[Nascimento]

I've come across some solid pieces of advice and methods in regards to bodyweight training throughout this forum, but have not yet seen a thread dedicated to it.

We have the lifter's lounge which is good, but how about a place to exchange some thoughts specific to the matter of bodyweight workouts?

Here's the thing. I love to train with weights. But I do see the advantages of mixing in some bodyweight exercises into my workouts.

Additionally, I am voluntarily taking a break from the gym (particularly weight training) for 2 months very soon, but I still want to stay in good shape during this time. I've still got some leaning out to do and to take up some bodyweight workouts seems like a win-win; I see it as a good way to shake things up.

I've always done pullups and pushups and others in my workouts, but this time I will have my workouts composed of 100% bodyweight exercises.

Do you guys have any specific routines you'd like to share?

I'm going to be limited and not going to be able to use any gym equipment whatsoever, so no pullups for me. I don't mind this for now because my back could use some rest.

One solid routine I've done before is alternate between the following: Air squats, pushups, moving planks, and crunches in that order until I can't do anymore. Small minute breaks where necessary, usually takes me about 15-20 minutes.

I'm going to mix things up with some of the following, I like this video below. Also, found another one giving some solid advice on how to actually do your bodyweight exercises... Don't just do fast pushups, do them slowly, and exhaust yourself rep by rep.

[Rutting Elephant]

Pullups aren't the only bodyweight back exercise. There are some variations on bridges that get really challenging.

[Menace]

I found this one:

[Nascimento]

Solid video. Definitely some exercises to try there.

[H1N1]

Four pieces of PVC pipe, and two short robust straps to go through a hole in each piece of pipe (two pieces of pipe for each strap). With the door open, drape one piece of pipe from each strap over the top of the door, and pull the door shut. You should have two PVC bars hanging down, from which you can do your pullups. If you have access to a door, you can do pullups. If you do not have access to a door, you should by default have access to trees, in which case you can still do your pullups. Exceptions are understandable for major deserts and areas of vast tundra/steppe.

[vinman]

I did L- Sits the other day. Trying to hold a static position for 10 seconds was a killer. I've also been doing scaled muscle-ups. you really have to have beast level upper body strength for the muscle up.

[zatara]

When I'm traveling if I've no gym access I always try to do a quick bodyweight workout every 5 days. Figure it probably helps sweat out some of the holiday booze and raises test levels marginally at least. I do:

Pushups 5x10
Handstand pushups 5x10
Wide grip pull ups 4x10 (I wrap a towel over the top of a door and do them off this)
Close grip pull ups 4x10 (as above)
Bodyweight squats 5x10
Crunches 5x10
Tricep dips 5x10

Thats enough to get a bit of a pump in your biceps, triceps, delts, pecs, lats and abs. Basically the main glamour muscles.... so its fairly ideal for a beach/pool party holiday. Its no substitute for a proper weights workout, but if thats not an option it's something at least.

[LeBeau]

This thread has numerous bodyweight workouts and links to tons more:

http://www.rooshvforum.network/thread-38372.html

[Vaun]

I was a big fan of Matt Furey's a long time ago. I dont like his Hindu Squat, but he stresses the importance of the back bridge, and I couldnt agree more with it. If you have any back problems, this is how I literally reset my back. There are lots of variations, especially if you draw from a yoga practice. His is essentially a wrestlers bridge, which any jr high wrestling coach will have you do in a warm up. Try it out 3-5x a week. I like to do 3 bridges for 1-2 minutes each.

[cascadecombo]

(06-25-2015 07:53 PM)Vaun Wrote:  

I was a big fan of Matt Furey's a long time ago. I dont like his Hindu Squat, but he stresses the importance of the back bridge, and I couldnt agree more with it. If you have any back problems, this is how I literally reset my back. There are lots of variations, especially if you draw from a yoga practice. His is essentially a wrestlers bridge, which any jr high wrestling coach will have you do in a warm up. Try it out 3-5x a week. I like to do 3 bridges for 1-2 minutes each.

I personally love bridges.

I was thinking about how to post on here asking others if they had any idea how to improve the muscles used for the bridge. I wanted to make that strongers so my bridge will be explosive enough to throw guys far enough off me that they can't react in time to recover.

[inostranec]

I have a few friends who transformed their bodies purely on bodyweight exercises. I'm sure there will be some naysayers here about making a sick body just with bodyweight but I am not talking "pussy" workouts like 50 pull ups and 100 push ups a day. These guys are making pull ups and ring dips with 60 to 150 pounds extra weight. Hand stand push ups for shoulders, pistol squats for legs. Being progressive just like with weight training

[Hannibal]

There are a couple things you could do to get really good with bodyweight exercise.

You could pay Ido Portal a lot of money to personally coach you.

You could take the mindless way out and buy Foundation One through Four on the Gymnastic Bodies website. I don't get paid to endorse it, but it is literally the end all be all when it comes to bodyweight exercises. Every exercise is paired with a mobility exercise, and the program itself employs linear progression with it's own periodization protocol. The downsides is that it costs a lot of money to get and it requires some special equipment like stall bars. No other bodyweight expert measures up to Coach Sommers. Even Ido Portal was trained by Coach Sommers and I see some Ido Portal nut riding around here.

If you don't want to spend the money, but you still want to train with bodyweight exercises, then buy a copy of Coach Sommers "Building the Gymnastic Body" and work through the progressions. I don't consider bodyweight movements with added weight to be bodyweight exercises any more than I'd consider a barbell backsquat to be a variation of an airsquat. You can find Building the Gymnastic Body for free on the internet in PDF form if you like.

Once you've read through that, you can use the Killroy70 template off the BtGB forum.

Quote:

I've been a member of the list since I started my BtGB program this past January 09.

I began with a very basic program, working out 4 days/week and working four static positions every day, which included:
1) planche variations
2) BL variations
3) FL variations
4) Handstand work

After I finish my static work for a given workout, which generally consisted of 7-10 sets of each movement, the remainder of my workout looked like this:

Day 1 - horizontal plane pushing and pulling FBE
Day 2 - curling (inverted pullup) and dipping variations (RTO dips, etc..) FBE
Day 3 - pullup and HeSPU variation FBE
Day 4 - multiplane pulling variaions + varied pressing work

Anyway, I didn't want to get into anything that I considered even remotely advanced until I had become somewhat proficient in some of these exercises. Just to give an idea of progress, I'll give a quick list of where I began with the FSP (very first workout) and where I'm at now (i.e. yesterday's workout):
1) Planche variations: Frog stand 12 sec hold; tuck plance 10 sets of 8 sec holds
2) BL variations: tuck BL 8 second hold (VERY difficult, uncomfortable); FULL BL 10 sets of 4 sec holds (plus some reversals out of the BL to an inverted hang)
3) FL variations: Tuck FL 10 sec hold; 1/2 FL (one leg fully extended, one tucked, alternating e/set) 10 sets 4 sec holds (5 holds/leg)
4) Handstand work: couldn't even get into a handstand; kicking up into a handstand, using the wall as a "spotter", and working 10 sets of 20+ second holds (at the 20 second-mark, I'd stop using the wall as a spotter and go for as long as I can free standing)
**5**) When I started I was training the L-sit, but I felt it was really compromising my FL work, however, when I started I could not hold a floor L-sit for even 1 second; Yesterday, I tested and held a pretty good V-sit for a full 10 seconds. Surprised the hell out of my self!
**6**) One other area of very surprising progress: When I began, I couldn't do one since XR muscle up (even after devoting nearly 8 months of Crossfit work last year, no ring muscle ups achieved). Yesterday, I performed 15 single non-kipping muscle ups. They weren't perfect, pure-strength slow muscle ups, as there was a bit of leg movement, but definitely nothing that resembled a "kip."

Anyway, looking through my logs for the last couple of months, I'm pretty stunned at my progress following coach sommer's progressions.

Ok, on to the point of my post!.....

I'd like to begin working the basic ring strength series, which for me would look like:
-muscle up to support -->backwords roll -->inverted hang-->back lever-->inverted hang-->1/2 front lever-->down

What's the best way to work this into my program? As I stated above, for the last couple of months its been the 4 FSP's followed by 2 FBE, 4 days/week. There are some other things I'd like to begin working on as well, such as 360 pulls, which I imagine I could probably use them as a substitute for my static FL/BL work, perhaps embedding FL/BL statics into each 360 pull.

Should I perhaps substitute some FBE for the basic ring strength series maybe 2x/week?

I guess this post is getting a little long, as always, any feedback would be appreciated.

If you don't know how to periodize your program, then what I recommend is known as the Steady State protocol.

Basically, you do the exact same thing for 8-12 weeks straight. If you started with 5 sets of 5 dips, you end with 5 sets of 5 dips. This method is genius. Your first four weeks should be challenging, the next four weeks fairly easy, and the last couple weeks extremely easy. For all those familiar with periodization, that looks an awful lot like overloading with a planned deload. Granted, I wouldn't do this with a beginner (I'd have him make progress as often as possible until he stalled out, then back off a bit and do Steady State), but you get the idea.

The Steady State protocol can be used with virtually anything, as well. Weights, rocks, bodyweight exercises, sandbag stuff, kettlebells, hill sprints, whatever. Once you complete your Steady State cycle of 8-12 weeks, increase the difficulty of the exercise, increase the repetitions, add weight, you get the idea.

The other "bodyweight guys" like Matt Furey, the fictional Coach Wade, and even the Kavadlo Brothers pale in comparison to Coach Sommers. There's nothing wrong with them, but if you want to see the progressions for advanced bodyweight strength, you're not going to find it doing goofy shit like unilateral pushups, basketball pistols, or thousands of dands.

As far as equipment, you could buy/make yourself a pair of gymnastic rings, get a free standing pullup bar (doorway pullup bars are OK but they tend to fuck up doorways), buy or build a dip station, build or buy a set of parallets for planching and lsits, and maybe get an ab wheel for shits and giggles. Those things should keep you covered in the gymnastic department for a long time.

[JayMillz]

DUDE IS A BEAST!

[jamaltyrone]

i always do some bodyweight excersises with my routine

pull ups,maybe the best excersise for total back
push ups
dips

[panknows24]

Check out the YouTube channel zendudefitness. Most of their workouts just require a skip rope and tend to be HIIT focused. I usually do one when I wake up every morning and another one when I finish weight lifting or muay Thai. Great way to burn off calories in a short block of time.

Bonus points for people who are often travelling and can't access gym equipment.

Extra bonus points because skipping makes u look like a fkn badass

[Vaun]

Whenever I have extended time off from the gym, I start with bodyweight workouts, and usually do 5-10 of these workouts before I go under the bar or higher intensity.

Here is one I have been doing lately;

10 Rounds in 20 minutes of;
10 Airsquats
10 Pushups
10 Situps
5 Dead hang pullups
10 burpees

Then followed by 3 30 second back bridge holds, like what you see about from Matt Furey. He's right on the mark btw with his theory for back bridges, its one of the best exercises for your back. If you have back issues, start doing them.

I am starting this tomorrow morning at 6am, and want to do this 4-5x per week for a few weeks, before I head back into the crossfit gym. Its a scaled down version of the workout Murph;

Run 1 mile
50 pullups
50 pushups
50 airsquats
Run 1 mile

It should come out to 30 minutes or so for me. After I do this for a few weeks I will scale up to a full Murph which is;

with a 20# vest
Run 1 mile
100 pullups
100 pushups
100 airsquats
Run 1 mile

It usually takes me about an hour, or less when I am conditioned.

I just quit my pricey gym membership, to switch up my lifestyle a bit. I will be exercising in the park, running, body weight, using my weightvest and kettle bells I have at home. I live next to a big park with pullups and girls to hit on.

[Zanardi]

I began bodyweight work at the beginning of the last month, using the New Blood programme from Convict Conditioning. I didn't put any beef yet, but sure signs of getting stronger appeared.

My program is this:

Monday:

1. Wall Pushups - targeting 3 sets*50 reps
2. Knee Tucks - targeting 3 sets*40 reps
   

Friday:

1. Horizontal Pulls - targeting 1 set*10 reps
2. Shoulderstand Squats - targeting 3 sets*50 reps
   

[Beyond Borders]

I know it's not officially "bodyweight" excercises, per se, but I'm a big fan of traditional bodyweight excercises with weight added.

I.e. Pullups, chins, and dips with added weight hanging from your waist.

Don't start adding weight until you really have these exercises down, of course, but something about these movements just feels so much more natural to me than the lifts the usual weightlifter focuses on, like bench press, for example - or pull downs and bent over rows as compared to pullups.

I suspect that translates into better muscular development as well, but this is just my "feeling." I think I've come across research supporting the dips over the bench - you'll have to look it up on your own.

So far with squats I'm just sticking with bodyweight at the moment. I'm doing 10 sets of 5 on the pistols now (I weight 210, so this feels like a decent accomplishment to me) and thinking about picking up some dumbells when my rep counts get higher. I'll need to be careful about this because my buddy's brother blew out his knee this way. Not sure if he got his form perfected with high reps before he attempted it or not. He's in better shape than most people I know, but at the same time I could see him rushing it.

Anyone else base their routine on what we think of as bodyweight excercises with weight added? I mix it up sometimes but this is really the core of what I do.

[RichieP]

Yeah man I gave up bench years ago - never looked back. Shoulders thanked me for it profusely.

I really like "pseudo-planche pushups" as a pressing replacement. You can make them VERY hard - to the point that most people couldn't crank out one rep - just by moving your hands a down few inches. Easy to find a sweet spot for hand placement that lets you hit 5, 8 or 10+ reps before failure.

You can do them anywhere, and will never need to add weight - you can move to the planche pushup progressions when you're strong in them.

Technique here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odcPqBOlJhI

[RichieP]

BB - weighted chins (palm facing) are IMO the best bicep builders, bar none. Absolutely smash the rest of your upper back too. I'd say this is the king of upper body exercise.

I like pistols alot but don't like them holding weight. I think it's too easy to slip off balance and put your knee in a bad position. For now I'm going for 20+ rep sets which gives me a while to progress. Maybe a weighted vest would be good for pistols.

I definitely like these more than heavy barbell back squats which really just felt like they were breaking me long-term, not sustainable for 30-50 years at any rate.

[Beyond Borders]

(10-23-2016 11:28 AM)RichieP Wrote:  

Yeah man I gave up bench years ago - never looked back. Shoulders thanked me for it profusely.

I really like "pseudo-planche pushups" as a pressing replacement. You can make them VERY hard - to the point that most people couldn't crank out one rep - just by moving your hands a down few inches. Easy to find a sweet spot for hand placement that lets you hit 5, 8 or 10+ reps before failure.

You can do them anywhere, and will never need to add weight - you can move to the planche pushup progressions when you're strong in them.

Technique here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odcPqBOlJhI

Planche isn't something I've messed with. I'll have to start working in the easier movements.

I do divebomber pushups a lot. Absolutely love this exercise and think it's a highly underrated movement that I hardly ever see people doing - it just feels "right" to me, but maybe that's because we did them so much in high school wrestling. Back then we called it the Saturday Nighter.

I broke both my hands a couple months back and one healed faster than the other (no surgery), so recently I've been playing with one-handed divembombers. That shit is a no-joke way to cap off a workout indeed.

(10-23-2016 11:32 AM)RichieP Wrote:  

BB - weighted chins (palm facing) are IMO the best bicep builders, bar none. Absolutely smash the rest of your upper back too. I'd say this is the king of upper body exercise.

My experience is limited but so far I agree.

Quote:



I like pistols alot but don't like them holding weight. I think it's too easy to slip off balance and put your knee in a bad position. For now I'm going for 20+ rep sets which gives me a while to progress. Maybe a weighted vest would be good for pistols.

Great idea. I might try this once I'm pumping out sets of 15-20.

[aeroektar]

This guy does a great variation of the pull up at 2:30. Really smokes the lats.

I think the best approach is a hybrid approach. Some muscles really benefit from isolation exercises, for instance handstand pushups (straight up and down but with my heels against a wall) are the core of my shoulder workout, but I also do side lateral raises for extra medial delt development.

Weighted calisthenics are all win, you can only get so far (in terms of building muscle) with just bodyweight pushups etc. but if you keep adding weight so that your challenging yourself to complete 6-12 reps for sets you will continue to put on size similar to someone benching in the gym. Even then there's a limit, its probably not safe to put 200lbs on your back in a pushup position, but its a high ceiling.

[kbell]

I tried doing the back bridge, but my unrepaired shoulder did not like it. I used a big balance ball to stretch over it and that seemed to work without shoulder pain.

[RichieP]

(10-23-2016 04:01 PM)kbell Wrote:  

I tried doing the back bridge, but my unrepaired shoulder did not like it. I used a big balance ball to stretch over it and that seemed to work without shoulder pain.

aeroktar, what's the name of that pullup? Would love to get that down.

[ScrapperTL]

I have this piece of equipment in my garage and "Grease the Groove" throughout the day on a lot of different Bodyweight movements.
Having this at home is great and I highly recommend you guys pick up something similar.
I can bust out 20+ pull ups or chin ups now, 12+ wide grip pull ups, 30+ dips, 100+ push ups and respectable #'s on various straight-leg/knee lift variations.