was the hardest for me to snag was the spotter arm's, they kept restocking right during my weekly sprint planning and by the time I got done would be sold out.

sawmurai 6y ago

We bought a home gym in March, just when the lockdown here was announced. We made the decision at 8am, picked up the stuff by 12am the same day and by 6pm all online shops were out of stock (within 24h after the lockdown was announced). Best impulsive purchase ever.

InitialLastName 6y ago
FYI your times are out of order. 12AM is the one in the middle of the night.
- sawmurai 6y ago
  Ah, thank you. Always confusing that :) I meant noon.
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    The way to remember is that all the minutes after noon are definitely in the afternoon (including 12:01PM) so noon is the PM one.

aphextron 6y ago

I've taken to filling 5 gallon buckets with beach sand. Cheap and it works. Put a broom handle across two and you've got a 100lb bench press/curl.

fullstop 6y ago
Have they ever fallen off, spilled the sand, and then you find that you hate sand because it's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

el_don_almighty 6y ago

What is the community experience with resistance bands? I see them more frequently now and wonder if they aren't a reasonable alternative

yesimahuman 6y ago
They definitely are. I’ve been training with them exclusively and they work and are perfect for a home gym. For someone who needs much higher resistance it might not be enough but you’d need to be pretty strong for that to be the case.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
My experience is they are good, but it takes awhile to figure out the logistics. With bands like I mention below, you can get good resistance. Maybe not for serious hypertrophy training, but enough to keep you toned. I trained with weights regularly for about 8 years before switching to bands when I became more nomadic. Not sure about the availability, but I will attest to the quality of https://bodylastics.com/ https://bodylastics.com/ You may also want something like TRX. Last, conbody.com has good body-weight routines.
arcturus17 6y ago
Been using them for the last couple of months. They are a nice complement to bodyweight training, allowing you to add some resistance to bodyweight basics like the push-up or the squat (or to add assistance in the case of the pull-up / chin-up ) They are not nearly as good as free weights for certain things though. The strength curve is very different to that of a weight and it's not as easy to progressively overload (ie, add weight to) the exercises over time. You can use thicker bands, change your grip to play with the band tension or perform harder exercises (such as one-arm variations of whatever you're doing), but nothing's nearly as easy as adding heavier plates to a barbell or picking up a heavier dumbbell. They can be a great complement to other equipment, or if you're fully sold on calisthenics / bodyweight training, they might be everything you'll ever need. If however you're into traditional strength training or bodybuilding, they will fall short fairly quickly (personally, I can't wait to get back under the bar).

JackMorgan 6y ago

For anyone reading this, let me recommend an extremely easy alternative: sand packed into trash compactor bags and then duck taped into "bricks" of various weights. This plus a big canvas zippered duffle are plenty for some very excellent training. See https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/ https://www.goruck.com/equipment/sandbags/ for a commercial and readily available option. These suckers can get up to 200# really easy, and are an excellent way to stay strong. Flipping one of these into a clean then front squatting it is PLENTY for 90% of people wanting to stay fit. Plus, overloaded progression is easy, just add more sand bags. Another classic is just to pick it up to one shoulder, then drop over your shoulder behind you, then repeat. Deadlifts are just picking it up to thigh height. Add these homemade sandbags to a good rucking pack, and you're ready for an intense cardio session and strengthening routine. Just don't overdo it, rucking is really hard on tendons. Make sure to only ever increase weight or distance by no more than 10% a week. I made a set of them for rucking, and it's amazing how fast a ruck pack gets mind alteringly heavy. At some point the brain just can't think any more. It's very enlightening.

gameswithgo 6y ago
you can also just do pushups and pullups, lunges, and other calisthenics. If you hit 100 push ups with a backpack full of something on your back then maybe you need dumbells. All kinds of way to make these things harder. Go slow, go down suuuper slow, use one arm.
- Balgair 6y ago
  A good intro on Prisoner/at-home workouts can be found here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-workout/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-prisoner-workout... I'll add in that Burpees are real gut busters and that the 'Deck of Pain' system is aptly named yet produces results quickly. I think it's the randomization element that gives you the extra 'umph'.

joezydeco 6y ago

Sounds about right. Now do office and children’s desks at IKEA...

akeck 6y ago

Rowing crews often make barbells and dumbbells out of steel pipes, small buckets, and concrete.

benbojangles 6y ago

I'm a parcel courier and I know first hand that not many postal companies will accept or burden their staff to handle 20kg or over and the few specialist heavy package postal companies that exist both struggle and churn through employees by the day. The reason is quite clear all postal companies are using zero-hour staff on minimum pay, and if you're a job seeker you will be better off being an office cleaner for the same rate of pay than to be ordered to deliver 20kg+ packages for 11hours a day with no time off, work health care plan, and the employers right to replace you at will. It's simple economics of health and well being.