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Yea, sounds kinda stupid, but I like to get out of the gym and unfortunately no one I know likes to play sports like football. So i'm trying to come up with ways to get in like 10 or 20 mins some practical strength ideas, and not coming up with much. Lately I've been taking a 10 lb plate and going outside (where there is alot of room) and tossing it like a shotput...although I do it at night so I don't look like a fool. Any other ideas?

Why would that make you look like a fool? Just do it! If someone questions you, invite them to join it. You might recruit a work-out partner, or at least get someone exercising.

Ideas:

Walking lunges all around the neighborhood, or around the park, etc. If you can find something heavy to carry, great!

Sled-dragging. There's a lot on line about this, including a couple of threads in this forum. Peter Dell'Orto had a home-made sled build out of a couple of old wheels, chained together with rocks or kids inside.

Slosh-pipe. Get 8 or 9 feet of 4 or 5 inch PVC pipe. Cap one end, fill 2/3 full of water, cap the other end. Lift it, toss it, squat it, press it, or just try to walk around with it. I made one, but just had to sacrifice it, cause we can't get PVC pipe very readily (and it's expensive) and my son needed it to pack artifacts (bows, arrows and spears) to take home to the US.

Do you have a kid? Or a niece or nephew? Or a neighbor kid? Or an innocent passerby? Lunges, squats, etc., with a kid sitting on your shoulders, "piggy-back", or giving you a hug face-to-face (if they're strong enough to hang on). There's a video on YouTube of a guy doing barbell complexes, only holding his dog instead of the barbell. A very patient, calm dog. You could do complexes holding various animals, rocks, logs, kids, etc.

Tire-flipping. A classic strong-man exercise. Requires some space. And a tractor tire.

Body weight exercises, like push-ups. You can do feet-elevated to make them harder, even progressing on to very steep and even hand-stand push-ups. Have a partner place a weight on your shoulders, or have one of the above-mentioned kids climb on. You can do chin-ups on bars, pipes, tree branches, beams in buildings, etc. If it's too big to grip, toss a rope or towel over it, and grip the towel or rope on each side. Lash heavy things (or one of the kids) to your body to make you heavier.

Make circuits out of the above. 10 towel pulls, 10 push-ups with your feet on a park bench, 10 walking lunges. Repeat to see how many times you can repeat the cycle in a 10 minute or 20 minute time period. If you go back to the same tree branch and park bench regularly, you can track progress.

I'm sitting in an airport right now. If I were serious about not worrying about looking foolish, I'd work out right here at gate 33. But I'll put it off a day or two, and do it in a "proper work-out place."

I think I saw "chins from a tree branch," but also try throwing and/or picking up heavy things outside (rocks, cars, garbage trucks...), or tossing a caber.

Sledge hammer and an old tire. Alternate between right, left and overhand grip.

Try looking into Dynamic Tention, no weights needed.

If all that fails. try getting bitten by a radioactive spider, worked for Peter Parker overnight!

Cut wood using a semi dull or sharp axe

Actually, you're onto something. Hard physical labor will build strength.

But really, there's no substitute for free weights if your goal is to build strength. And you don't have to spend hours in the gym every workout - four compound exercises, one each for lower body push, lower body pull, upper body push and upper body pull will do the trick.

This thread remind me of an old SNL scetch. It was a fake commercial for a new fitness product that consisted of a wooden crate with a vicious ape-man creature inside. As soon as you open the crate, the heart-pumping full-body workout begins as you fight desperately against the vicious man-beast. And as the narator is explaining all the benefits, Will Farrel is getting the crap kicked out of him by the creature.

HIIT doing 50-400 meter sprints would help. Pushups (start with 200, then 225 next week, then 250, etc), pull-ups, jumping, running up stairs/hills, i mean there are a lot of options outside the gym it just takes some brainstorming and passion/dedication.

Remember that sheer volume isn't going to get you as much power and strength as upping the difficulty. Doing 200 pushups instead of 100 will get you more endurance, but doing clapping pushups, or working up to handstand pushups, will get you more power and strength.

Gymnastics practice is also very useful; try working on thinks like planks and pushup holds and hanging from overhead bars first, then to stuff like handstands and planches and so on. You need a lot of strength to do them, and it builds strength working up to them.

One arm pushups?

Try swiiming with a scuba belt on.

And one-legged squats, yeah, and one-arm chinups.

None of which I can do yet.

Jumping is also a great way to build power. Just get a tape measure, a place with a soft landing spot (sand, grass, wrestling mats are all good in my experience) and do some sets of standing or running long jumps. Helps a lot in terms of power. You don't need to weight them, either, just try to jump further and further.

Hey thanks for the replies so far. Given me alot to think about!

If you have a training partner you can lift him onto your shoulders (think fireman's carry) and do squats that way.

Likewise you could probably stuff a bunch of sandbags into an old Army-style duffel bag and use it for squats, cleans, snatches, overhead presses, etc.