Getting strong with a bodyweight program can be very simple. You just need to follow some very basic principles:

• Your body does not know how much weight is being lifted. You and your mind quantify the amount of weight by pounds or kilos. It’s a human-made system. Your muscles only understand one thing: stress.
• Hence, the more stress you place upon a muscle, the more that muscle will react. Whether or not the muscle grows stronger will depend on what you do after the workout.
• The only way you can get weaker is if you do not do anything to place greater stress on the muscle. This is why many endurance-type workouts often cause a decrease in strength.
• In order to increase strength through bodyweight training, a base level of fitness must be established. My opinion is that one should be able to perform 5pullups, 10 pushups, and 20 bodyweight squats before attempting any other strength goals.
• There are numerous training methods for improving strength through bodyweight training. However, the most important thing you must learn is how to make an exercise more difficult.
• Simple changes such as hand position, leverage, and sophistication can make a movement more difficult. These methods can also make a movement easier. For example, if you are unable to perform a fullpullup (palms facing away grip), you may find a chinup (palms facing you grip) much easier.
• Strength is an important component to all aspects of fitness. In order to increase lean muscle mass, you need strength. In order to lose fat, you must perform certain exercises. These exercise will also require a base level of strength.

Follow these tips and you will find yourself much bigger and stronger through bodyweight training. For more information on bodyweight training, check out Bodyweight Exercise Revolution.

Click here for more information.

You ever watch that show “Ninja Warrior?” Ninja Warrior is a tournament held in Japan that has individuals try to get through a nearly impossible obstacle course. These obstacle courses don’t require brute strength and incredible endurance.

What they require is the ability to move your own bodyweight effectively through space. The athletes who actually complete these courses are usually very lean and cut. The big guys usually fall off. The short guys usually slip.

And over confident guys fail the first.

Ninja Warrior is one of the best tests of effective body control and mental toughness. The reason I’m talking about this is because Ninja Warrior also effectively brings to mind the effectiveness of even basic bodyweight training.

Most people will never compete or even think about competing on Ninja Warrior. However, what the show reveals is a very simple lack of most training programs: the ability to move. Most people simply can’t move.

Powerlifters can move big weights, but most have difficult moving themselves up a flight of steps. Distance runners may be able to move forward, but they do so at aridiculously boring, slow pace. But a Ninja Warrior, on the other hand, needs to jump, crawl, duck, sprint, climb, and fall in order to survive the challenges that are faced before him.

What I’m talking about is the idea that you first need to develop a base level of health and fitness before you can pursue a narrower goal. Getting enormously big, or incredibly lean, or super fast, or super strong, or developing unbelievable endurance are useless if you can’t do other things well.

I believe that basic bodyweight movements such as pushups, pullups, squats, jump roping, jumping, sprinting – anything that involves improving the movement of your own bodyweight is very crucial to your overall well being.

Just by performing these basic movement, you’ll be leaner, stronger, and more agile. For example, when peforming a pullup or pushup, your body will perform better if it has less to push and pull. In other words you’ll lose weight.

And when you already carry a good amount of weight on your body, you’ll be training your joints to handle lifting that much weight. Why are you hitting the weights if you already weight 100, 150, or 200 lbs?

You already have enough weight to lift. Learn to lift your weight first before you decide to join a gym or start buying pieces of weight. Basic pushups and pullups actually work a greater amount of muscle tissue then popular gym movement such as the bench press and row.

Click here if you want to experience the true effectiveness of bodyweight training today and learn over a hundred simple bodyweight movements that will help you become healthier, stronger, and leaner.

This article links out to products. If you purchase these products, I get a percentage of the sales. Read my disclaimer.

For those that are not familiar with Tabata training, it is simply a unique interval scheme that involves performing 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest.

You are to perform this sequence 7 more times, for a total of 4 minutes of training. Over the years, the benefits of this technique have been completely blown out of proportion.

That is why I decided to write yet another article on this topic. I can, hopefully, present a more realistic picture of what Tabata exactly is and how it can help you in your fat loss goals.

Tabata Training Goals: Just Fat Loss?

A few months ago, I saw a disturbing article in Muscle & Fitness magazine which suggested using Tabata training for muscle mass. On some level, Tabata training can be used for muscle mass.

However, what was disturbing about it was that it basically took a typical bodybuilding program and plugged in the Tabata scheme. The problem with this is that some exercises are simply not effective with Tabata training.

Click here to Learn How You can Work Out using more High Intensity Techniques like Tabata

There are two questions that come to my mind after reading that article: 1) Can Tabata training be effectively used to acheive other goals such as strength and mass, and 2) can you use any exercise with Tabata training?

In one of my previous Tabata training articles, I mentioned that participants of the original Tabata experiment with Dr. Izumi Tabata reported some level of muscle mass.

This was probably due to the huge amount of growth hormone and testosterone which is usually released with such high intensity training. However, I also mentioned thatTabata should not be used primarily to put on muscle mass.

This is because, from experience, I have found that effective muscle mass actually requires a higher volume of training. You can achieve this level of volume by performing lots of volume in one session, or spreading out the volume over multiple sessions.

Tabata training is just too intense for you to use any substantial volume in order to ellicit gains in mass. So, the final verdict is that although you will look a little bigger after a tabata training program, this is due to the fact that you’ve actually lost more fat.

Now, as for strength, does Tabata training increase your level of strength? I’ve personally never experienced such gains in strength. Although, yesterday’s post on Bodyweight Training and Strength does suggest that interval training does improve strength.

I think the main problem here is the rest interval. If you wanted to transform Tabata workouts into strength workouts, you would need to at least double the amount of rest between each set.

But then that would change the nature of Tabata training itself. Then you would not be able to call it Tabata. It’s just interval training for strength. Hence, you can not gain strength with Tabata Training.

Gaining Mass and Strength with Tabata Training

Click here to Learn How You can Work Out using more High Intensity Techniques like Tabata

Wait a second, didn’t I just say that you can’t gain muscle and strength with Tabata training? I did, and I still stand by those conclusions. However, think about this: your body will be in such great condition after about a month ofTabata workouts, that the moment you switch to mass gain or strength workouts, your body will make drastic gains.

This is true for any sort of high intensity fat loss program. High intensity programs such as Tabata will improve your ability to recover, improve force production, and get you mentally prepared for heavy lifting.

Tabata Training Exercises

So the second question that came to my mind after reading the Muscle and Fitness article was – can you use any exercise for Tabata training? My belief has always been that high intensity ballistic exercises such as squat jumps, dumbbell snatches, and dumbbell swings work best forTabata.

However, exercises should not be too technical. For example, if you’re just learning to do cleans with a barbell, then don’t useTabata for it. Tabata will wear you out, and you will set yourself with injury if you use exercises you’re not very good at.

Looking back at the Muscle and Fitness article, should you use isolation bodybuilding exercises such as dumbbell curls and tricep extensions? Well, you can, but here’s the way I see it: Tabata training will push you.

You’ll be moving so fast, that your form will literally deteriorate. Hence, a bicep curl actually ends up being a “power shoulder get the dumbbell to your face as fast as possible” movement.

Do you see what I mean? Even a regular pushup ends up being ballistic at some point. If you perform movements slowly during a Tabata workout, then you’re wasting time and are not getting the most out of your 20 seconds.

Hence, stick to high intensity ballistic movements for Tabata training.

More Tabata Info

There is a lot to be written about Tabata and interval training. The following are a few articles I have written on the topic:

• Bodyweight Tabata Training for Beginner Athletes
• Tabata Training: The Complete Guide from Intensity to Insanity
• Interval Training with Burpees

Click here to Learn How You can Work Out using more High Intensity Techniques like Tabata

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

There really isn’t that much of a difference between strength endurance, maximal strength, and fat loss programs. As I was talking to a friend on Facebook:

Friend
10:20pm Jan 11th

u know its funny do u really have to run in order to build endurance? or are there other ways of doing it?

Me
12:42am Jan 12th

dang son. It’s OBVIOUS you haven’t been going to my website.

Friend
12:42am Jan 12th

lol hahaha

Me
12:53am Jan 12th

well, basically it depends on what kind of endurance you want to develop. I think the biggest thing that people don’t realize is that everything is connected. If you increase you base strength, it’ll help you increase your endurance.

Running distance will help with recovery. Calisthenics will help you improve your max lifts and vice versa. Your body is designed for survival, and hence all your workout should revolve around elements of ….well…EVERYTHING.

Does that make any sense?

Friend
1:09am Jan 12th

yes. how about if u wanted to lets say prepare yourself to be a mountain climber. or something that exerts ur body in such a way what would you have to work on endurance wise

Me
1:47am Jan 12th

Good question. I have a background in martial arts, which is basically a power and endurance sport. Mountain climbing is more of a strength endurance sport. You don’t need to exert maximal power in order to pull yourself up and climb a mountain, however you do need good agility, base strength, and flexiblity if you need move out of a region really quickly (if you’re in danger).

Now, just ask yourself a question: what the hell does running have to do with climbing a mountain? Nothing really. The best way to get better at mountain climbing is to climb mountains. 30 minutes on a Rowing machine is better than 30 minutes on a treadmill because of the type of trianing you’re doing.

Rowing is a fully body workout emphasising the back and the legs. Climbing is a fully body workout working the back and the legs. In addition, you’d want to work on your grip, lung capacity, and mental toughness.

Me
1:52am Jan 12th

What I’m trying to say is that in order to develop a decent training program you need to first identify the elements that you need to achieve your goal. Once you do that, you find out your weaknesses, and start building a routine around that.

I have a huge problem with typical bodybuilding routine because they’re typical bodybuilding routines, and focus only one one thing: making one muscle bigger without regard to any other qualities out there.

So if you wanna be a mountain climber, train like a mountain climber. If you want to be a gymnast, get yourself on some rings. If you want to lose fat, than do everything in your power to raise your metabolic rate.

But the most important thing is that you include as many parameters as possible, creating an element of randomness.

As you can see, a lot of high intensity exercise can help you improve multiple qualities at once, including endurance, fat loss, strength, and size. One fitness program that does this effectively is the Athletic Body Workout.

Click here to Grab your Copy of Athletic Body Workout

If you have very little time in your schedule to weight train, then you should try to maximize your time in the gym. Maximizing your time means sticking to compound exercises and picking a set/rep scheme based on your goals.

Compound Exercise per Bodypart:

Chest – Bench Press (Barbell, Dumbbell, Flat, Incline), Arm Pull-overs (Barbell, Dumbbell)

Back – Rows (Dumbbell, Barbell)

Legs – Squats (Barbell, Dumbbell, Back, Front, Overhead),

Shoulders – Clean & Press (Power, Hang), Shoulder Press (Barbell, Dumbbell, Push Press, Push Jerk, Arnold)

Sample 3-day template for Size and Strength:

Day One

Squat Variation 8×3

Bench Variation 8×3

Row Variation 8×3

Press Variation 8×3

Day Two

Squat Variation 5×5

Bench Variation 5×5

Row Variation 5×5

Press Variation 5×5

Day Three

Squat Variation 3×8

Bench Variation 3×8

Row Variation 3×8

Press Variation 3×8

Now, this is just a general template for you to use for increasing your strength and size with compound movements. If you’re looking for a more well-rounded fitness program using compound movements, than I suggest you check out Athletic Body Workout.

Click here to Grab your Copy of Athletic Body Workout Today!

In my One-arm Dumbbell Exercises instructional video, I demonstrated four dumbbell exercises that you can do in the comfort in your own home to increase your strength endurance, burn fat, and build muscle mass.

However, if your primary goal were to increase your maximal strength and power, you would have to use a slightly different approach to training.

The first change that you want to do is increase your rest periods. I was resting a minute after each circuit. For power, I can still combine all four exercises in a circuit, but would have to rest 3 minutes for full recovery.

This is because you need to recover fully when working on maximal strength qualities. Otherwise, if you’re using heavy weights and your form fails, you risk injuring yourself.

Frequency is another factor that you must change slightly. Based on your level of fitness, you may need a day or two of full rest before you do another power and strength dumbbell workout.

I like to work different fitness qualities every day to keep my body guessing and to also help aid recovery. For example, one day I’ll do some heavy strength training, then the next day I’ll do some light dumbbell work, then the following day I’ll either rest or experiment with a new exercise.

The idea is to feel it out. Most people can handle one or two really intense workouts per week.

When you’re working on strength and power, the only really good way of making your workouts progressively intense is to add weights. However, since we are talking about home training here, we may be limited to how much resistance one has access to.

Hence, another really good way of developing an intense workout and also helping to make you stronger is to gradually decrease your rest intervals, as you get better. So you may start out with a 3-minute rest in your first week, then drop down to 2 and a half-minute, etc.

This will force your body to recover faster.

Another way to increase your strength and power if you’re limited in weights is to gradually increase your sets. However, there will be a point where you will have to purchase heavier weights.

How many sets can you increase until the workout gets too boring or too long? However, I’d be very surprised if I came across a trainee performing 10 sets of an exercises using maximal weights and resting less than 30 seconds between each circuit.

The two exercises that are the best for developing power are the dumbbell clean and the dumbbell swing. These two exercises have the greatest carry over to sports and lifestyle fitness.

The overhead squat is your key to developing maximal strength. If they say that the barbell squat is the king of all exercises, then the one-arm overhead dumbbell squat is the king of all dumbbell exercises.

The optimal rep range for developing maximal strength is one to three reps, and the optimal rep range for developing power is 4 to 6 reps.

If you’re looking for an effective dumbbell routine to help you improve your size and strength, as well as allow you to burn fat and increase your athletic fitness, then I suggest grabbing a copy of Superior Dumbbell Workout.

Click Here to Grab your Copy Today!

For the past few weeks, I’ve been getting lots of requests from readers who need some help developing a strength-focused bodyweight fitness program. I decided to organize some of my best tips into a post…

Intensity and Strength

Continue reading

In the last installment, we went over how to choose the right training split and how to organize your exercises based on that split. I hope now you have a rough schedule set up.The next step is to determine how many repetitions to perform per exercise. Use the following table as a guide: Continue reading

Image by The Fit Malasyian

I love this concept of Metabolic Conditioning – training which adequately taxes your musculature and cardiovascular system. This style of training makes a lot of sense for law enforcement officers, military personnel, and mixed martial artists. However, does it make sense for the average joe who’s just looking to get into better shape?

• The truth is that the average joe does not need incredible amounts of strength, nor does he need amazing cardiovascular conditioning. Maximal strength and extreme endurance are two ends of the fitness spectrum. Metabolic conditioning simply combines these two aspects together to develop base levels of strength and endurance in a rather short period of time.
• When I look at things, I try to think of ways I can accomplish a lot of work in a short period of time. Saving time is one of the most important things to me. It means I have more time to focus on other aspects of my life.
• Health and fitness is important, but I personally can not imagine spending an hour a day working out. Unless I’m training for a particular event, it simply is not necessary. Our society likes things in “packages.” I want this, this, this, this, and this, and I want it quickly.
• Well, metabolic conditioning can give you all of it, and can give it to you quickly. Let me warn you. Metabolic Conditioning (MetCon) will not turn you into a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or distance running. If you plan to participate in these sports, then you are on the wrong website.
• I believe that what our society needs is a “best of both worlds” solution. First, there was the aerobic revolution where everyone started doing hours of cardio per week.Tae bo, zumba, and anything else that had to do with aerobics was extremely popular.
• Then, with the introduction of such infomercial products as Bowflex, strength training was touted as the end-all solution to health and fitness. However, even to this day not enough people are strength training.

But there is a better, smarter way of exercising. MetCon simply combines two methods of training – strength and cardio – and packages it into a form that is fun, exciting, challenging, and produces results.

What are the Benefits of Metabolic Conditioning Workouts?

The main idea of metabolic conditioning is to move extremely fast amongst a variety of tasks. So, for example lets take a workout that alternates between Burpees andChinups. Burpees will train your lower body and upper body pushing strength, while Chinups work your upper body pulling strength.

So here’s the workout:

5 rounds for time of:

• Burpees, 10 reps
• Chinups, 5 reps

This workout is a definite “puke buster.” It’ll get your heart rate up, especially performing those burpees, as long as you keep moving back and forth between the two exercises as fast as possible. Increase heart rate will tax your cardiovascular system.

The goal of this workout is to be able to perform more work in a shorter period of time. For example, if the first time you performed this workout your time was 10 minutes, and the second time you did it in 8 minutes, then you’ve made a 2 minute improvement in time. If you can do 50 chinups in a shorter period of time, you’ve effectively improved you levels of strength.

I’ve talked about importance of lactic acid when it comes to improvements in mass gain. When lactic acid is released into the blood stream through a high intensity workout, certain chemical reactions take place, which release Human Growth Hormone (HGH). HGH is a vital component in muscle recovery, mass gain, and fat loss.

In other words, if done properly and at a high enough intensity level, MetCon aids with:

• Mass Gain
• Strength
• Fat Loss
• Cardiovascular Endurance

Image by Basics Sports Medicine Blog

Is this all I need to Do?

Yes, if you’re comfortable with a decent level of strength, mass, and endurance, then this is all you need. However, if you wish to specialize in one particular aspect offitness then there are some modifications you’d need to make with your training:

Strength – Perform 2 Metcon Workouts per Week with 2 Maximal Strength Workouts (Choose 1-2 exercises per session)

Mass – Perform 2 Metcon Workouts per Week with 2 High-Volume workouts incorporating Isolation Movements

Fat Loss – Perform 2-4 MetCon Workouts per Week. Start off with 10 minutes of extra steady state cardio per week, and steadily increase as needed.

Cardiovascular Endurance – Perform 1-2 Metcon Workouts per Week with 2 Steady State, distance cardio workouts per week

Image by The Drill Coach

Show me How to Do MetCon Workouts

Ready to give MetCon a try? Well, if you’ve tried any of my workouts so far, you’ve already been doing MetCon. The following are a few more workouts for you try the can be categorized as Metabolic Conditioning:

• Interval Training with Burpees
• How to Improve your Running and Pullups with One Workout
• The Most Insane Bodyweight Routine on the Planet!

Motor units are the functional units of a muscle. The percentage of motor units activated at a given time will determine the amount of force (power) that muscle produces. The force generated by a muscle needs to match the needs of the activity. For example, you do not want to recruit maximum motor units while washing the dishes or picking up a small child. However, you do want maximal motor unit recruitment when sprinting to the finish line or catching a bus.

When you lift fast, you recruit greater motor units with each repetition. According to Strength Coach Chad Waterbury, maximum motor unit recruitment is only sustainable for the first 15 seconds of a movement. Your smallest motor units are recruited first, followed by your larger motor units. However, you can recruit your larger motor units if the weight is heavy enough and the speed is fast enough. Since we can’t really know what “fast enough” or “heavy enough” means without being strapped to all these complicated devices and machines, the best thing is to lift the heaviest weight as fast as possible.

Now, with bodyweight training “heavy” gets replaced by “difficult.” The key is to consistently move onto different variations of a movement when that movement becomes too easy. But most trainees don’t know what too easy means. They go after unecessary repetition numbers and wonder why they’re not getting stronger or bigger. Well, high rep movements do in a way help improve strength levels, but not as well as moderate repetitions. High repetitions do nothing for strength levels.

Image by Combat-Aging

Move Faster and Stronger

We can use Waterbury’s 15 second theory in our bodyweight training as well. Here’s how you do it:

1. Take basic movements such as a pushups and pullups, and see how many repetitions you can do in 15 seconds. I can do 15 pushups and 5 pullups in 15 seconds each.
2. Design a routine where you are doing circuits of pushups and pullups. Lets assume you decide to perform 3 rounds of 15 pushups and 5 pullups. The entire workout should take you a minute and a half, theoretically.
3. Since each round is slower than the one before, the workout may end up taking 2-4 minutes, depending on your recovery time.

Your goal is going to be to move faster each time you perform the workout. With bodyweight training, it is not the load that matters, but the illusion of load. As you get more and more tired, your body thinks you are lifting heavier weights, and so taking as little rest between sets is another important aspect.

The Wrap-Up

Lets assume that your workout time was 3 minutes. Keep hammering at the workout until you’ve dropped down to accomplishing the workout in under 2 minutes. Once you’ve accomplished this feat, switch to more difficult variations, and test your 15 seconds max for that exercise.

This approach to program design accomplishes a few things:

• It gives you a 15-second time frame for recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible. Remember, anything after 15 seconds and you’re recruiting your smaller fibers as opposed to your fast-twitch, larger fibers which are essential for improvements in speed, power, and strength.
• When you work to drop your total workout time and improve your work capacity and recovery, you get faster. Your sets will end up lasting less than 15 seconds, which give you a greater benefit when it comes to recruiting maximal muscle fibers.
• Muscle fiber recruitment also depends on the necessity of the activity. Once you’ve become faster, it’s time to move onto another, difficult variation. Difficult variations are the bodyweight version of lifting heavier weights.

Exercises to Try

This video features some very great advanced bodyweight exercises to use as you progress with your training:

Related Products and Resources

Shawn Lebrun shows you the basics of putting on muscle mass and dropping fat in his eBook, “Simple Steps to Getting Huge and Shredded.” A lot of his clients using the information from the eBook have put on 15-25 lbs of muscle in as little as 8 weeks. Check out the eBook here.

Coach Eddie Lomax teaches you how to successfully use bodyweight training to accomplish your fitness goals.. The best part about his eBook is that he shows you how to steadily progress with your bodyweight workouts, and even gives you templates to help design your own workouts. Check out his eBook, “Workout Without Weights.”

My free Intense Bodyweight Workout Manual features three training programs with simple methods of progression. The manual is especially useful for individuals that have limited time and equipment to exercise. Download it for free here.