WARNING / DISCLAIMER
This book is for reference and informational purposes only and is in no way intended as medical counseling or medical advice. You must consult your physician prior to starting any exercise or nutritional program especially if you have any medical condition or injury that contraindicates physical activity. All forms of exercise pose some inherent risks. You must take full responsibility for your safety and know their limits. Before practicing the exercises in this book, be sure any kind of equipment or surface you train on is well-maintained, and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training and fitness. If you are taking any medications, you must talk to your physician before starting any exercise program my Homemade Muscle workout. This publication is intended for informational use only and I will not assume any liability or be held responsible for any
Chapter 12
Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11
About the program
About bodyweight exercise
The essential 8 exercises you are going to need Abdominals
Warming up Exercise Menu Static Stretching
Training methods & programs
Plateaus, overtraining & undertraining Nutrition Common questions 6 10 13 15 17 20 27 53 58 69 71 80 82 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Many times, when I used to talk with a friend online or on the phone, telling them I just finished my home workout routine they would be quite curious but usually thought I was probably fooling around doing some pushups and whatnot. A couple of months later, when they saw how my body started to change they were amazed.
All that just by training in your own home with no equipment at all? They asked... I explained to them that my approach had nothing to do with countless complicated exercises and training methods that required special equipment. It is about going back to the basics of bodyweight exercises, combin-ing them with strength traincombin-ing principles, gaincombin-ing control over your own body and findcombin-ing ways to manipulate each exercise according to your current level of strength. It is as simple as that. As a matter of fact it is always as simple as that, when it comes to losing weight and attaining an aesthetic physique for 99% of people. It is not the complexity of training and nutritional programs that makes it difficult for people to accomplish their goals. It is all about finding the proper guidance and applying continuous effort over time by using basic exercise and nutritional principles...
My accident
Some people, usually the ones who train at gyms and still don’t have any results after months or even years, have told me stuff like, I just have good “genetics”, therefore, I don’t need to train hard to stay/get in good shape and that’s why my home-workout was so effective.
Due to an accident some years ago, my left leg was destroyed. As a result, I was in and out of hospitals for the following five years, being operated a total of thirteen times and consuming huge amounts of antibiotic boxes per year. All of the above combined with a stressed and depressed mental state for so long had really taken a toll to my body. From being in a really good shape as a competitive athlete, I ended up becoming: overweight from eating too much and too unhealthy. My whole body looked weak, my belly was bloated from gut bacteria imbalances caused by all the anti-biotics and I became totally out of shape and out of balance (pic. 1).
INTRODUCTION
I will not to bore you with a long introduction about myself; I just want to share the facts about me that are relevant to the training program in this book and the proven results it has offered me and other people to whom I have suggested it...
Rising back from the ashes
Because I was always in a good shape most of my life, I got sick of watching how unhealthy I had become in the years that followed after my accident. I decided it was time for a change. The dam-age done to my leg from my accident was huge, and irreversible. A lot of soft tissue damdam-age, loss of muscle tissue, a loss of almost three inches length from my lower leg’s length and a lot of nerve damage resulting in almost 50% loss of sensation bellow my knee.
Some of my doctors kept telling me not to give up on hope, every year. But after having my leg sup-posedly fixed a couple of times, it always broke again a couple of months later. So after a total of five years and thirteen operations, I knew it was time for a big decision - a decision that no one had really ever offered me directly. I wasn’t going to waste the rest of my life depressed, on crutches, and in and out of hospitals having more surgeries every year. I had to cut that useless part of my body I had been dragging for so long in order to continue my life in my own terms.
Even though I was always in a really good shape all my life my body became really unhealthy just in a matter of 8-9 months.
I decided that if I was going to be in a good mental state for this surgery, I was also going to be in good physical shape. Being an athlete most of my life, I knew the importance of the body and mind connection. A great master once said “To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” - Buddha
Going to the gym at that time was not that affordable for me, plus, moving a lot was difficult since I needed crutches most of the time, and had no personal means of transportation. So I decided I that I would have to make the best out of the workout plan I could perform at home. Although I was really determined, I still had my doubts on how effective it would be in comparison with a program done in a regular gym, which was the environment I was used to in the past... So I sat down with my laptop and made a plan. I thought of all of the best bodyweight exercises, ways to progress into the ones I couldn’t yet perform, and variations of the ones that were too easy. I thought of ways I could use stuff like regular home furniture and backpacks and turne into exercise equipment.
After six months of hard training both my body & mind, and eating extremely healthy, all the work paid off (picture 3c). I was feeling healthier than ever and my body was in great shape, supporting me that way also mentally for the big challenge that I had to overcome (my amputation).
Picture 2
This was a not an easy decision, so I spent some time pondering over it ,while at the same time I fin-ished my university studies in “Sports science and Physical education”; which I had quit at the time of my accident. After that I was sure that it was the right choice to make. So I talked with my doctors and the surgery was planned to be done in 6 months. I was in a slightly better condition at that mo-ment, since I was exercising a bit, doing some swimming when my leg wasn’t that bad and some pull ups now and then, but I was still in bad shape (picture 2), at least, for my standards.
Picture 3 b
a c
Keep in mind that photos 3.a, 3.b and 3.c are not photoshoped or in a flexed state, as most of the fake transformation pictures in other books. When it comes to these before/after photos, I’m only offering realistic ones to show the effect this program had on me. I didn’t even use a professional camera or special lightning to take these pics. In fact, most of them are just still snapshots of videos I was making for personal use at the time, in order to observe if I was using good form while performing exercises, to keep me motivated and to keep track of my improvement. I did not know I was going to put all this in a book...After a whole year on my program (pic. 4) I am quite happy with my results, yet I know that there is still a lot of room for improvement...
"To keep the body in good health
is a duty... otherwise we shall not
be able to keep our mindstrong
and clear"
CHAPTER 1 - ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Have you seen gymnasts performing at the Olympic Games? If yes, then you must have noticed the amazing bodies they have. All of the exercises these athletes use, are bodyweight exercises and a lot of them can be done at your home. If the gymnast example sounds too extreme, check out the new viral trend arising on youtube - people all over the world training only with bars and bodyweight exercises or as they call it “StreetWorkout and Calistenics”. You can see really amazing physiques on these guys which is just the result of training in their neighborhood’s park. How cool is that !? Because of my love for exercise, I have been training hard most of my life, especially after I became thirteen and joined my hometown’s rowing team. After that, I became a Flatwater-Canoe athlete (a really brutal sport if you don’t know it check it out online!) winning my country’s national games for two years in a row, by competing in the double men canoe boat (although I owe a lot of that to my crew & coach A.Kiligaridis). During my ten years as a competitive rower and canoeist, I had been training using all kinds of methods including a lot of weight lifting in the gym. However, when I com-pare all the ways I have trained in the past for strength, I have to conclude that nothing beats a good bodyweight program. Just pick out a guy out of any gym who can easily pull his own body weight in the lat pull-down machine and ask him to do the same repetitions on a pull up bar, or a guy who can bench press double his bodyweight and ask him to do a one-arm push up... 99.9% of them will fail!
1.1 Advantages of training in your own home
Almost zero costs. The first and most obvious advantage of training in your home is that you don’t have to pay for gym membership or expensive equipment anymore. Homemade Muscles workouts use only bodyweight exercises and the good thing about bodyweight exercise is that the only two basic factors you depend on are gravity and your own bodyweight. The only equipment I advise you to have in this book, is a pull up bar. That is because pull ups are the king of all exercises when it comes to bodyweight training. If you think of all the money you will be saving yourself from gym memberships just by spending 20-30 dollars for a pull up bar you will see that you are making a wise investment. If you still aren’t willing to make this investment though, I still offer some possible alternatives later on.
Saving a lot of time. The most common excuse I hear from people who don’t exercise is that they don’t have time. Well, training in your own house besides saving you money also saves you a lot of time. Think about it, if you calculate all the time you need to pack a big bag, go all the way to the gym, change in the locker room, wait for your turn at the machines and then all of that in reverse, it usually costs most people at least an extra hour or two. Training in the comfort of your own house means no commuting, no need
of looking for a parking space forever and no need to unpack big bags of sweaty clothes. Once you are done training in your home you can immediately take a nice hot shower in your own bathroom, wear dry clothes and kickback, or do whatever else you have to do. This program requires, on aver-age, only 3 hours out of your time per week which is time worth spending by anyone, in reward of a healthier & stronger body.
Letting go. One of the things I love when training in my house is that I can really let go. You can ex-press all of the frustration and aggression that bottles up in you during the rest of the day at your work, school or wherever. You can scream through those last reps, curse, yell and generally ex-press whatever feeling you are going through that day or that phase of your life. Do and say what you are feel like! (Try though not to do this late at night, you don’t want your neighbor calling the police thinking you are strangling someone!). This has a great calming affect once you finish training... It may sound weird to some and others will totally understand what I’m talking about. I consider it as a kind of a psychosomatic catharsis... Many times training for me is more psychotherapy than exer -cise. Just give it a try and you will understand. As I will also mention later on, general exercise has proven results on reducing stress and improving your mental health. However, doing it this way, you boost these benefits to a whole new level, I know this from personal experience and other athletes I have met during my life experience I know.
1.2 Is this program for everybody?
Bodyweight training can be quite challenging especially for beginners and heavy people. That is why every exercise in this book has progressions to help you ease into them. For each one of the exercises I have included several progressions, starting from the easiest and progressing towards the basic form of the exercise; plus, extra advanced variations for when you grow even stronger. So regardless of your sex, current physical condition and your weight, this program can be applied by anyone.
Just to be realistic and not BS you I will mention that a lot of excessive fat/weight can get in the way of this program if you want to get fully benefited from it. Think about it, if you weigh 300 pounds and you are trying to perform a handstand push-up it would be the equivalent of trying to push more than 330 pounds on an overhead press machine. No matter how strong you become, it will be pretty difficult to attain such a huge level of strength and you will be stuck in the simple progressions of some exercises. For most it is going to be quite a struggle if not impossible to improve beyond that point. My advice to overweight people who want to get full use of this program is to combine it with a really good & healthy diet and get rid as much excessive fat as possible. Once your fat percentage drops below 20% and gets closer and closer to 10% for men and 15% for women your insulin sensitiv-ity will also improve which will help you build muscles more effectively and reduce fat storage even faster!
Moving also to the other end of the spectrum, if you believe you are too strong for bodyweight exer-cises, as I mentioned above, there are also advanced variations included to kick it up a notch. These can be used also later on once you start getting stronger.
Be sure before progressing on advanced versions of the exercises that you can perform them with the proper form and technique. In most cases, performing an exercise with good form and proper technique conclude to you doing only half of the reps you would do with a faulty form, activating that way - a lot more effectively - the targeted muscles and saving you from injuries.
Great, this sounds easy I’ll get in shape in no time!
Keep in mind that training at home without all the fancy gym equipment doesn’t mean that it’s also going to be easy. When you want results in life, there are no secret shortcuts. A exercise & health specialist, I have high respect for - Elliot Hulse likes to quote “No one can escape the law of Sow-ing & ReapSow-ing which dictates that whatever you give, you will receive in equal fashion...” So when it comes to seeking a healthy fit body you are going to have to sweat, you are going to have to accept the fact that there are going to be days (especially in the beginning) that you will be waking up with muscle soreness and that you will have to be patient and dedicated to your training schedule. Once you accept this and begin training the rest will follow.
"No one can escape the universal law of
Sowing & Reaping which dictates that whatever
you give you will receive in equal fashion..."
I expect people to be excited when I motivate and tell them that they can get in great shape in the comfort of their own home without spending almost any money at all... Unfortunately, most of them just look at me in disbelief. It probably sounds too good to be true or they have tried getting in shape trying some other promising easy home workout that didn’t work.
2.1 Bodyweight exercise Vs Gym machines
Side effects of gym machines. Unfortunately, most of us have become misleaded into believing that in order to get in shape we need all those shiny complicated machines we see in big corporate gyms with touch screens and all sort of other gismos on them. The truth is that training with most of that equipment leads many times to developing a dysfunctional body. Training too much with machines overdevelops prime mover muscles relative to stabilizing muscles causing muscular imbalances and the absence of some really important stabilizing muscle functions we need in real life. As a result, many people overestimate their functional strength. They fool themselves into thinking that they can still lift heavy stuff outside the gym - which are not in a fixed machine - like position - thus, requiring a lot more stabilizer strength than they possess. So what happens in the end, is joint and connective tissue injuries. People just lift a tool case and end up having herniated disks etc...
Advantages of Bodyweight training. On the other hand, the training method used in this book strictly prefers bodyweight exercises. Mastering your own bodyweight requires a lot of hard work and per-sistence. Plus, once that is achieved, bodyweight exercises also have a more impressive visual ap-peal (they look cooler!).
Bodyweight exercises can be done almost anywhere with minimum equipment and in my opinion they are a lot more entertaining and motivational for strength training because your goal is not just adding an extra plate of weight every month but performing more impressive and cool variations. Think about it, what is more impressive and fun... pushing a lot of weight on a bench press or per-forming a one arm push up?
Bodyweight exercises improve balance, coordination, agility and kinesthetic awareness. They also incorporate many muscle groups at once, they strengthen your connective tissues relatively to your prime mover muscle and almost always activate your core muscles (yes including the famous Six-pack) in order to be performed right. Having a strong core is the key for a healthy spine and is the foundation on which you should develop your body’s extremities, not the other way around.
Quick summary: the main advantages of bodyweight training: • Multiple muscle group activation in each exercise.
• Analogous development of muscles with their connective tissues • Superior core activation in comparison with gym type machines • Balance improvement
• Coordination improvement
• Agility (the ability to rapidly change the body’s momentum from one direction to another)
• Kinesthetic awareness (Kinesthetic awareness is your body’s knowledge of your surroundings which you receive via the sensory receptors in your joints, muscles and skin.
After all the training systems I have tried in my life, I always conclude that bodyweight exercise makes me the strongest...
CHAPTER 3 - THE 8 ESSENTIAL EXERCISES
Bruce Lee said that simplicity is the key to brilliance. This principle can be applied almost every-where in life, including exercise. Sculpting a lean muscular and symmetrical physique is something I consider a form of art. What I like the most about this fact is that if you know how to handle the right tools it can be a form of art mastered by anyone. This art-form may seem really complicated, especially if you enter a huge gym for the first time and become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of exercise equipment. And if you are new to exercise as well, it will be really intimidating. The fact is that movement and exercise quality is a lot more important that quantity.
During my journey of getting stronger, I tried most of the bodyweight exercises that exist (and trust me, there are countless of them) but after a lot of experiment I concluded thatI only need to use and try to master 8 of them in order to get as strong as possible andattain an aesthetic physique. After doing some research on bodyweight exercise books I realized that all of them offer an endess list of exercises and mastering them would take a lifetime... After all, not everyone wants and can afford to train all day like a professional athlete just to look and feel good.
Sometimes less is more.The 8 exercises I have chosen will train all of your body’s muscles effi-ciently and in symmetry. They resemble some of our most primal movement patterns which highly stimulate our neuromuscular system and strengthen our body’s prime mover muscles in balance with our core, joints, ligaments and tendons. Trust me, if you conquer every variation of the exer-cises in this book you will have greater relative body strength than 99% of all people around you.
3.1 Primal movement patterns
When I mention the term primal movement patterns, I mean movements which were important for survival before man stopped living in the wild. Think about it, if you lived in the wild, would bicep curls serve in any important movements? Not really...On the other hand, you would definitely have to climb up high surfaces which would require pulling yourself up in all kinds of different angles, according to the terrain around you.
Once you pull yourself up until chest height when climbing a surface, the next thing you have to do is to push yourself up in order to get on it which resembles the movement in dips and push-ups. Living in the wild would also require you to press heavy stuff above your head; for example, in order to build a roof for a shelter. A movement like that would require the same muscles that you use in handstand push-ups. Even just for simple tasks - like, going to the bathroom - you would have to get in a deep squat position every single day (pistol squats anyone?).
And last but most important of all, to perform every single one of these moves efficiently, you would have to have a strong core. No, our ancestors did not train their abs and low back muscles because all these muscles never atrophied in the first place. These muscles always worked in perfect coor-dination with the rest of their body during all the movements I mentioned above.
Unfortunately, our lifestyle has deeply weakened and de-trained these muscles, making us forget how to turn them on in harmony with the rest of our body when needed. Using leg raises, prone co-bras and all of the exercises in this book with good form will help you re-establish the relationship between your core and the rest of the body. All the above are the 8 exercises that you will use in this program and they are the only ones you need to strengthen your whole body with.
"simplicity is the key to brilliance"
- bruce lee
CHAPTER 4 - ABDOMINALS
I devoted a whole chapter on this topic simply because people tend to be obsessed with this specific muscle group... Since the abdominals are part of a bigger unit - which is the core - I will also men-tion some stuff about the core in general. First, let’s start with two of the most common myths when it comes to abdominal training...
4.1 Abdominal Myths
Although these myths are starting to become outdated in the fitness industry, I feel it’s important to make sure that everybody who reads this book knows basic principles and facts about abdominal and core exercise in order to understand the program fully.
1. Doing hundreds of abdominal exercise repetitions every daywon’t help you build a strong ribbed stomach! Your abs are anatomically just as any other muscle. They are a striated, skeletal muscle group which means that you don’t need to train them more than three times a week and use a rep range of 6-15 repetitions per set, just as any other muscle. Overtraining your abs as many people do, can only cause muscle imbalances and encourage bad posture.
2. Abdominal exercises burn fat around your stomach! There is no direct metabolic pathway from your abdominal musculature to the fat tissue surrounding it. In order to burn fat and convert it to energy, your body must first send the fat to your liver where it will be broken down to fatty acids. Only then it will be send to your abdominals for fuel! This fat comes from all over your body, not one specific place. Gender, age and genetics are responsible for which areas are going to be more “preferred” as fat sources. For example if you are the “chicken-leg” body type while you are doing ab crunches your body may be burning more fat from your legs!
In conclusion if you want a better looking stomach, first of all you have to get rid of the fat around your stomach and although strength exercise can help you achieve that, your diet will play the big-gest role in revealing your abs once they are strengthened. That is why they say abs are made in the kitchen... Your abs may be even stronger than Bruce Lee’s but if you never burn the fat around them they will never be visible.
Another factor you should keep in mind is your genetics, some people just have a harder time get-ting a ribbed stomach because they tend to store more fat around the stomach due to their body type. If you belong in this group of people then unfortunately you need to have greater patience.
4.2 “ The big crunch”
Most of the people and even some experts say that the basic function of the abdominal muscles is movement production. A lot of research done in abdominal anatomy & kinesiology shows that a significant role of the rectus abdominus (specifically the lower area) and the external obliques is actually preventing motion and keeping our lumbopelvic region more stable. This means that instead on doing hundreds of crunches as most people do, focusing more on “Leg raising” type of exercises (like the ones in this book) is a more functional approach to abdominal conditioning. If you are watching your diet, then doing the leg raising exercises I demonstrate in this program and tak-ing into account the abdominal activation required in many other of the bodyweight exercises, it’s enough abdominal work to get a good looking flat and ripped stomach.
Typical floor crunches train mostly the upper part of your rectus abodminus, which many of the times is already too tight due to bad postural habits like being most of the day slouched in a chair staring at a computer monitor. If you see a typical over-developed guy in the gym or most of today’s bodybuilders you will observe in most cases the classic protruding belly syndrome accompanied with an excessive lumbar lordosis. If you have ever studied the great Paul Chek he calls it the Donald Duck posture which is an easy way to remember and identify it. This type of posture besides being totally unaesthetic can lead to serious problems like low back pain.
4.3 The most important abdominal you never hear about
In many exercises, you will notice me mentioning that you should pull your belly button inwards. The reason I ask you to do that is to activate transverse abdominus (TVA).
The TVA is your deepest abdominal muscle - some even call it God’s natural weight belt. Imagine it as an inner corset that begins from the lower part of your spine and wraps around your stomach. Every time you pull your belly inwards you contract the TVA muscle concentrically
(reducing its size) and in combination with engaging your pelvic floor - the sling if you may call it of your genital mus-cles which is spanning the area underneath the pelvis you also tighten the base of your core which will help tighten your abs from all angles.
A simple way to activate the pelvic floor is to think of the musle activation you would use to pause urination (no need to exaggerate this contraction just turn the muscles on).Give it a try and you will notice your pelvic floor muscles turning on. If stabilization of your legs is also required, then brac-ing your glutes in combination with all the above will help create rigidity and stiffness around the midsection.
In a functional body this contraction is automatic when needed. You can notice this in healthy chil-dren who perform certain movements where the transversus abdominal is required by the pulling in of the belly button. For example when they jump vertically they do this in order to protect their spine from the impact on landing.
Because of bad habits and other reasons (surgeries, wearing typical weight belts etc) in a lot of people this muscle doesn’t function properly and may even shut down completely through time. The de-training of that muscle can be one of the factors leading to the beer-type loose belly a lot of peo-ple have and it is not just a cause of being overweight and bloated. Check out old bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger and observe the amazing V-shape physique he had. The main reason for that was that they trained a lot their TVA. An interesting fact is that Arnold’s coach - Vince Gironda who was and still is considered one of the most famous bodybuilding coaches, was totally against ab crunching! So give special attention to the exercise guidelines I give in abdominal and other ex-ercises making sure to perform them properly. Correct activation of the TVA muscle will strengthen your core, protect your spine and give your stomach a more aestheticflat
“V” look.
Chapter quick summary: Strengthening your lower rectus abdominus and external obliques with the exercises shown in this book will train your abs functionally, will prevent you from having a Don-ald duck type posture and in combination with a proper diet and the rest of the bodyweight program, it will help you achieve a flat ripped and Vshape stomach.
CHAPTER 5 - WARMING UP
I always take my warm up serious, since a proper warm up has been proven to increase perfor-mance and reduces injuries which can end up destroying results you have been working on for months. I divide my warm up in two parts: A) Dynamic stretching and B) Warm-up sets.
5.1 Part A - Dynamic Stretching
A short definition of dynamic stretching would be “stretching as you are moving”. To be more spe-cific dynamic stretching is an active movement of your body that brings forth a stretch but is not held statically in the end position.
When it comes to strength training, I generally prefer dynamic stretching in combination with warm-up sets instead of doing “traditional” type warm warm-up routines like jogging or static cycling, which don’t really prepare you for the intensity of your workout and all the specific movement patterns you are about to perform. Think about it simply... What happens during strength training is stress being applied to specific muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints. So how would static cycling or jogging prepare your upper body? For example, how would your shoulder area be prepared for doing a sim-ple push up? The only positive effect cycling or jogging would have is raising your temperature and warming up your legs. This is not bad of course, but it is also not enough.
Dynamic stretching on the other hand can prepare your body’s connective tissues and muscles by performing targeted movements which are more related to the movement patterns you will perform. The areas of your body that are about to be trained become warmer and more blood is pumped into them. This will also increase your range of motion and flexibility which will be needed to perform your workout’s exercises. Once again, I am not saying that some jogging or cycling will hurt, but for me, doing too much cardio before strength training takes my edge off and I end up training with less appetite and energy. If you want to combine some traditional low cardio exercise before dynamic stretching, 5 minutes to raise your body’s temperature are enough.
Dynamic stretching routine
1. Neck rolls. Standing tall and relaxed, drop the chin close to your chest and gently roll the head toward one shoulder in a semicircular motion. Do 5 rolls in each direction (right and left shoulder) but be careful not to leave the head fall too far backwards. Make slow, big and fluid movements (pic. 5) while keeping relaxed other muscles that aren’t directly involved in the movement (like your shoulders).
2. Shoulder rolls. Shoulder dynamic stretches are quite important because the shoulder area is one of the most easily tensed areas in our bodies nowadays, due to bad postural habits, lifestyle and mental stress. Again standing tall and relaxed, start rotating your shoulders forwards in a big smooth, circular motion.
Picture 5
Picture 6a Picture 6b
Bring your shoulders up close to your ears (pic. 6a) and then back and down as low as possible (pic. 6b). Repeat by doing the motion backwards this time. Start slow and increase the speed a bit after 15 seconds. Do a total of 10 rolls two times with a 10-15 second rest in between.
3. Arm rotations. Start rotating your arms forward in a crossed position (right arm over left arm and try to alternate after every rotation) with your elbows slightly bent using a slow tempo (pic. 7a,b). As you get used to the movements, increase the tempo a bit as long as it feels comfortable. Do this for 20 seconds. Next rotate forward your arms, one at a time and each one for 15 seconds. Last, repeat all of this again but this time rotating your arms backwards.
Picture 7a Picture 7b
4. Dynamic lat stretch. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Gently start to swing arms up and above your head (pic. 8a) and then back down all the way behind your body (pic. 8b). Keep your elbows slightly bended during the movement. As you feel yourself loosening and getting warmer try to extend the arms further in each direction. Perform this exercise twice for 20 seconds with a 10-15 second pause in between.
5. Dynamic chest stretch. Standing again with feet shoulder width apart, raise arms to chest height. Start swinging them across your chest (pic 9a) and behind your body (pic 9b) increasing gradually the speed a bit. Make sure you keep your arms close to chest height. Perform 10 repetitions twice with a pause of 10-15 seconds.
Picture 9a Picture 9b
6. Shoulder dynamic stretch with elastic band. You can also find these as “Shoulder dislocations” around the web but don’t worry you aren’t actually going to dislocate your shoulders. It is just the name of the exercise. This exercise is normally done with a stretching rubber band or if you don’t have one just find a bicycle-wheel inner tube that you don’t need any more, I’m sure there is one lying somewhere around you. If not then you can buy a really cheap one for just 2 dollars instead of spending 30 dollars for a regular stretching band. I actually prefer bicycle tubes because they have the ideal amount of elasticity, not to hard and not too soft. Many people use also broomsticks but I highly recommend something with elasticity to make sure you don’t injure your shoulders.
How to do the exercise
a. Start by holding the band about twice as wide as your shoulder width in front of you.
b. Start raising your arms up overhead while being careful not to allow your shoulders to shrug upwards (pic. 10a).
c. Bring the band all the way backwards, always making sure there is enough slack on it to allow you to do this movement without over-stressing your shoulders. (pic. 10b)
d. As you warm up you can slowly try to decrease the width of your grip on the band. The more you increase your flexibility in this exercise, the more you will be able to hold a nar rower grip. Just make sure you always start wide enough and gradually decrease the width.
Picture 10a Picture 10b
7. Static butt kicks. This exercise is performed just as the name implies - by trying to kick your butt with your feet. This is accomplished by jogging in a static position and raising your heels one at a time towards your glutes (pic. 11). Do 24 of these (12 for each foot), rest for 15-20 seconds and repeat. 8. Knee raises. To do the knee-raise dynamic stretch, step forward with your left leg and raise your right knee towards your chest (pic. 12). Wrap your hands or arms around the shin and pull the knee gently close to your chest. Hold for a split second and then step forward with the right leg and repeat by hugging the left knee. As your legs warm up start performing the exercise a bit more dynami-cally. Again do 24 of these (12 for each foot) rest for 15-20 seconds and repeat.
5.2 Part B - Warm up sets
The second part of the warm up consists of warm up sets - meaning sets that focus only on prepar-ing your muscles for your work-out, without experiencprepar-ing any great amount of fatigue. Start with 2 sets of pushups, one set of pull ups & chin ups and 3 sets of double legged squats (go as deep as comfortable). For those who have reached the intermediate program and have conquered or are able to do the first two progressions of handstand push-ups (check out chapter 6 later) add also two sets of handstands on the wall for an amount of time that feels comfortable. Using these 5 exercises is a really efficient way to complete warming up your whole body since they activate all your muscle groups. To be a bit more specific, the intensity of these sets should not fatigue your muscles that much but give enough of a neuromuscular stimulus to prepare yourself for the work-out. Do 35-45% of the total amount of reps you do in your normal sets or do more reps but using an easier progres-sion (I will offer progresprogres-sions in every exercise later on). Always start with the exercise that is the easiest for you, I prefer starting always with push-ups.
The general sensation we ought to have after completing an efficient warm up should consist of the following basic points:
• Feeling our muscles stimulated enough and fully energized but not fatigued • Enough freedom of movement in our joints and muscles to perform all the exercises your program consists of.
• A raise of temperature just enough to cause mild perspiration.
Some people due to genetics require raising their temperature in huge amounts in order to sweat. In case you belong to that category don’t consider the last point mandatory.
A good warm-up, especially before strength training, is extremely important. Remember, it is far better to spend 15 minutes warming up every time instead of training for months and watch all your results go down the drain, just because you skipped warm-up once and got injured.
"If you do not have enough time to
warm up correctly, you do not have
enough time to train"
- old saying
CHAPTER 6 - EXERCISE MENU
As I mentioned previously, you are only going to need eight exercises to get in shape with the Home-Made Muscle workout. Keep in mind that everyone of is different... Weight, height, sex, level of strength and other variables play an important role in bodyweight training, so not everyone can start these exercises from the same progression. The beginner progressions are given in order - starting from the easiest and moving on to the more difficult ones. During your first week, experiment with the progressions in every exercise and find one suitable for you to begin with. By a suitable progres-sion I mean one in which you can perform at least 2 sets of minimum 5-6 reps. Once you find the ap-propriate starting point, I suggest waiting until the recommended number of reps can be performed with good form before moving on.
#1 Pull-ups - The king of upper body exercises
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: LATS
SECONDARY MUSCLES: FOREARMS, BICEPS
I cannot think of a better exercise than pull ups to determine one’s relative upper body strength. If I had to choose only one exercise to strengthen my upper body this one would be it. It is best if you have a pull up bar as I mentioned previously, but you can also find other solutions to do pull ups if you are creative enough.
Some pull up bar alternatives
Pull ups on an indoor staircase. (pic.13). Although this is a good solution when you have a similar staircase in your house, there are also some disadvantages like the fact the grip is a lot more dif-ficult, so it is not recommended for beginners.
Pull ups on a door frame. Once again the grip difficulty is the disadvantage in this alternative but it can also be an advantage in strengthening your grip and forearm muscles later on. An ideal door frame for pull ups is a wide transom type door frame (pic.14) which is the one I used when I didn’t want to spend money on a regular bar.
The second way is to use the door itself. (pic 15a,b). If you use the door itself, you will want to put something soft on the edge you will be hanging off like a towel, or wearing some gloves to avoid a painful grip. Also wedge something under the door like a few books or magazines to close the space and avoid busting the door’s hinges! Make sure you do pull ups on a solid door that can sustain your weight so you don’t end up injuring yourself and breaking your house’s doors!
Picture 14
If your house has an attic it is possible that there is a steady beam you can hang on and do pull ups. Wear some gloves for a better grip and to avoid splinters.
Clothsline supports. Maybe your yard has one solid enough, this is also a good alternative for a pull up bar.
Depending on the space you have around you there are countless possibilities just become crea-tive and you will find a solution!
Proper technique - The perfect pull up
Step 1
Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart on the surface you have chosen to do your pull ups. Keep your wrists aligned with your forearms and bend your knees with your feet crossed (pic. 16). You should be using an overhand grip-palms pointing outwards so that they are facing away from you.
Step 2
You should not just be hanging on your ligaments and letting your neck sink between your shoulders (pic. 17a). To avoid this keep your shoulders down and chest up by depressing your shoulder blades down and retracting them together (17b).
Step 3
Now pull your body up by focusing on bringing your elbows to your sides and avoiding swinging mo-tions of your legs and pelvis. To avoid involuntary swinging momo-tions brace your glutes and pull your belly button a bit inwards prior to every pull up. Bring your body up until you pass at least the height of your eyes. As you get stronger, focus on bringing your body higher while maintaining your elbows close to the body for greater lat activation. I personally don’t count a pull up if it I doesn’t pass chin height.
Step 4
Lower yourself down in a slow controlled motion.
Common pull up mistakes
Mistake #1 One of the most common mistakes is a lot of swinging motion in the waist and lower body area, doing a kind of cross-fit / kipping pull up. If you are not training to break a cross-fit re-cord, then set your ego aside and focus on doing fewer reps with a proper smooth form. This will make a tone of a difference in getting stronger, more muscular and avoiding soft tissue injuries like tendon strains.
Mistake #2 The second most common mistake is doing pull ups in a really small range of motion. Just lifting your body of the ground and bending your elbows is not a pull up and will deprive yourself from many benefits of doing a normal range pull up. Doing limited range of motion pull-ups is only OK for a beginner. Once you can do at least 5 normal range of motion repetitions, I see no reason to continue doing small reps.
Progressions for beginners:
Dead hangs. If your forearms are too weak to sustain your body while simply hanging on a bar or wherever you do your pull ups, then you must strengthen your forearms and your hand grip by per-forming dead hangs (meaning just hanging on the bar). Start with 4 sets of 3-10 seconds or more depending on your strength and as you get stronger progress to 30 seconds. Once again, don’t just hang on your ligaments letting your head sink (pic. 16a), do the dead hangs with scapula activation and keeping your chest up (pic. 16b). This will also strengthen your upper back muscles as they will be contracting (isometrically).
Negative / assisted pull up system. One of the best ways to master most bodyweight exercises is doing negative repetitions. In case you don’t know what a negative repetition is read the following paragraph otherwise move on to the Negative repetition progressions.
What is a negative repetition? Every repetition has 2 basic phases. A concentric and an eccentric phase which is more known as a negative phase. The concentric repetition in bodyweight exercises refers to the pushing or pulling phase and the negative phase is the other half of the repetition where you are lowering your body against gravity. So in a pull up the concentric phase is the pulling up of your body and the negative phase is the lowering down of your body. In the case of push-ups the negative phase of the repetition is the lowering down of the body and the concentric phase is the pushing up.
Negative repetition progressions:
1. Place a steady chair that can support your weight under the pull up bar. Get on the chair and grip the bar. Keeping the bar at chin height try to lower your body slowly (counting around 2-3 seconds) without depending on the chair. Once you lower yourself down, use the chair again to grab the bar at chin height and repeat. Depending on how easy the exercise is for you perform 5-12 negative repeti-tions, two times, with one minute rest between each set. Once you can perform 12 repetitions move on the next progression.
2. Place the chair a bit behind the pull up bar, put one leg on the chair and pull yourself up using as less as possible strength from your leg. Once you reach the top remove your leg from the chair cau-tiously and lower your body down slowly (counting 2-3 seconds). Start again with 5-12 reps and once you can perform 2 sets of 12 repetitions with 1 minute rest move on the next phase.
3. At this point, you should be able to do at least 2-3 normal pull ups. Begin the set by doing as many normal pull ups as you can and continue with assisted pulls until you complete a total of at least 5 reps. As you grow stronger you will eventually be able to do 3 sets of 5 normal reps. Once you achieve this just start adding more reps until you are able to do 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps. After that start trying advanced variations. Keep in mind that performing 15 reps is a goal that takes a huge amount of time if you focus on keeping perfect form.
Quick summary:
• Start with negatives reps
• Do as many normal pull ups as you can, combined with assisted pull ups
• Build it up to at least 3 sets of 12 good form pull ups before you move on to a more advanced variation.
Note: Another exercise that will contribute in doing normal pull ups are the table rows. As you grow stronger in table rows you will also get better in pull ups.
Advanced variations:
Chest height pull ups. These are my favorite pull ups and they are just like normal pull ups but in-stead raising your body until eye level with the bar, this time you will raise your body until the bar touches height of your upper chest - just bellow your collar bone. This way you will also focus more on you lats because the lats are fully contracted when your shoulder are drawn down and back. Once you can perform 12-15 reps move on the next variation. Nowdays, I am going even lower touching the bar on my sternum which has given me great results in pulling strength.
Pull ups with legs raised. Start with bended knees (90 degrees) in front of you. As this becomes easier extend your legs until they are parallel to the floor. Once you can perform 15 reps move on the next variation.
This progression will also give your abs a great work out!
Weighted pull ups. Wear a weighted backpack (you can fill up your backpack with books, sandbags, dumbbells etc). You can also buy special weighted backpacks for bodyweight exercises online. A variation you should avoid:
A common theory is that the wider your grip is when doing pull ups, the “wider” your lats become. In my experience, this only means a smaller range of motion and less lat activation which can lead to injuries - like in my case, where I strained my teres major using a wide grip - a common injury in bad form or too wide-grip pull ups.
Chin ups - The best bodyweight exercise for big “guns”!
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: LATS, BICEPS SECONDARY MUSCLES: FOREARM FLEXORS
I consider chin ups more as a variation of the pull up, than a different exercise and that is one of the reasons why I categorize pull ups and chin ups as one exercise in my programs on chapter 8; since the basic difference is the way you grip the bar. The other two basic reasons I combine pull ups and chin ups as one exercise, are: a) because including them as different exercises and doing too many sets of them combined in a program can get your arms to tired for the rest of the exercises and b) when they are combined as one exercise they give incredible results in upper body strength and muscle development.
Chin ups use an underhand grip where your palms face inwards so that they are facing towards yourself. Although pull ups and chin ups focus more on your lats and biceps they also strengthen your forearm flexors, the trapezius (upper back muscle), the infraspinatus muscle (a muscle on the outside part of your shoulder blades) and even turn on your the pectoralis major (chest) and external obliques (side abs). The biggest difference between pull ups and chin ups shown in a electromyo-graphic study in 2010 was that chin-ups activated in a greater extent the bicep and the pectoralis major muscle (chest) in comparison to pull ups which activated a bit more the lower trapezius. The coolest finding of this study is that chin ups even activate your chest muscles up to 57%.
You don’t have to remember all the above details,of course... I was just trying to prove you how many muscles get involved in bodyweight exercises. The basic thing you want to keep in mind is that pull ups/chin ups both focus on the lats & arms and combined together in one exercise they will activate your upper body’s musculature in a great extent. Combining pull ups and chin ups, in my personal experience, is the best way to get killer gains in the arm and back department!
Proper technique and common mistakes
Besides using an opposite - underhand grip (pic 18a) the rest of the technique and common mis-takes are basically the same as in pull-ups. I would advice you though not to straighten your elbow joints completely in the lowering phase and keeping them a bit bent as in the bicep isolation chin-ups variation. Locking-out (straightening) the elbows with an underhand grip puts too much stress on the elbows of many people, including me.
Progressions for beginners:
Use again as in pull ups the same progressions. Once you’ll be able to do pull ups you will definitely be able to do chin ups, since they are pretty similar and they are usually easier for most people. Both of them assist each other in the beginning while learning them so try to perform both.
Advanced variations:
You can again use all the variations used in pull ups, plus, the following one if you want to isolate your biceps more:
Bicep isolation chin ups. If you want to focus more on your biceps reduce the distance between your hands to half your shoulder width. Pull yourself only up to eye level with the bar and then slowly lower yourself ending the negative phase, without extending your elbows fully but keeping them a bit bent so you keep the tension on your biceps. From this position, pull yourself up again. During this variation focus on the contraction of your biceps especially during the concentric phase (pulling up). This is the greatest bodyweight exercise for building big guns!
#2 Push ups
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: CHEST & TRICEPS
SECONDARY MUSCLES USED: SERRATUS ANTERIOR
This is one of the most classic bodyweight exercises, although many people who train for strength have come to underestimate them. The main reason many underestimate push-ups is because without being aware of it they cheat the exercise by using bad form. Performing a set of push-ups focusing on perfect form might have you reevaluate your thoughts on them. Later on, instead of quit-ting on them when they become too easy give the one-arm push up a try and you will be once again humbled by this great exercise. For others it may be a great challenge just performing a couple of reps since a typical push up uses approximately 65% of your total bodyweight. This can be quite challenging for many people depending on their physical condition and weight. The great thing about push-ups is that they can be done anywhere! In comparison with a bench press the push up also requires core stability especially from your rectus abdominis (six-pack).
Proper technique - The perfect push up
1. Starting position. Keeping your fingers spread, place your hands slightly wider than shoulder width apart, next to the middle of your chest. Your legs should be next to each other or you can cross them keeping one on top of the other and alternating the leg on top after every set. Keeping legs, waist, shoulders and head aligned you will properly activate chest, triceps and abdominals (pic.19).
2. Performing the push-up. Pull your belly button inwards prior to lowering your body. As you lower yourself keep your elbows close to your torso by pointing them back. This is really important for a balanced tricep - chest activation. If your elbows flare outside your body, you neglect your chest in a great extent. Once you are slightly above the floor, press yourself back up. Personally, I like to slightly touch my chest on the ground without resting on it though.
Common mistakes
Mistake #1 - Neck & head alignment. Keep your neck and head aligned with your torso. Many people tend to pull their heads upwards. This is usually combined with shrugging the shoulders which is the second most common mistake. You can see a combination of bad head alignment and shrugged shoulders in the following picture (pic.20).
Mistake #2 - Shoulder shrugging. A lot of people raise their shoulders towards their ears which besides encouraging poor posture and neck tension problems, also forces the triceps to work more and the chest less. This can be often caused by placing your arms too high above your shoulders.
Mistake #3 - Letting your hips sink. By letting your hips sink (pic. 21) you take the abs out of the equation. This either means you are cheating the exercise by reducing the range of motion to do more reps or that you are not ready yet for normal push-ups and you have to take a step backwards by doing an easier progression. Planks, which are described further on, are also a great exercise for this problem.
Progressions for beginners:
Incline push-ups. When it comes to mastering a classic push-up I don’t agree on starting with the typical push-ups on knees progression. The reason is that by depending on your knees you shut down your core. It is better to start with incline push-ups keeping your core always integrated into the exercise. Choose a height that will challenge you but will also allow you to do at least 5-6 reps. Place your arms for example on a bed or a chair and perform the exercise just as like you would if you were doing normal push-ups. As you get stronger and reach 15 reps start lowering the height. Planks. If your arms are strong enough to support your body but your waist keeps on sinking towards the floor every time you try to do a push up, then planks are a great exercise to develop core stability for push-ups. Simply get in a push-up position and place your forearms on the ground instead of only your palms. Your elbows should line up just bellow your shoulders. To prevent your waist from sinking, squeeze your glutes and activate your core by pulling you belly button a bit inwards. Your body should be in a straight strong line from head to your toes - just like a regular plank. Start with 10-20 seconds depending on your strength and build it up to 45 seconds. You can also use a crossed leg position but make sure again you alternate the above leg between sets (pic. 22)
Picture 20 Picture 21
Advanced variations:
Deep push-ups. Use two even elevated surfaces to place your hands on in order to bring your chest deeper toward the ground while lowering your body. Use something like thick books, printing paper stacks, bricks, whatever you can find available. Another solution is using three chairs one for each arm and one for your feet (pic. 23a,b). If you have sensitive shoulders then it is better to avoid this exercise.
Picture 23a Picture 23b
Ball push-ups.Find a football, a basketball or any ball of a similar size and use it to balance one of your arms (pic. 24). Due to the unstable surface of the ball the side that’s depending on it, will get more stimulated or get as it is called a proprioceptive response, which increases neuromuscular activation for stability. Make sure to alternate hands. Later on, you can use two balls for both hands.
Diamond push-up. The only different thing with a diamond push up is hand positioning (pic. 25). Assume a normal push-up position but now place your hands next to each other with the tips of your index fingers and thumbs touching to form the shape of a diamond. Now just lower yourself down and push yourself up just as in a regular pushup. This variation focuses more on your triceps instead of your chest.
Picture 25
One arm push-ups! The one arm push up is a really hardcore bodyweight exercise. This exercise requires extreme arm, chest, shoulder and core strength & stability. The difference in this variation is that your working-hand is more in the middle bellow your chest and you start with your legs in a more wide comfortable position (pic 26a,b).Your free arm can rest on your lower back or on the back of your thigh.
Progressions for the one-arm push-up:
One-arm incline push-up. Find a height challenging enough that allows you to do around 5-8 reps and build them up to 12. Once you can do 12 reps of incline waist height push-ups, move to the next progression.
Chair-Assisted push-ups. Find a short chair/stool or any kind of stable surface that is not higher than knee height (pic. 27a). Assume a push-up position but place one arm extended with your palm on the stool (if it is too difficult to have your arm extended, you can bend it a bit in the beginning.) As you lower yourself (pic. 27b), put as much pressure as needed on the extended hand to make the movement smooth. Once you can do 12-15 reps, start working on normal one-arm push-ups. At this point you should be able to do 1-3 reps with your feet in a comfortable wide position.
#3 Inverted Rows
MUSCLE AREA TARGETED: MIDDLE BACK (TRAPEZIUS) SECONDARY MUSCLES: LOWER BACK (LATS)
Although pull ups and chin ups are great for strengthening your back muscles, their disadvantage is that they focus more on the lower part of your back (lats) neglecting your trapezius muscle which is the muscle between your shoulder blades. Inverted rows if done right; will focus on that area and will support you on building a strong symmetrical back.
Equipment required
Find two stable surfaces (such as two tables) of equal height. The height of them should be a bit more than your arm’s reach so you don’t restrict your movement when lowering your body during the exercise. Now place on the surfaces some kind of rod. For example, you can use a crutch which is what I used (pic 28a,b), your pull up bar, a weight bar in case you have one available, a pipe, a
Proper technique
Lie beneath the rod so that your chest is directly under it and grab it placing your hands shoulder-width apart using an overhand grip (pic. 28a). It is important to keep your body aligned during this exercise. Prior to pulling yourself up activate your core by pulling your belly button a bit inwards and squeeze your glutes, this will help keep your thighs, pelvis and upper body in alignment. When you pull yourself upwards, make sure that you bring your chest as close as possible to the rod and keep your head in alignment with the rest of the body (pic 28b).
Picture 28a Picture 28b
Important tip: In order to properly activate the correct muscles in this exercise, it is essential to fo-cus on bringing your shoulder blades as close as possible to each other as your reach the top height of every rep. If you don’t focus on this scapular retraction you will just activate your lats and arms therefore neglecting your upper back muscles.
Progression for beginners:
Do the exercise with knees bent at about 90 degrees and by placing your feet flat on the floor. If the exercise is still too difficult either try resting your back on the floor for three seconds after every rep.
Progressions for advanced:
Legs raised. Raise your legs higher using a chair or a stool (pic. 29).
Paused reps. When you reach maximum height remain there for 3 seconds (pic. 29) focusing on squeezing your shoulder blades together. This will add a great isometric contraction on your upper back. If 3 seconds are too long start with 1 second and build it up to 3.
One leg. Use one leg to balance your lower body while keeping the other leg extended just above the floor. Again this will also activate more your core, glutes and hamstring muscles.
Picture 29 Picture 30
#4 Handstand push-ups
TARGETED MUSCLE AREA: SHOULDERS SECONDARY MUSCLES: TRICEPS
This is the best exercise to strengthen the antagonistic muscles of pull ups and my second favorite body-weight exercise after pull ups. The reason I love handstand pushups is because in my opinion it is the most demanding bodyweight exercise of all. It requires tremendous relative upper body strength, balance and kinesthesia due to your body’s reversed position. Neglecting this exercise and overloading you shoulder joint long-term with pull ups/chin ups can lead to shoulder issues.
Proper technique
1. Place your hands approximately 1 foot away from the wall (this may vary a bit depending on your height), have your hands a bit wider than shoulder width, your fingers spread and parallel to each other. Position your feet just as a 100 meter sprinter would in a starting position, one leg close to your body and one a bit more far away. Usually placing your kick/strong leg closer to your body is more comfortable.
2. Kick up with the leg closer to your body into a handstand. Remember to maintain your fingers spread out and once you touch the wall keep your back slightly arched and slowly bend your knees approximately 90 degrees leaning on the wall (pic. 31a) either with the upper half of your foot’s sole or just the toes, whatever feels more comfortable.
Swiss bal. Place a Swiss ball or a basket ball(s) underneath your feet (pic. 30). This will also activate more your core, glutes and hamstring muscles.
3. Engage your core muscles and carefully lower yourself down (pic. 31b) and press yourself up.
Remember this is a really difficult exercise; personally it took me 5 months of consistent training to conquer 8 good form reps.
Progressions for beginners:
1. Pike push-ups. Begin from a push-up position and bend your waist, lifting your hips up and com-ing toward your toes so that your body forms upside-down “V”. The distance between feet and hands should be almost as long as your leg’s length (pic. 32). Bend your elbows to lower your head toward your hands and press back up. Work your strength up to 15 reps before moving on to the next pro-gression.
2. Elevated pike push-ups. Elevate your legs using a chair/stool (pic. 33)
Picture 31a Picture 31b
3. Handstand balance against the wall. If you have never practiced the handstand position before, work on the handstand stance against a wall without doing any push-ups until you feel really confi-dent in this position (pic. 34). You should be able to hold a handstand against the wall for at least 10 seconds before moving on the next progression. Activating your core by pulling your belly button a bit inwards and bracing your glutes helps in keeping your lower and upper body connected and rigid.
Picture 34
4. Negative handstand push-ups. Perform negative reps until you can perform 5 of them. To do this, kick up in the handstand stance, lower your body slowly down, bring your feet right back down and repeat. Having a pillow bellow your head is recommended. I suggest not more than 8 reps, because kicking up in the handstand position consequently more than 5 reps might get you a bit dizzy. 5. 50% range of motion. Perform half repetitions until you can perform 12 reps. Placing a couple of pillows below your head to know when you reach the appropriate height is quite helpful. After being able to do 12 reps of 50% range of motion (rom) you should be able to do at least 2-4 normal reps. Start combining them with 50% rom reps in order to do one set of 5-6 reps (full + 50% rom). As you get stronger you will reach a point where you can do 5-6 reps of full rom.
6. Hand placement. Having your palms parallel to each other is going to be really difficult in the beginning. An easier hand placement to start with is: fingers spread as before, but thumbs pointing towards each other, so that the extension of them and your indexes form an imaginative triangle.
Advanced variations:
Go deeper. One way to do this without any extra equipment, is by turning your head a bit backwards and bringing your nose close to the floor (pic. 35a). You can also increase the range of motion by placing your hands on elevated surfaces such as bricks, books (pic. 35b) etc... Start increasing the height gradually though, because even a slight increase such as an inch in the beginning makes a huge difference to the intensity of the exercise.
Contradictions: This exercise puts also a lot of pressure on your shoulders so don’t try this if you have shoulder issues. Also, because it requires your legs to be elevated and causes blood to rush to your head I would not recommend it to people with high blood pressure or those who get dizzy easily.
#5 Pistol squats
TARGETED MUSCLES: QUADRICEPS, GLUTES SECONDARY MUSCLES: HAMSTRINGS, CALVES
This is probably the greatest bodyweight exercise to strengthen your legs and in comparison with barbell exercises which apply extra axial loading on your body it is usually safer for your lower back. Also there is a phenomenon known as the bilateral deficit, which states that the sum of the forces produced by each leg is greater than the total bilateral force production. This means that the overall load you can overcome with each leg in exercises, such as the pistol squats, is higher than bilateral leg exercises, such as squats.
Also because of the balance required, your neuromuscular system is challenged in a great extent contracting, stretching and stabilizing at the same time a big amount of muscles. Pistol squats is an exercise that recruits your lower body’s muscles probably more effective than any other leg exer-cise.
If you have difficulty getting down in a deep squatting position, that probably means you need to stretch muscles around your hips and ankles. Just getting in a deep bilateral squat position, trying to keep balance with your arms extended in front of you or grabbing on something in the beginning is a good exercise to stretch the muscles required to get in a deep pistol squat.
Pistol-squat proper technique
Stand on one leg straight, with the other leg out in front of you just above the floor. Slowly lower yourself as if you want to sit in a very low chair and focus on keeping most of you weight on your heel. As you lower yourself down start extending your arms in front of you to counterbalance the weight shift towards the back, and always maintain the foot you are leaning on, flat to the ground. At the bottom position (pic. 36), your hamstrings & glutes will be resting on your calf. Next, get back up to the starting position. Core activation is also important in this exercise. As your knee starts to bend slowly inhale and draw your belly button inwards. The drawing should match the intensity of the exercise. Once you pass the bottom sticking point of the exercise gradually exhale through pursed lips. That is one rep. Mastering pistol squats is really challenging for most people, so, be patient!
Picture 36
Progressions for beginners:
Bilateral bodyweight deep squat. In order to do a pistol squat, first of all, you should to do regular bilateral deep squats. If you are unable to balance yourself when reaching to the bottom with your arms extended in front of you, try holding two big bottles of water (1,5-2 liters), on each hand to use as counterbalance. Even though this might sound more difficult than the normal version of the ex-ercise it actually makes it easier by creating a helpful counterbalance and improving your stability. Start at the standing position with the bottles on your sides and as you start lowering you body, raise your arms to shoulder height.
Sitting Pistol Squats. Sit yourself on a chair using a pistol squat (pic. 37). Keep your arms also ex-tended straight in front of you at shoulder height. To get up again lean your weight a bit forward and push yourself upwards.
Chair assisted pistol squats. Have a steady surface about knee height next to the leg you are go-ing to extend, (if you feel this height is too low for you can use a higher surface about waist height). You can use a sofa, a chair, a table, a stool (pic. 38) whatever you find most convenient. Lower your body down and come up again using the surface to balance and push yourself upwards. As you get stronger, use the surface more for balance and less to push on. Once you don’t need to push at all on it, move on to the next progression.
Picture 38
Picture 37
Counterbalanced Pistol squats. If you can’t progress yet to a normal pistol squat because you are unable to balance yourself when reaching to the bottom position due to the weight shift dragging you back, try holding again two big bottles of water (1,5 - 2 liters), on each hand to use as counterbal-ance. I remind you, that even though this might sound more difficult than the normal version of the exercise, it actually makes it easier by creating a helpful counterbalance improving that way your stability. Start at the standing position with the bottles on your sides and as you lower you body start raising your arms to shoulder height (pic. 39).
