bodyweight exercises?

[monkeyboxing]

Does anyone know any good bodyweight exercises/routines that build strength ( as opposed to endurance gained from exercises such as pushups)? Thanks.

[Chief Fox]

You could probably do a search on this site and find a bunch.

1 leg squats or pistols.

1 arm pushups

Pullups

Handstand pushups

[Vash]

www.Trainforstrength.com

[Din Gao]

The site Vash posted is great. I base alot of my home workouts on his exercises and throw in a couple of things by Furey.

[gwa sow]

also, www.crossfit.com

[Toby]

What the others said + Janda situps.

[spiraler]

horse stance stance training see tao thread

[IronFist]

Does anyone know any good bodyweight exercises/routines that build strength ( as opposed to endurance gained from exercises such as pushups)? Thanks.

"Strength" or "endurance" will come from how hard your muscles have to work. The reason people say things like pushups build endurance is because, once you can do more than about 10-15 of them, you're just gaining endurance by increasing the amount you do. In other words, if you can do 15 pushups now, and you work up to 30, you won't be able to bench or lift more weight, but you've increased the amount of times you could do a bodyweight pushup.

Remember that your body doesn't care if you're doing a bodyweight exercise or a weighted exercise. Resistance is resistance to a muscle. All it can do is contract or relax. So the same principle applies with weights. If you can bench press x pounds for 15 reps, and you increase it to 30 reps, you won't be any stronger, meaning the maximum weight you can lift for one rep won't have increased, but you'll have increased the amount of reps you could do with that weight.

So, any bodyweight (or weighted) exercise you can do for a lot of reps will only be building endurance and not strength. So if you want to build strength with bw stuff, you'll have to find a way to increase the load placed on your muscles.

Some suggestions:

Can you do a lot of Hindu squats (bodyweight squats)? Try one legged squats (pistols).

Can you do a lot of pushups? Try one armed pushups.

Can you do a lot of pullups? Try weighted pullups or one armed pullups.

[Mo Lung]

Can you do a lot of pushups? Try one armed pushups.Don't forget hand stand pushups! A very underrated exercise.

[IronFist]

Yes, but not much of a chest developer. I just wouldn't do them exclusively.

[Mo Lung]

No, of course not, but still a great bodyweight exercise to build into your routine once you get past strength development with the basics.

[monkeyboxing]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I'm definitely going to use some of these tips. What's a good way to work up to handstand pushups? I can't even do a handstand... and when I try it against a wall I have a very difficult time doing even one pushup. Also, I can only do one one-armed pushup so I can't really get a good workout doing that. Should I just do one repetition and conclude my workout? Also, is it possible to increase the amount of one armed pushups and the amount of regular pushups (strength and endurance) concurrently? It seems that after working on one type of these pushups, my arms would be too tired to work on the other type. Thanks.

[monkeyboxing]

One more thing, scrapper seems more designed for endurance than strength. Also, spiraler, your link doesn't work.

[Toby]

I've got access to weights and I find them more effective for strength than BWE but here's my advice:

(i) handstands: I did yoga years ago and we'd do it against the wall. That way you'd have no concerns about falling over on your head. Put your hands a few inches from the wall and walk your feet up a bit, then kick up. Get a friend to help catch your feet the first few times so you learn how much to kick up - too much and you'll "bounce" off the wall and find it hard to stay up. Once up, try to stay tight and straight - don't do the super-arched back handstands that you see some people do.

(ii) one-armed pushups: do negatives. Do your one pushup, then do several negatives. If you're purely after strength, that means < 6 reps per set and several sets. Long rests (>3min) between sets.

(iii) endurance and strength: yeah, it's a tradeoff. You'll have to decide which you prefer. You can certainly train both simultaneously, but in general endurance training will detract from your strength training. A lot of us do HIIT (also discussed on trainforstrength) for our endurance. That minimises the detrimental impact on strength which giving a very decent cardio capacity. But I definitely wouldn't try to do e.g. a strength benchpress workout and follow up with 50 reps at 50kg.

[monkeyboxing]

Sorry for my ignorance, but how do I do a negative repetition? Also, how many reps/sets do you recommend? Thanks.

[Toby]

There are two parts to every lift, extension and contraction. It is known that the human body is capable of "lifting" 130-140% of the concentric phase during the eccentric phase. This is a failsafe mechanism - you can always (relatively safely) lower what you can lift. You can use this to your advantage. Get into the start position and lower down on one arm. Do your one rep. Try again - lower under control. If you can't press up again, then use both arms and get back in the start position. Try again - lower under control. Repeat for x reps. I have used negatives in the past, specifically to improve my weighted pullups. Still do some occasionally and it's a good way to break plateaus. As to what sort of program to do - that's an involved question. To give you a start, I follow a program commonly referred to as PTP. 2 sets of 5 reps, 4 compound exercises, 5 mornings a week. It's a strength program. Most strength programs will focus on 5 or less reps per set and up to 5 or so sets. Most will focus on compound exercises.

[IronFist]

There are two parts to every lift, extension and contraction. It is known that the human body is capable of "lifting" 130-140% of the concentric phase during the eccentric phase. This is a failsafe mechanism - you can always (relatively safely) lower what you can lift. You can use this to your advantage. Get into the start position and lower down on one arm. Do your one rep. Try again - lower under control. If you can't press up again, then use both arms and get back in the start position. Try again - lower under control. Repeat for x reps. I have used negatives in the past, specifically to improve my weighted pullups. Still do some occasionally and it's a good way to break plateaus. As to what sort of program to do - that's an involved question. To give you a start, I follow a program commonly referred to as PTP. 2 sets of 5 reps, 4 compound exercises, 5 mornings a week. It's a strength program. Most strength programs will focus on 5 or less reps per set and up to 5 or so sets. Most will focus on compound exercises.

What Toby forgot to say is:

Concentric phase = contraction (when the muscle shortens)
Eccentric phase = extension (when the muscle lengthens) (aka negative)

:D

So for example, if you're doing a pushups, the concentric part is when you're pushing yourself up, and the eccentric part is when you're lowering yourself. Unless you're using pulleys or machines that change things up, the eccentric part is almost always the part where gravity is pulling you or the weight back down.

So yeah, if you can only do one rep of one armed pushups, you could do your one rep, and then do some negatives, meaning get in the top position and slowly lower yourself down. You won't be able to go back up, so after you reach the bottom get back in the starting position and do another negative, etc. Make sense?

[monkeyboxing]

Hmmm... do you think it would be possible to increase endurance/strength concurrently by doing endurance exercises (standard pushups) on one day and doing strength exercises (one armed pushups/negative reps) on other days?

[spiraler]

Yes, but not much of a chest developer. I just wouldn't do them exclusively.



actually i can attest to that, i always had problems with developing my lower chest, trying to get the defining line under my pecs, the lower chest, i found that holding a handstand against the wall with the body straight yet slightly arched worked wonders for that area. not really good for the upper chest but good for the shoulders and upper mid back, at least thats what i feel contracting during the exercise.

[spiraler]

One more thing, scrapper seems more designed for endurance than strength. Also, spiraler, your link doesn't work.





see other related arts>tao. its a forum thread.

[Toby]

... my lower chest ...Is that like your lower abs?


i found that holding a handstand against the wall with the body straight yet slightly arched worked wonders for that area. not really good for the upper chest but good for the shoulders and upper mid back, at least thats what i feel contracting during the exercise.Have you ever tried doing pushups to work your back and biceps? I find it mostly a bicep exercise myself ...

[Vash]

****, Toby called it before me.

*hangs head in shame*

[Toby]

:D

:mad: 10 fu&#99;king characters

[Mo Lung]

Hmmm... do you think it would be possible to increase endurance/strength concurrently by doing endurance exercises (standard pushups) on one day and doing strength exercises (one armed pushups/negative reps) on other days?You can do that, but at some point one will start to reduce returns on the other and vice versa. In all honesty, for a martial artist, having a good balance of strength and endurance is ideal, so a lot of people train concurrently. If you want maximal gains in one or the other, you'll need to reassess at some point.

I told you guys it was getting Extrodinaire in here. Perhaps they've both merged into one super troll?

[spiraler]

Is that like your lower abs?

Have you ever tried doing pushups to work your back and biceps? I find it mostly a bicep exercise myself ...




lower chest.... under the nipples in the man titty region.



yeah i agree, it does rip the hell out of the bicep, i feel it along my mid back region, a prob area for me, it tends to tighten up a little to much.

[IronFist]

Um... Toby... I'm scared.

[Mo Lung]

It's ok - we've briefly slipped into reverso world.

[Toby]

IP check? I'm guessing it's Eyebrows' brother.

[Ho Chun]

There are various ways to do push ups. Wide grip push ups will work the chest and biceps more. Hands in close, running your elbows along the sides of your body will work the triceps. Try doing 10 regular push ups then flip over and do 10 good crunches (crunch up and squeze the abs) then flip back over and repeat. Do a total of 30 push ups and 30 crunches. Make all of them slow and controled.

There is an exercise on www.noweightsworkout.com called an "arm grab". This exercise will increase your punching power by 50%. The Chinese exercises are all meant to increase fighting strength, so a arm grab is putting tension in the same manner as your punch, much like swinging 2 baseball bats when you are in the "on deck" circle, then you put one bat down and you're swinging the 1 bat with more speed and getting more power.

The arm grab is pushed out in line with your sternum. When you punch in line with your sternum, your pectorul muscle becomes hard. That's why kung fu people punch at the sturnum, karate people punch at the solar plexus.

Hope this helps
www.noweightsworkout.com

[Jhapa]

You could probably do a search on this site and find a bunch.

1 leg squats or pistols. what is pistols?

[Andy62]

http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/

[Chief Fox]

what is pistols?

a pistol is a one leg squat where your free leg extends out in front of you. So when you are in the low position you kinda look like a pistol.

Like this --> http://spidersport.com/photos/exercises/pistol_galya_3.jpg

[Mo Lung]

There are various ways to do push ups. Wide grip push ups will work the chest and biceps more. Hands in close, running your elbows along the sides of your body will work the triceps. Try doing 10 regular push ups then flip over and do 10 good crunches (crunch up and squeze the abs) then flip back over and repeat. Do a total of 30 push ups and 30 crunches. Make all of them slow and controled.

There is an exercise on www.noweightsworkout.com called an "arm grab". This exercise will increase your punching power by 50%. The Chinese exercises are all meant to increase fighting strength, so a arm grab is putting tension in the same manner as your punch, much like swinging 2 baseball bats when you are in the "on deck" circle, then you put one bat down and you're swinging the 1 bat with more speed and getting more power.

The arm grab is pushed out in line with your sternum. When you punch in line with your sternum, your pectorul muscle becomes hard. That's why kung fu people punch at the sturnum, karate people punch at the solar plexus.

Hope this helps
www.noweightsworkout.com
So you're Steve Hamp are you? I was wondering what sort of fitness/strength/conditioning training you've had.

Also, your site says you're a 6th degree black belt. In what style?

[Mr Punch]

There is an exercise on www.noweightsworkout.com called an "arm grab". This exercise will increase your punching power by 50%. The Chinese exercises are all meant to increase fighting strength, so a arm grab is putting tension in the same manner as your punch, much like swinging 2 baseball bats when you are in the "on deck" circle, then you put one bat down and you're swinging the 1 bat with more speed and getting more power.

The arm grab is pushed out in line with your sternum. When you punch in line with your sternum, your pectorul muscle becomes hard. That's why kung fu people punch at the sturnum, karate people punch at the solar plexus.[/url]With most bodyweight exercises resistance from your own bodyweight stimulates the muscles no? So how is doing this exercise with your imagination going ot be better than doing it with a dumbbell in your hand? Not being a smartarse, just wondering about the mechanism of it.

[Ho Chun]

To add light weight to these exercises are great. They have to be done without weight in the beginning to strengthen the tendons and the ligaments. Be careful not to injure the joints though. If you use weight with these exercises too early you will be building up the "belly" of the muscle. Doing the exercises without weight will build the tendons and the ligaments AND the belly of the muscle from the inside-out. Weights build the exterior of the muscle first, Chinese exercises build the interior of the muscle first.

Also, to double up on this post. I am a 6th Degree Black Belt under GM Gene L. Chicoine. Hsing-I is my favorite, but I also love Tai Chi, Shuai Chiao, and my first style, Preying Mantis. I am a ranked 6th Degree in Hsing-I and Shuai Chiao.

I have done the Chinese exercises as well as, Iron Vest, Muscle Restructure (also known as Muscle Change), the Iron Buddha program (which in my opinion) makes you go through forms with more power and helps with your endurance. I have trained my hand in Iron Palm for many years, and started Poison Hand about a year and a half ago. There is also a 2nd part to the Muscle Change, that I have been doing for the last 4 years.

I hope this helps,
www.noweightsworkout.com

[Andy62]

According to Pavel Dynamic Tension and virtual resistance exercises will build muscle andf strength,but you have to work against real ressitance from time to time to build bone and ligament strength.

[Ho Chun]

but you have to work against real ressitance from time to time to build bone and ligament strength.

Really?? On www.noweightsworkout.com those pitures are of me, how I look today. I've only done the Chinese exercises. I am 43 years old, and have been practicing the CMA since I was 12. I only learned these exercises and the Muscle Restructure (both 1 and 2) since meeting Teacher (GM Chicoine).

What I have gained and what I've seen others gain from these exercises are second to none. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with people who lift weights, I think weight lifting can be good for you-but, I don't think too many people lift correctly and for the right reasons.

What I mean by the last statement is this: I am a MARTIAL ARTIST, I want to build strength for different reasons, the main one being to enhance my fighting skills.
Will weights do this for me? Sure, but with limitations. I dare any of you who are not farmers to go and work on a farm for a week, let's see how strong you really are (me included). None of us would look strong to the farmers.

This is what they do, they have to be strong for the particular discipline that they do. We are not bodybuilders (unless this is your goals) this is not what we do. We are all MARTIAL ARTIST first.

I hope this helps

[Andy62]

Steve I totally agree with you. Different things work for different people and you can get strong and develop a good build without the use of weights-even Arnold Schwartzenegger said so in his book "The Education Of A Bodybuilder" John McSweeney, A member of the martial arts hall of fame didn't use weights and taught a system called "Tiger Moves" which was based on the ancient Kung Fu Tensing Exercises. John Peterson of Bronze Bow Publishing [link below] currently promoting that system. I am glad I came across your site. Andy

http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/

[Ho Chun]

Chinese Power Exercises are a great way for a mother or father and their kids to workout together. I have taught these exercises to children and adults who have been confined to a wheelchair. Most bodyweight exercises that are out there are push ups and squats.

I hope this helps
www.noweightsworkout.com

[Andy62]

They appear on the various bodyweight sites from time to time

[Vash]

. . . oh my.

[Chief Fox]

Ho Chun: After looking at your site a little more closely, specifically the Arm Grab work out. First I notice that there is no explanation of the benefits of the Arm Grab. I can only guess that it strengthens your entire arm and a little of your back chest and shoulders. Indicating the muscles groups that an exercise targets would be helpful. Second, I see the the full arm grab workout takes 20 minutes, then I see that there are 45 exercises total that make up the No Weights Workout. So lets say that each of the remaining exercises only take half as long as the Arm Grab. That's 460 minutes to complete the entire workout. That's over 7 hours to complete the full workout. Who has 7 hours to do a workout and then practice martial arts too?

I'm not trying to discredit you or in any way belittle your acomplishments. I'm just looking for some clarification. Thanks.

How often do you do the NWW and long soes it take you? Do you break it up over a few days?

[Ho Chun]

Chief Fox, great question.

The arm grab program takes a while to do. You do 30 arm grabs on each arm for 30 days. Then increasing them by 1 each day until you reach 100 arm grabs on each arm. Then you do 100 arm grabs on each arm for 100 days. This program alone takes about 6 months to complete. Other exercises can be done while doing the arm grab program (some of the lower rep. exercises). After completing the arm grab program, just maintain what you've developed. Chief Fox, I've explained this for others who might not know what your question was about.

The No Weights Workout, isn't a "20 minute workout" or a "5 second abs" thing.
Muscle restructure is nothing new, it is what the Indian Monk Da Mo, brought to the Shaolin Temple. It's a series of 12 exercises, 49 repititions of each exercise.
But it is time consuming. Some of them are daily exercises and others are programs that must be done daily for a certain amount of time. Some of the exercises like pull overs, which simulates throwing, will take perhaps a minute or a little longer to complete a day, doing 5 to 10 reps.

The biggest benefit of all of these Chinese Power Exercises is the lifting of the organs that occur. Iron Vest is a program that does just that, (that's not all it does) but all of these exercises do it also. Teacher has said that, "when your gut goes out, your organs come down". One thing that I have said is, even if your gut doesn't go out, won't gravity still yet pull them down? Look at all of the face lifts and breast augmentations that are being performed in this country. When those organs start drooping, and the veins that are delivering blood to those organs start stretching, and you sprinkle in a little bit of cholesterol, you're got major problems.

I could go on, I am very long winded, but I don't want to bore.

I hope this helps

[Ho Chun]

Thanks for bring this to my attention, I'll have to have my web designer make some changes.
I'm not much of a marketing wizard.

[AndrewS]

Ho Chun writes:

>The biggest benefit of all of these Chinese Power Exercises is the lifting of the organs that occur. Iron Vest is a program that does just that, (that's not all it does) but all of these exercises do it also. Teacher has said that, "when your gut goes out, your organs come down". One thing that I have said is, even if your gut doesn't go out, won't gravity still yet pull them down? Look at all of the face lifts and breast augmentations that are being performed in this country. When those organs start drooping, and the veins that are delivering blood to those organs start stretching, and you sprinkle in a little bit of cholesterol, you're got major problems.


Drooping organs? *sigh*

Ok, blood flow is a good thing and abdominal obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

That being said, making the leap that sucking in your gut will make you healthier is a far stretch, indeed.

You're advocating dynamic tension work. That stuff seems to elevate the blood pressure much like heavy resistance exercise can. However, the spike in blood pressure during a heavy squat lasts a couple of seconds, while you're doing these exercises from prolonged periods. I'd recommend taking a look at 'The History of Karate' by Morio Higaonna. Okinawans are the longest lived people in the world, yet the number of deaths due to stroke of senior Goju players mentioned in that book is somewhat dismaying. Goju's sanchin is the place where dynamic tension really took off as a training method, and went from a tight lower body and relaxed upper body to full-body tension (as I understand it). Maybe the Uechi guys would claim differently- dunno. Nonetheless, I'd be keeping a pretty close eye on my cardiovascular risk factors if I was doing a bunch of dynamic tension work.

Andrew

[Chief Fox]

Chief Fox, great question.

The arm grab program takes a while to do. You do 30 arm grabs on each arm for 30 days. Then increasing them by 1 each day until you reach 100 arm grabs on each arm. Then you do 100 arm grabs on each arm for 100 days. This program alone takes about 6 months to complete. Other exercises can be done while doing the arm grab program (some of the lower rep. exercises). After completing the arm grab program, just maintain what you've developed. Chief Fox, I've explained this for others who might not know what your question was about.

The No Weights Workout, isn't a "20 minute workout" or a "5 second abs" thing.
Muscle restructure is nothing new, it is what the Indian Monk Da Mo, brought to the Shaolin Temple. It's a series of 12 exercises, 49 repititions of each exercise.
But it is time consuming. Some of them are daily exercises and others are programs that must be done daily for a certain amount of time. Some of the exercises like pull overs, which simulates throwing, will take perhaps a minute or a little longer to complete a day, doing 5 to 10 reps.

The biggest benefit of all of these Chinese Power Exercises is the lifting of the organs that occur. Iron Vest is a program that does just that, (that's not all it does) but all of these exercises do it also. Teacher has said that, "when your gut goes out, your organs come down". One thing that I have said is, even if your gut doesn't go out, won't gravity still yet pull them down? Look at all of the face lifts and breast augmentations that are being performed in this country. When those organs start drooping, and the veins that are delivering blood to those organs start stretching, and you sprinkle in a little bit of cholesterol, you're got major problems.

I could go on, I am very long winded, but I don't want to bore.

I hope this helps

Thanks for the detailed response. You've piqued my interest. I'll invest the 9 bucks and check out the e book.

[Toby]

Fsck, I'm gone for a couple of weeks and look what happens to this site ...

:p