I often get asked what is the equipment with the most varied range of exercises.
Well, I can think of three that are great and offer many possibilities. Let's talk about a few ideas for exercises you can do.
Number #1 – Kettlebells
Yes, here they are again!
Kettlebells are great for weightlifting.
- You can always hold them in the goblet position for just a straight weight kind of workload.
- You can also swing them ballistically.
- And you can do the snatch with them. Again, with ballistic moves.
- They also work well for pressing.
- You can also use them for one-arm rows, but they're no different than dumbbells for this exercise.
Anything overhead is better with a kettlebell because of the offset of the kettlebell's load.
Number #2 – Sliders
Sliders are great because, when you change the friction in the stance leg, if you make one limb more mobile by sliding it, sometimes the co-contraction on the opposite side increases significantly.
So you get a really good therapeutic effect by putting the one leg on a moveable surface like the slider.
I don't see the same thing happening when that opposite limb is just in the air.
The slider has some magic that happens with it.
Plus they're so small, so easy to travel with, and so cheap that I can't imagine why every gym doesn't have a bunch of them.
Number #3 – Medicine Balls
Finally, medicine balls can work in a lot of different exercises.
- We can do a lot of core exercises with them, doing chops and slams, for example.
- You can definitely get some fun shoulder rehab going by doing chest passes and aggressive overhead work with it.
- You can also use it as a target. So, you could have somebody with a goal of squatting until their butt touches the ball. Maybe you need to raise up the ball for the first few, but that'll definitely work.
And I've never met anybody who doesn't love throwing a medicine ball against a wall.
That's an exercise that, no matter the age, people freaking dig it! They just love chucking that thing against the wall as hard as they can. So that's a super fun exercise.
There you go! I hope that gave you a few ideas you can use.