I want to build some muscle mass, for both raising my RMR and for useful/practical strength and endurance. I don't want or need to look like a body builder, I just want to lose a little fat (I'm doing cardio and paying attention to nutrition already) and get stronger. I'm 41 and male if that matters.
I have a bench and a bunch of weights at home, used to lift fairly regularly about 10 years ago but since then it's all been sitting around. I could start using it again, but it sounds kind of boring so I'm thinking of changing it up by snagging one of those towers that let you do pullups, dips, elevated pushups, and whatever you call it when you grab the handles and raise your legs off the floor.
Seems like a good way to build useful strength and muscle, but right now I don't know how many reps of most of the tower exercises I could do. I've been doing pushups for a couple of months and can do a fair number of those, but I don't know if I could do even one pullup.
So my questions is this: can I snag the tower and work my way up to being able to use it from where I am, or am I going to have to spend some time on the bench before the tower can be useful? I think I'll be much more likely to actually work out with the tower, so I'd love to find a way to jump right into that.