The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training – Part I

November 22, 2009 on 8:12 am | In Strength Training | 39 Comments

Body weight training is extremely important for young athletes.  Since my video of a High School Freshman Benching 275. I’ve had to field a bunch of questions from people that don’t know crap about training regaurding how to start people training.

Despite the YouTube heros, there is an important exercise topic to be discussed – how do you train young athletes?  Throw them on the bench and under a squat bar?  Depending on their physical abilities probably not. 

Instead of just saying “work on relative body strength and GPP, “here is an exact method how how to get started.

So when you or I get the question about how to body weight train, just send them this post and get it over with!

This article was mostly written by John Cortese for Synergy, with my additions.  I reached out to him to get us started with the body weight article series!

johncortese The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training Part I

Introduction

Bodyweight training is an effective, simple, and easy way to get strong, get fit, and lose body fat- all at the same time.  It is all too common for the average person to struggle with simple movements such as a squat, push-up, sit-up, pull ups, jumping, and sprinting. 
If more people were efficient in these movements there would be fewer injuries, increased health and fitness, decrease in body fat, and an overall stronger person. 

ring The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training Part I
Look at gymnasts:  they have INCREDIBLE muscular size, strength, and endurance and the majority of their training is done using their own bodyweight!  No equipment?  No problem!

Where to Get Started


The great thing about bodyweight training is that it can be done anywhere, anytime, and requires little to no equipment! For starters, you need to address your current fitness and strength levels:

  • Can you perform a proper push-up, sit-up, squat, and chin-up?
  • Can you do these without pain or sucking wind?
  • Is your body composition where it needs to be?
  • Are you in the best shape of your life?
  • Is your training fun, exciting, and fresh?

If you answered NO to any of these, bodyweight training may just be the tool you’ve been looking for.  Let’s look at how often to incorporate this training into your current training and how it can benefit you!

Importance of Bodyweight Training 

Bodyweight training is HIGHLY underrated.  It makes me cringe when a young athlete comes to me wanting to get stronger and faster but cannot even perform a single pull-up; or can’t perform 50-100 bodyweight squats without stopping; or perform 10 parallel bar dips.. You get my drift?

Even after you get the basic body weight exercises down, you can certainly work in variations!  Here is a few body weight Dip Variations using just a power rack and  few olympic bars (hopefully your gym has these already!)

 

If you are quite strong in the weight room and you cannot perform multiple repetitions of a bodyweight exercise without stopping, there is something wrong. A solid foundation needs to be built upon in order for the athlete or trainee to perform optimally. For example, Mark McLaughlin wrote in his “GPP for Freshmen” Article at EliteFTS.com :

“…Kids this age are void of a lot of the basic principles to begin lifting (lack of GPP, relative strength) and should not begin a serious weight training regime until certain strengths are in place.”  

So the question is how to get them prepared. Jim Wendler was posed a similar question several months ago. Jim’s answer was very basic. Before anyone should begin lifting, they should be able to perform the following body weight exercises. Push-ups (50); sit ups (100); parallel dips (25); strict pull ups (10).” (1)

wendler dips The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training Part I
Jim Wendler Practicing What He Preaches

I would also add to that list 50 body weight squats (minimum) and front/side planks for 60 seconds.  I would be willing to bet at least 1/3 of the average gym goers cannot do these.

I would also be willing to bet that most young athletes in the 13-16 year old range cannot perform at this level either. As for the athletes that have came into Synergy Athletics, I can think of 3 that could perform the requirements above (one being the 275 lb bencher – who is now up to 275 x 3).

Benefits of Bodyweight Training

OK, so now the challenge is putting it all together:  exercise selection and the reasoning for why we are using bodyweight exercises.

Benefits of body weight training exercises:

  • Increased relative strength, GPP (general physical preparedness), and endurance.
  • Increased cardiovascular health.
  • Increased capillary density.
  • Decreased body fat.
  • Increased posture and muscle tonus.
  • Decreased risk of injury to shoulders, knees, and lower back.
  • Increased mobility flexibility through full range of motion training.
  • Improve recovery and decrease muscle soreness
  • Body weight training is FUN and DIFFERENT. It may add some variety to your training and keep it from becoming monotonous and boring!

Implementing body weight training  and exercise can be simple and easy. Because of the nature of bodyweight training and the minimal eccentric damage put upon the muscular system and little stress on the CNS, you can perform them 3-5 times per week and still make progress.

Regardless if you are implementing a weight training program now, or looking for a new program, doing these body weight exercises can be easy.

Post up your comments

==>What is your favorite bodyweight exercise?

ibeampullups 300x225 The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training Part I

Then I will post Part II with the body weight training program design and then part III with the major exercises explained! 

I know, what a jerk move – holding out information – right? 

Like it says at the top of the site, I want to build a community of people sharing ideas and posting their thoughts!  It is much more fun to be involved in something than to be just a bystander.  I promise it will be up with participation!

So here’s the deal.  20 comments on what your favorite body weight exercises are, and Part II will be posted!

Your Favorite Bodyweight Exercise is…

Post them up!  Thanks very much for participating and making the Synergy Community a success!

- Joe Hashey, CSCS -

PS.  I am OBESSED with reaching my goal of 1000 YouTube subscribers by the end of the year!  We just added 67 subscribers THIS WEEK ALONE!  Looking good, but I don’t want to get over confident! 

If you aren’t subscribed, here it is – Synergy YouTube

bullstrength strong enough n gray The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Training Part I

Reference:  Here is some more information about the major article contributor:

John Cortese is a full-time college kinesiology student at Cal Poly-SLO. In the extra time he does have, he works hard to transform his athletes and clients into strong, fast, and explosive machines! Sign up for the CortesePerformance.com Newsletter and get 3 FREE gifts that will take your training to the next level! For more information, visit http://CortesePerformance.com

39 Comments »

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  1. I’ll get us started. Currently my favorite body weight exercise is the pull up.

    There is always a large emphasis on pushing exercises, and the pull up the perfect compliment!

    Also, jokingly, if you have ever seen a movie, someone always falls off a ledge, and has to hang on by one hand. I bet if they did more pull ups, then they wouldn’t always fall!

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  2. Great post Joe! I would also reference the military and how they get guys and girls in shape in boot camp. Tons of body weight work every day and you get lean and mean in no time. I would say my favorite BW exercise is pull-ups. Being a Marine those are a staple and what seperate us from the other branches of the military. Then dips (one of arnold’s favorites!) would be a close second.

    Think, Look and Be Strong!

    Comment by Tommy Tucker — November 22, 2009 #

  3. Tommy great point about the military! They have some men and women with some serious broad shoulders and strong backs via tooons of bodyweight training.

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  4. I, sadly, think I might struggle with some of the baseline “goals”, but am looking to incorporate them into my workouts, esp. on my days off. I really struggle with what I should do on my of days.

    Fav body wt. exercise = pull-ups!

    Thanks Joe!

    Comment by Kieron — November 22, 2009 #

  5. Kieron, its definately not sad since you seem to be always working on improvements! Ill be honest as well, 25 strict dips, as qouted by Jim Wendler above, is not easy at all (and either are the other exercises mentioned)!

    Of course there are other considerations such as training age and actual bodyweight I should mention as well.

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  6. Hey Joe,

    I DEFINITELY agree that most people, be they athletes or general gym rats, are way behind in their strength and overall GPP. Like you, I think it’s because they’re so far behind the curve in their bodyweight training. I’ve never understood how I’m supposed to throw someone under a loaded barbell when they can’t even move their own body efficiently.

    With almost every single client I’ve trained over the past eight years (man, I’m getting old), I’ve had to spend from a couple of weeks to three or months just developing their body control and athleticism to the point that I could train them the way I wanted to. That includes some pretty “good” athletes as well as normal folks. Of course, they manage to gain muscle, lose fat, and lose a lot of aches and pains through “just bodyweight” training. Weird, huh?

    I love the chins/pull-ups as you and Tommy mention, but I might even go so far as to say that I prefer inverted rows (although my clients do plenty of both). They’re easy to teach and scale, and they compliment push-up variations nicely. Plus, if the gym you’re in has a Smith Machine then we’ve finally found a use for it! :D

    Isaac

    Comment by Isaac Wilkins — November 22, 2009 #

  7. Isaac – haha, man we are allllll getting old! Excellent comment and good point about the supine rows. I start a lot of the guys off on those – sometimes even band assisted – just so they can get used to an opposing movement to pull ups.

    A lot of pull up fans here, I like it!

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  8. Pull-up, hands down! (Actually…hands pronated, hands supinated, hands neutral, mixed grip, etc.)

    Supine bodyweight row is a close second, but misses being first because the set up takes more time and planning.

    Comment by Randy Prater — November 22, 2009 #

  9. haha, hands every which way Randy!

    Hardly any prep time involved – My dad used to have us do them on a tree by our house. Just walk out side and start pulling!

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  10. If my wife ever does make me get rid of my crap, I could be happy with just pullups on rock rings and dips. I wish I could do more than 10 each though. :)

    Comment by gene — November 22, 2009 #

  11. Chins and dips. Chins aren’t only good for targeting most upper body muscles, but done on off/recovery days have alleviated back soreness and pain from other stuff. Dips make you swole!

    Comment by Sam g — November 22, 2009 #

  12. Great post. I couldn’t agree more! We get a lot of athletes that can bench and squat but can’t handle the basics…push ups and body weight squats!!

    My Favorite? Actually I hate them! Burpees with a push up. Covers a lot of ground!

    Comment by Bill Jones, CSCS, MS, PT — November 22, 2009 #

  13. Glad you guys have enjoyed Part I thus far- Part II and III will have some serious info and tips!! Joe, thanks for getting this up!

    In my own training and with my athletes, I ensure they have the basics covered. I.e., Makes no sense to have someone bench press if they can’t do some real push-ups; none of these half-ass, hips down, 1/2 push-ups.

    Thanks for the comments guys, keep em coming!

    -John Cortese

    Comment by John Cortese — November 22, 2009 #

  14. PS- Forgot to mention my favorite bodyweight movements!

    Handstand push-ups, pull-ups, dips, and sprints/jumps!

    Comment by John Cortese — November 22, 2009 #

  15. Nice post Joe. Too many people underestimate the gains that can be made using body weight movements alone. I think there is a huge misconception that bodyweight movements do not apply enough resistance, and can only be used to build local endurance. Ask someone to do a one-arm pushup, however, and they’ll quickly pull out the weight excuse: I’m too big to do that. Too many excuses out there.

    My favorite, by the way, is the one-arm pushup and I’m shooting for a one-arm pullup soon.

    What are your favorite ways to incorporate BW training into a training program Joe?

    Comment by Chris Smith — November 22, 2009 #

  16. Chris – One arm pullups (unsupported) are crazy!

    The way I like to incorporate bw movements in my programs for developed athletes are: as warm up and prep, back end of a super set, and as finishers (with a few exceptions)

    For developing athletes: Nearly every movement until they get a control base over their bodies – ie hand walking, jumping, step ups, lunges, squats, push ups, etc.

    What about you Chris? Where do you like to put the exercises?

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 22, 2009 #

  17. Depending on the exercise it differs. I like unweighted pushups/pullups/squats as warmups and finishers. Forward/backward/lateral lunges are an awesome dynamic warmup. Sometimes I’ll do a little high-frequency, high rep pushup sets a few days a week at night to keep my numbers high. For conditioning work, I’ll mix them in with low-moderate numbers but in a non-stop circuit. Doing 20 pushups is easy until you throw it into a high-intensity circuit.

    I’ll actually use more intense exercise like one-armed pushups, one-armed pullups progressions (not there just yet) and one-legged squats as max effort exercises in place of weighted barbell/dumbbell exercises.

    Comment by Chris Smith — November 22, 2009 #

  18. Hey Joe

    Great post as ever, with thanks to John as well of course!

    I love Bodyweight training, it is a conditioning staple for me. I also add bodyweight in some of my strength specific training too. Unilateral work like pistol squats and 1 arm push ups are excellent strength builders along with all kinds of pull up variations.

    A tough call for my favourite, I guess the harder the better, so it would be burpee/pushup variations, usually wrapped up some crazy circuit such as burpee pyramids. Love the fact that you can tag more bits to a burpee, doesn’t have to be a vertical jump, could be a standing jump, jump onto an object, jump over an object, anything to make it that bit more challenging!

    What can I say I am a masochist! Pull ups/chin and high rep squats (when I have proper use of both legs HaHa) are also awesome exercises!

    Comment by DeanCoulson — November 22, 2009 #

  19. Hey Joe, great article once again. Over the past two summers I did an internship with the football team at the university I went to (DII school) and it blew my mind how low the players relative strength was. Even some of the smaller guys couldn’t perform push ups correctly and very few could do an actual full pull up yet they were expected to continually bench and squat more weight. Anyway, my favorite bodyweight exercise has the be the pullup (and all it’s variations). I just started doing them over the past year or so and my overall strength and posterior chain development has skyrocketed.

    Comment by TreyPotter — November 22, 2009 #

  20. Great article, Joe!
    I can’t tell you (as is probably the case with most of the guys posting) how few high school athletes can do a correct pushup or pullup.
    It’s actually sad. I can remember in my youth our doing the President’s Council Fitness Test and how many of us looked forward to measuring our progress from the beginning of the year/year before.
    I’m going on 60 (December 30, 09) and I can honestly tell you I can do all of the minimum number of reps for the bodyweight exercises Jim Wendler mentions PLUS the squats.
    Let’s get our youth into developing a healthier/fitter lifestyle.
    I’ve also mentioned in earlier posts that I’ve been a Type 1 Insulin Dependent Diabetic for 48 years with 10-11% bodyfat at 170 lbs.
    Keep up the great work and thanks for a great post.
    Stephen

    Comment by Stephen — November 23, 2009 #

  21. Pull-ups, push-ups, sqauts-all great body weight exercises. A great one I like to do is the standing split squat and/or the bulgarian split squat (rear foot up on a bench or box).

    Comment by Jerry Shreck — November 23, 2009 #

  22. As an experiment, I spent close to 1.5 years doing primarily bodyweight exercises for my strength conditioning. A lot of the exercises I did drew from gymnastics strength training. I knew gymnasts were strong doing mostly bodyweight work, and my respect for their strength went way up when I tried some ring work. I nearly fell off the first time I tried just getting up on the rings.

    From the exercises I played with, I have to say my favorite is muscle ups (why not combine pull ups with dips?). A close second would be dragon flags, Bruce Lee’s favorite ab exercise.

    Comment by Johnny — November 23, 2009 #

  23. Stephen,

    Thanks for commenting! I honestly dont even know if I could have done more than a couple pull ups in high school….we never did them in the program…

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  24. Trey, Good point about colleges too! Just because people are older in age (post puberty), doesnt necassarily mean they are stronger!

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  25. Ah the vertical jump! Good mention Dean!

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  26. Ha, the wife moving stuff into the gym area!! Tell her you will have a pull up contest for the space.

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  27. Dragon flies are real hard if done properly! Thanks for commenting Johnny!

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  28. BSS lights up my legs with any weight…including just bodyweight!

    Thanks Jerry,

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 23, 2009 #

  29. the pull-up rules forever! and its compagnon the dip too!

    Comment by Dominik — November 23, 2009 #

  30. For those of you who want to increase your pushups max rep but are stricly gym goers try doing 10 strict pushups after each set of your bench press. No rest just do the bench then pushups then rest until your next bench set. This will increase your max pushups quite a bit with out adding to much more time to your workout. You may have to adjust the weight on your bench but it will benifit you a lot.

    Comment by Bill — November 23, 2009 #

  31. favourite exercise is just to make the basics harder – pull ups switching grips, pushups alternate 5 on Left leg support, 5 on Right repeating, squats on a vewdo board

    Comment by jules r-j — November 26, 2009 #

  32. You can build great strength, functional flexibility AND a great physique just performing dips, pullups, hindu squats, hill sprints and pushups.

    If you enjoy the weights that is great, continue it. However, they are certainly not necessary to succeed in any sport, other than obviously weightlfting\powerlifting.

    It would also be interesting to see, sans drugs, if weights were indeed more effective for bodybuilding.

    Comment by Francesco — November 28, 2009 #

  33. hi dude,
    Thanks for your focus on bodyweight training, because is too damm hard to educate athletes for.
    I think as coches aa we are, we must to comunicate strongly, the benefits and importance to train with.

    So, thinking off about it, i pick up the burpees, into few others, because this exsercise involve big muscles, mostly and CKC (Close kinetic Chain) provocating an improve stimulus in wohle body parts.
    Finally, i have to admit that hindu-pushups or planks in many positions and variations would be great to add in our current training schedule, also!!!

    Comment by martin PT - COACH Certified C.E.E.F. — November 30, 2009 #

  34. Martin – thanks for the comment!

    Everyone wants to move those heavy weights, but a lot of people arent ready to put in the time to lay the foundation.

    Good call on the burpees – awesome for conditioning

    Joe

    Comment by Admin: Joe Hashey, CSCS — November 30, 2009 #

  35. [...] I was tempted to break it into parts to make it easier to read – but I just did that to you and the Guide To Bodyweight Training (final part up next week) so here is [...]

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  39. I LOVE IT!!

    Comment by nick — January 25, 2010 #

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