Benching/Deadlifting but not squatting other general q's

[godofgamblers]

I've been working out on and off for maybe a year now, but nothing serious as I usually go with roomates, and working out primarily is social as well as a want to get muscle, get ripped etc. Of course it'd be nice to get pretty cut and lose all the fat, but I'm not very serious about it. I don't mind eating a lot of unhealthy foods or binge drinking, but I guess whenever possible, I'd like to do the healthiest alternative. Pretty much a casual gym-goer. I'll try to get my daily intake of proteins, eat the less fatty foods, but I'm definitely going to miss a few days and eat the greasiest stuff imaginable sometimes. This is just a little background/my perspective on how I'm going to approach this lifting thing, and I apologize if my attitude is going to offend a bunch of you since I'm not serious, but I just want to get the best possible advice with the "restrictions" that I have.

So I'm 5'8 160, and don't know my % bodyfat, but I know I want to reduce it, but the more important part I guess is to gain muscle without bulking up too much, say 5-10 pounds. I have a bench with dumbbells and the barbell at home, and that's pretty much it. I wanted to follow the 5x5 deadlift,squat,bench thing, but there is no way I could squat at home, so I'll just be cutting it out. I'd like to know how detrimental this would be to the program, and I udnerstand it would be a huge thing. (is there anything I can substitute for it?) Also, would anyone be able to tell me what a 165 bench would correlate to for dumbbell presses? My bar only goes up to like 155 so I'd have to switch to dumbbell presses to go higher. Yes, I'm under a lot of restrictions and could just go to a gym, and just might when I get more serious later in the summer, but I'm just hoping to optimize with what I have right now.

[anklebreaker]

Even with your current setup, you can do front squats, dumbell squats, deadlifts, rows, shoulder presses and the like.

Think about buying kettlebells (search other thread) and perhaps some bodyweight workouts (also search other thread).

Buy a jumprope, and eat better.

One tip that's better than most of the above^^^:
Join a gym and improve your nutrition.

[maniacut]

do front squats

[Blarg]

Deadlifts, done heavy, will be enough to let your body know that it's time to put on muscle. After that, it's up to your eating to keep up with it. It sounds like eating's not exactly your problem anyway, but maybe getting enough protein might be. Deadlifts HEAVY, plus some ancillary exercises here and there, and guzzling a protein shake after a work-out, or maybe heading out to a huge meal, is fine for most everyone for putting on muscle.

Don't make it complicated; just make it heavy. And eat.

[godofgamblers]

Thanks for the tips, I'll try out the front squat but it looks incredibly hard compared to the back squat. Am I doing substantially less weight? When I was at the gym I never really bothered to squat except on rare occassions, and then I was having trouble doing 145 the first times, but quickly got it up to 185 or so. How much less should I expect from doing a front squat?

[avfletch]

I'm in pretty much the same situation so I do dumb bell squats instead. Far better to do a variation than cut it out entirely.

The main piece of advice that I've been given from everyone I talk to/everything I read is not to worry about making it super heavy to start with. Just get your form right (with just the bar/dumbells to start with if necessary), post vids of it on youtube and get people to check it. After you've got that down start ramping the weight with much reduced chance of injury.

[theblackkeys]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the tips, I'll try out the front squat but it looks incredibly hard compared to the back squat. Am I doing substantially less weight? When I was at the gym I never really bothered to squat except on rare occassions, and then I was having trouble doing 145 the first times, but quickly got it up to 185 or so. How much less should I expect from doing a front squat?

[/ QUOTE ]
A bit, I think they are actually easier to perform correctly, though.

You probably have bad squat form, watch this, and then read this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...ting&hl=en
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=998224
read the squat section from the above link