I’ve been weight lifting on and off since I was 14 years old (we had one of those multi-purposes machines at home). And when I say on and off, I mean it. Though my teenage self was pretty consistent, my adult one goes on for 6 months, off for 6 months and so on. Of course, after putting on so much poundage, I want to change that. Everyone knows that not only it’s a way to boost up your metabolism, but for women is specially important to weight lift for stronger bones later in life.
So needless to say I do not have the muscle tone of one that lifts weights. Not that I did as a teenager either, but I DID look better.
Yes, my 17-year old self was certainly in better shape (and 40lbs lighter… *sigh*)
So it’s no surprise that I joined the bandwagon and bought this book:
Yep, like pretty much every health blogger out there it seems, I am now too the proud owner of The New Rules of Lifting for Women. The book? It’s great. I definitely want to start the program now. But sadly, I’m missing a major piece of equipment, required for most of the workouts… See a trend in the pictures below?
Can you guess what is the one piece of equipment that’s missing in our gym downstairs?
Yep, a barbell. Whether olympic style or just regular, we got none. Forget a barbell rack as well. I tried looking up to their forums to see an alternative, but of course my IP is blocked by their forums (third time this happens to me here in the Philippines…).
And we are not unwilling to buy a barbell, but where does one go to buy one in the Philippines? Obviously, due to the size Amazon (or anywhere else) won’t ship it DPO.
And one more thing we don’t have…
Sadly, though the pull-up bar fits the weight and size restrictions for the DPO, Amazon refuses to send it to us.
Remember our little building gym?
Definitely lacking on the most important piece of equipment to follow the program.
Can I join a local gym? Sure. But the day we stopped by to look at Fitness First, EVERYTHING was packed. All the cardio machines, all the weights. The last thing I want is to wait around to use any equipment (I have no patience for that), specially when being charged $80/month (more than I paid for my awesome Sport & Health membership in DC – that was huge and had a lap pool!)
So for my Filipino readers out there, where can one buy a barbell?
Check out stores like Planet Sports, Olympic Village, Toby’s in Glorietta. Then in Landmark, they have some weights, bar, etc. Not sure about the pull up bar though.
Both are in Makati, by the way.
Victor
Victor, thanks! Those were the exact tips I needed!
Ew, that’s so lame about shipping! It’s really cool that you lift and you’re a girl though…I want to start really bad and don’t know where…so thanks for mentioning the book, I’ll look into it.
It really is a great book! And if you have access to a gym, you can get started fairly easily. It outlines enough workouts to get you in great shape in 6 months.
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There’s plenty of pull up type bars in the playgrounds (Dasma and Forbes). Can’t remember what Salcedo Park has but maybe take a look around. 😉
That’s a really good idea! I’ll still have to find a way to get on it (since to learn how to use it, you need to do the descent only, since I have no strength for the “up” part yet), but maybe Karl can help me with that!
Hello! Did you find out if there is a park in Salcedo that has a pull up bar. I have the same dilemma. My building’s gym does not have a pull up bar. Thanks!
Nothing, but the monkey bars at the playground might work!
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