Hi,

I'm 39 years old and I've recently gotten the gym bug again and joined this forum to help with my project of getting back into shape. I'm currently about 4-5kgs overweight (79kg) compared to what I would like to be for my height (177cm).

A bit of background. I've always been relatively fit and always played sports. Was mad keen on gym in my last few years at highschool and uni until I injured myself badly enough to convince me to give it away. I've always had some kind of home gym (which I've always preferred over gyms due to convenience) and have dabbled regularly every so often over the last 15-20 years.

Second week of January this year, I blew my knee out (torn medial ligament and torn cartilage) playing touch football and am now waiting for surgery. Because I like to keep active/fit, I started doing gym again and have well and truly gotten the bug for it again. I don't want to get huge, I just want to get back into decent shape with some good muscle tone. My problems are the following

- due to the injury I sustained in uni ( torn bicep head and torn front deltoid trying to do a max 1 rep bench press), I'm a little bit limited in how far I can push myself these days. I have been checked out by my physio and GP and had scans on my shoulder and now have scar tissue and a fluid sack as a result of my injury. My physio has advised against using a bar bell for any kind of chest or shoulder work, but has said I should be ok to use dumbbells as an alternative, but not to go overboard with it.
- as a result of downsizing my home gym gear, I now only have a York seated chest press/dip station/pec deck/lat pull down multi gym and a FID bench, plus an ezi curl bar and two dumbbells.

I've been doing gym regularly again 1 day on, 1 day off, since the third week of January and I'm fairly pleased with the results. I'm avoiding any leg work until my surgery in 6 weeks time. My only real concern is, I've never been able to really build up my chest. I've been doing the following routine for my chest workout
- dips
- seated chest press
- flat dumbbell bench press
- incline dumbbell bench press
- flat dumbbell flies
- flat bench dumbbell pull over
- pec deck

I can see I'm starting to tone up, which is great and I'm not experiencing any pain in my bad arm, chest or shoulder, but I'd like to actually build my chest up a bit. I can already see an increase in my shoulders but none in my chest. Any suggestions on the best way I could do this, based on the gear I have and my injury would be great.

Also any recommendations on protein shakes, supplements etc would be great too. When I was full on into gym 20 odd years ago, most of that kind of stuff wasn't readily accessible. It's a bit of a mindfield.

Thanks for your help.

Brad

Hi @Luvmygeetars welcome to the forums mate, here is a good thread to read about a few different supplements that are going to yield results: http://www.bodybuildingforums.com.au...ne-levels.html

G'day and welcome to the forums..

welcome mate to the forum, good luck with your goals

Welcome mate.

Welcome pal good to see your back into it, don't think I could ever walk away.

a late welcome. I would do incline dumbell presses carefully but using alot of focus and energy and close to failure without doing crazy damage. I believe the body can reheal itself to a point so mindful you have that shoulder damage work hard around it and achieve what you can . Closer grip places way more effort on the triceps so they should be safe to blast :P so hold the dumbells in closer and dont go ALL the way down to touch ribcage etc keep it 40mm above the chest just to be safe. Thats what id do based on feel.
ZAC

Also hitting the pec dec hard will def help the pecs and minimal tris. Yo umay be able to build your chest more with medium grip pushups and dips too. Basically you still need to do 2-3 of the exercises fairly intensly to actually build new mass so theres obviously gunna be some risk factor but just play it by feel. Thats all you safely do hey.
ZAC