I didn't think of this exercise although I will take credit for giving it a better name than it previously had. Matt Furey referenced it in his book "Combat Abs" with an unweildly title. It isn't a very catchy name if you ask me and since it is very similar to the bridges in the muscles that it works, I thought it ought to be elevated to the bridge category.
Anyway, it's a remarkable exercise. It's pretty simple to do.
1. Find two chairs (or something like that) of equal heigth. Lawn chairs work particularly well since they're softer.
2. Place them a comfortable distance apart. The closer they are, the easier it will be for you to bridge between them.
3. Place your neck on one of the chairs and place your feet and/or ankles on the other, bridging the chairs. Your body should be completely straight between the chairs. Breath naturally when doing this exercise.
This is an advanced exercise but it is well worth trying. It hammers everything from the neck down to the hamstrings. Unlike the other bridges, it hits the obliques more directly.
Have fun!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Switching up on the Abdominals
Generally, I don't like hype since I think most of it is bullshit and I'm not into that. I want hard facts and I don't really care if they're new or 100 years old. Still, I picked some different calisthenics for my abs that I don't normally do and combined them and I was stunned by the intensity of the workout and the results that I got. Here was the routine that I did:
1. Grasshoppers, 30-40 reps
2. Hanging leg raises, 8-10 reps
3. Mountain climbers, 30-40 reps.
4. McSweeney's ab contraction, 5 reps max tension
5. Powerflex Isos and/or classic isos
6. straight bridge, held for ten deep breaths
I repeated this whole set two or three times.
If you think about it, most of our abdominal exercises are variations of two calisthenics: The sit up and the leg raise. While there isn't anything really wrong with these exercises and their variants, they only work the abdominals in an up and down motion. You can vary them to get the obliques but still, it's an up and down movement. What I realized is that this misses one of the fundamental rules to exercising in the bodyweight world: working the muscles from all angles and directions. By confining myself to this one direction I wasn't training my muscles to their peak capability.
Plus, this side to side movement helps hit the troublesome obliques far better than trying to modify the leg raise and sit-up motion. Still, the side-side motion of the mountain climbers and the grasshoppers hits the abdominals in a new, and subsequently more difficult, manner. The straight bridge and the hanging leg raises demand much more out the obliques in order to stabilize the body during the workout.
Give this some thought and try seek out some ab exercises that have a side-side motion. You'll be surprised at the results.
1. Grasshoppers, 30-40 reps
2. Hanging leg raises, 8-10 reps
3. Mountain climbers, 30-40 reps.
4. McSweeney's ab contraction, 5 reps max tension
5. Powerflex Isos and/or classic isos
6. straight bridge, held for ten deep breaths
I repeated this whole set two or three times.
If you think about it, most of our abdominal exercises are variations of two calisthenics: The sit up and the leg raise. While there isn't anything really wrong with these exercises and their variants, they only work the abdominals in an up and down motion. You can vary them to get the obliques but still, it's an up and down movement. What I realized is that this misses one of the fundamental rules to exercising in the bodyweight world: working the muscles from all angles and directions. By confining myself to this one direction I wasn't training my muscles to their peak capability.
Plus, this side to side movement helps hit the troublesome obliques far better than trying to modify the leg raise and sit-up motion. Still, the side-side motion of the mountain climbers and the grasshoppers hits the abdominals in a new, and subsequently more difficult, manner. The straight bridge and the hanging leg raises demand much more out the obliques in order to stabilize the body during the workout.
Give this some thought and try seek out some ab exercises that have a side-side motion. You'll be surprised at the results.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
How Fast Should You go on Calisthenics?
Everyone's run into this at some point: The guy who can do 100 pushups or 20 pullups. When you finally see this guy do them, he does them with such poor form that you just roll your eyes. He's sacrificing proper form and control (worst of all) to get the rep count. Every atheletic endevour loves statistical brilliance and doing the most of anything counts for so much. Trouble is, this fixation with getting the most reps out doesn't build strength and it often leads to pain.
I'll be the first to admit, I like having high calisthenic rep counts too. Still, the point of the exercise is to build strength and without proper form, that may not happen. Proper form ensures that the right muscles will get their due stimulation from the exercise. If your ass is in the air or if you're just lifting your chest and head rather than your entire abdomen just for the sake of getting to 100 reps, you're not getting the benefit. You're so focused on that rather than strengthening that the motion is a wasted effort.
Worse yet is the guy who'll sacrifice the control for the speed or ease. I see this a lot on pullups. The person will get their chin to the bar and then let themselves drop rather than control their weight downward. It's bad enough that they're loosing the stimulation on the lats from letting themselves drop but they're also risking INJURING themselves. One point of exercising is to injury-proof yourself, not to induce injury. Remember this because I'm getting tired of repeating it...
SPEED-CONTROL=INJURY
I'll be the first to admit, I like having high calisthenic rep counts too. Still, the point of the exercise is to build strength and without proper form, that may not happen. Proper form ensures that the right muscles will get their due stimulation from the exercise. If your ass is in the air or if you're just lifting your chest and head rather than your entire abdomen just for the sake of getting to 100 reps, you're not getting the benefit. You're so focused on that rather than strengthening that the motion is a wasted effort.
Worse yet is the guy who'll sacrifice the control for the speed or ease. I see this a lot on pullups. The person will get their chin to the bar and then let themselves drop rather than control their weight downward. It's bad enough that they're loosing the stimulation on the lats from letting themselves drop but they're also risking INJURING themselves. One point of exercising is to injury-proof yourself, not to induce injury. Remember this because I'm getting tired of repeating it...
SPEED-CONTROL=INJURY
Thursday, June 21, 2007
More on Routines
I posted earlier on my routines and how I structure them. I also mentioned that I despise a lot of what I read about routines because I feel like they sound like directions for assembling a grill. They don't take into account that we are all built differently. We have different physical abilities and attributes. Take a biceps muscle and move the insertion and origion movements farther away from the joints and you have a person who is capable of great power but not precision. Some people are the opposite. This is just one example of the differences in body composition.
There's other considerations too. Let's say you take someone's routine that takes 45 minutes to do. What happens if you only have fifteen minutes? Are you better off to bag working out rather than figuring out a way to work out with some effectiveness? Let's throw in a weakness in the body, such as an injury. Let's say you can't do a pushup because your elbow is swollen. Should you skip or work around it, such as doing a hands-wide pushup? Well, that wasn't in the routine. Does it matter?
You are not a cookie-cutter creation. Don't workout like you are. You can get something out of any routine that you chose to do if you apply hard work and mental focus on your efforts. I'll concede that routine A may be better than routine B but if B is all you can do or what you like to do and you are moving your body, who am I to say? I'd rather you do something than nothing. That's my mantra when I exercise. It should be yours too.
There's other considerations too. Let's say you take someone's routine that takes 45 minutes to do. What happens if you only have fifteen minutes? Are you better off to bag working out rather than figuring out a way to work out with some effectiveness? Let's throw in a weakness in the body, such as an injury. Let's say you can't do a pushup because your elbow is swollen. Should you skip or work around it, such as doing a hands-wide pushup? Well, that wasn't in the routine. Does it matter?
You are not a cookie-cutter creation. Don't workout like you are. You can get something out of any routine that you chose to do if you apply hard work and mental focus on your efforts. I'll concede that routine A may be better than routine B but if B is all you can do or what you like to do and you are moving your body, who am I to say? I'd rather you do something than nothing. That's my mantra when I exercise. It should be yours too.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Jowett Lunge, A Forgotten Gem
If you dig into the Sandow Site, into George Jowett's pages, into Molding Mighty Legs, you'll find a set of exercises for the legs, among them is "exercise six". It's an odd lunge that I was intruiged with and I decided to try in November, 2005. Trouble was, it didn't work as well as I wanted it to. It was the bent knee starting position. Besides, my legs weren't strong enough to do it quite yet so I gave up on it for a while.
After a while, I wanted to make a more concerted effort to bulk up my legs so I gave it another look. I tried it again but this time it was too easy. So, I played with it a little bit and decided to start with my lead leg straight rather than bent. The results were intense and satisfying. Here's How I do this variation of "exercise six" that I'm now calling the Jowett Lunge:
1. Stand with your feet together,your hands on your wais, and take a comfortable step backwards with one foot.
2. Raise your heels off the floor. It doesn't have to be very much.
3. Keeping your back in line with your rear leg, lower your bodyweight onto your lead foot while inhaling. Don't bounce.
4. Go down as far as possible. Exhale and slowly come back up.
5. Repeat with the rear leg up front.
There are a few important points to remember while doing this exercise. Keep your weight over your front leg going both down and up while keeping your heels off the ground. If you fail to do either, you'll lose the benefit of the exercise. When you come back up, try to push your foot into the ground while pushing yourself back up. This will add more stimulation to the calf muscles. This is a more advanced exercise so proceed with care. You could also do this near a wall or a chair if you need balance. Properly done, this lunge will hammer every muscle in your legs. Enjoy!
After a while, I wanted to make a more concerted effort to bulk up my legs so I gave it another look. I tried it again but this time it was too easy. So, I played with it a little bit and decided to start with my lead leg straight rather than bent. The results were intense and satisfying. Here's How I do this variation of "exercise six" that I'm now calling the Jowett Lunge:
1. Stand with your feet together,your hands on your wais, and take a comfortable step backwards with one foot.
2. Raise your heels off the floor. It doesn't have to be very much.
3. Keeping your back in line with your rear leg, lower your bodyweight onto your lead foot while inhaling. Don't bounce.
4. Go down as far as possible. Exhale and slowly come back up.
5. Repeat with the rear leg up front.
There are a few important points to remember while doing this exercise. Keep your weight over your front leg going both down and up while keeping your heels off the ground. If you fail to do either, you'll lose the benefit of the exercise. When you come back up, try to push your foot into the ground while pushing yourself back up. This will add more stimulation to the calf muscles. This is a more advanced exercise so proceed with care. You could also do this near a wall or a chair if you need balance. Properly done, this lunge will hammer every muscle in your legs. Enjoy!
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Why is the Wrestler's Bridge is the So Great?
It's is probably the most controversal exercise in all of BW exercising methodology. It may also be the most feared as well. Most people see a picture of a person performing a bridge and they swear that that person is on the verge of breaking their neck. Some say that it is dangerous hyperextension of the spine. All of this is talk of the uninformed and ignorant. The truth is , there may not be an exercise better for strengthening the back, removing back pain, and improving posture all in one exercise.
Do yourself a favor if you don't have it yet... ORDER IT NOW!
http://www.mattfurey.com/conditioning_book.html
To understand why the bridge is so great for you, we have to start out with the anatomical definition of Extension. This simply means moving away from the fetal position. The opposite would be flexion, or moving towords the fetal position. The deep back muscles are extension muscles. They pull the spine into correct posture by Extenstion. Obviously, the bridge directly hits these muscles exactly as they were designed to do.
It doesn't stop there though. The bridge is an aerobic isometric exercise since it requires the modest tension of the muscles for a moderately long period of time. This also conditions the deep back muscles since they are mostly built out of slow twitch fiber.
The third benefit of the bridge is that it also hits almost every muscle along the superficial back line. This line is responsible for extension of almost all of the posterior muscles. The bridge makes them all work while performing it. This is significant since even the fitness world will admit that exercises that hit multiple muscles are preferable to ones that isolate for all-around health and conditioning.
This is a lot of ground that is covered in only one exercise. This is why the bridge is so highly regarded in the BW world. If you don't know how to do the bridge or you're too weak, I strongly reccomend Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning if you want to learn how to build up to and execute the bridge properly. Nobody has devoted as much time to building the body up to the point of bridging.
Do yourself a favor if you don't have it yet... ORDER IT NOW!
http://www.mattfurey.com/conditioning_book.html
Bernarr McFadden and Gaining Weight
I haven't read even an eigth of the massive amount of literature that Bernarr McFadden wrote in his lifetime but what I have read of his, I notice a common theme: Looking to nature to find the answers to physical culture. This footstep that he left has been somewhat obscured by the passing sands of time and erosion of ignorance but it wasn't lost on me when I was looking for some answers on how to gain some muscle mass.
Last year I bought a text book on nutrition from the University of California and proceeded to read it with great interest. I mentioned in my last post that I have been eating a large quantity of nuts, milk (and milk products), and eggs. There is a reason for that. I read about the nutritional content of all of these foods and I saw a common link.
Calories come from protein, carbohyrates, and fats. Most foods' calorie content is almost entirely one of the three. Rarely are they split even 90% of one and 5% of the other two. Milk, eggs, and most nuts are an exception. Their ratio varies amongst each but they are more evenly split than most foods.
Then, something dawned on me. These three foods are designed to support life until whatever is feeding on them are capable of getting its respective food for itself. So, these food sources must have all of the nutritional needs present in order to GROW until it gets to that point. It's no surprise that all three are dense sources of nutrients that promote growth. It's McFadden's theory of looking to nature for the answers that helped me get from 157 lbs to 175 pounds so far this year.
Last year I bought a text book on nutrition from the University of California and proceeded to read it with great interest. I mentioned in my last post that I have been eating a large quantity of nuts, milk (and milk products), and eggs. There is a reason for that. I read about the nutritional content of all of these foods and I saw a common link.
Calories come from protein, carbohyrates, and fats. Most foods' calorie content is almost entirely one of the three. Rarely are they split even 90% of one and 5% of the other two. Milk, eggs, and most nuts are an exception. Their ratio varies amongst each but they are more evenly split than most foods.
Then, something dawned on me. These three foods are designed to support life until whatever is feeding on them are capable of getting its respective food for itself. So, these food sources must have all of the nutritional needs present in order to GROW until it gets to that point. It's no surprise that all three are dense sources of nutrients that promote growth. It's McFadden's theory of looking to nature for the answers that helped me get from 157 lbs to 175 pounds so far this year.
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