A Little Motivation

There are normal techniques for motivation, and abnormal techniques, and then there are that one and only brainchild. So what do you do to get motivated for a workout? Let's figure that out for you.

Personally, myself, and friends, will just go on youtube, watch a few videos, get in the mood, and think, "I want to do that!" And we go work out and get ripped and stand upside down on our hands and crud.

   Other people, they go to the gym, see somebody really good looking of the opposite gender and something happens to their muscular structure and they can suddenly lift six times their weight. Whereas others they just simply have the idea of, "do it or get C.O.P.D."

   So it's up to you. I usually think a lot about how great I look after my workout and how great I feel as well. That's usually the main motivation process with your average Joe who likes to workout. So just find your brand of motivation, what's the one thing that makes you feel like doing something impressive? Soon enough you'l find it and you'll get to where you want to be soon enough with your hard work and dedication.

The Fitness Cookie

Softer Muscles Vs. Harder Muscles

Do you ever wonder why your chest gets sore a whole lot easier than your calves when your calves are  actually smaller? I've got a good explanation for that.

So your calves are the hardest muscles in your body. That's obvious unless you're not to familiar with human anatomy, then surprise surprise.

   Look at your chest for example, you only have to spend maybe thirty minutes out of your day working on it, and then the next day you're sore. Now take your calves for example, you spend your day standing on your feet, your calves are the first muscle to work in your legs when you walk, they take in the shock of each and every step, and when you work them out, you have to use three times the weight you use on your chest, plus your body weight, and twice the amount of movement to get the same results as you would see in your chest.

   If the muscles in your chest and your arms were as dense as the muscles in your calves, the average human being would begin chest and arm workouts with about three or four times the weight and about twenty times the endurance.
   Now I'm not positive if that's entirely correct, but from what I gather, the strength differences would be incredible.
   Therefor, you require far harder, far more demanding, and far more endurance requiring exercises to break the harder and stronger muscles than to break down the softer ones.
   If you think about it, during a workout, your muscles are flexing, stretching, and being brought to their utmost potential. So when they stretch like that, there are multiple little strands of muscular tissue that snap and break with each and every press, push, pull, lift, and raise.
   Your muscles that are harder than others, like your calves for instance since those seem to be the densest of the group, it's a very requiring process to get those muscles to break down and get those tiny strands to break and pop so they come back together with more and make themselves larger and stronger.
   Now your softer muscles, like your lats, lower back, and biceps, require a less stressful workout. Because those strands aren't as thick and hard as the ones in your legs. If you did the same workout that you do with your legs with your upper back, the size differences would be immaculate because the softer muscles that require less strain to become larger would react in a more dramatic way, resulting in massiveness and your leg muscles would be equally strong, but in proportion, nowhere near as large.
   Imagine when you started running, the first two miles your legs were pretty sore, but imagine if you did that exact run on your hands. Which workout would make the most sore?
   So there's a reason for heavier leg workouts, your legs are designed for constant twenty four seven every second of the day use, your upper body isn't quite like that, it's meant for holding smaller things, that aren't all of you, and picking up stuff, helping out with balance.
   It's just something to think about.

The Fitness Cookie

Fingertip Strength

So you may have a concern as how to make your fingertips stronger for things like planche push ups and so forth. Here are a few tips and ideas to follow.

For those of you who are obsessed with body weight weight training, your fingertips are sure to be an important factor in your exercises.

   I advise you build up into this because the moment you try a fingertip planche for the first time without any fingertip strengthening back ground, you'll fall, and might possibly injure your fingertips or your hands. Maybe even both.

   You can strengthen your fingertips by doing regular push ups on your fingertips, and then move into regular push ups on three fingers on each hand and things like that. If you can do hopping push ups on your fingertips, you ought to be ready to start attempting fingertip planches and fingertip planche push ups.

   Also, a small pointer, you may be asking why I emphasize on the planche for exercise so much. That would be because it is the best exercise for body weight training that involves your pectorals and shoulders. And also it's a heck of a lot of fun and there are a ton of variations I have yet to teach you.

Exercise Replacement?

So I've been looking around, and seeing some questions, "Do you replace regular push ups with those kinds of push ups after a while of doing them?" And, "Do you replace pull ups with your other kinds of workouts like that?" It goes on and on.

Generally speaking, we calisthenic kings get to a point in our thrones where we think that regular push ups are no longer necessary. I'll tell you right now, that's up to you.

   Say all you can do at the moment is handstand push ups, you're working for planche push ups, but you notice that your shoulders are becoming far larger than your chest, and that's not something you want to happen.

   So what are you going to do? Push ups. They will give you the structural balances that keep your body working normal up until you can do those exercises that you want. Afterwards though, it's up to you to drop the conventional exercises, but adding those with the more strenuous exercises that you can't do so much of yet, help a lot and keep you progressing faster and easier up until you are where you want to be. So really, it's your choice.

Tips on Jumping Height

There's a good deal of preparatory exercises to help you build up to the point of being able to jump as high as you want to. Here are some tips.

Jumping is like one big squat. It also helps a deal with your flipping height. Exercises that you can do are things like squats, pistol squats, jumping squats, and jumping lunges. Also, weighted squats help with jumping height. Since squats are a jumping motion without your feet leaving the ground, I'll stress those the most since they're the best exercise for jumping.

   If you don't have access to weights, there's always the body weight alternatives. You have squats, jumping squats, pistol squats, and those weird lunge variations. Doing things like jumping as high as you possibly can as many times as you possibly can across your backyard or something would be great for getting height gain. Practicing the motion helps a lot.

   Now that I've covered stationary jumping height, we'll talk about momentum now.

   Do you ever see people break dancing, doing parkour, tricking, gymnastics, or just plain showing off and wonder how they could possibly get so high? There's an art to it.

   Momentum is where it all comes from first of all. Running is the key part to getting your height, but remember that punch I talked about in front flips? Same thing with running and jumping as high as you possibly can. Slam dunking a basketball is a different story because you can't throw your hands, but with general jumping height to do something like a divers somersault where you run and jump as high as possible and dive into a somersault.

   Or generally running and jumping over something. How hard could it be? It's not very hard, but to gather momentum and get some decent height, you have the glide, the punch, and the crunch. The crunch is when you crunch your legs in to avoid additional objects or whatever. Usually it's a natural response, so it's not too hard.

   Good luck.

Joint Protection

There are some intense things humans do in their lives. Generally speaking, our bodies are incredible because they heal from and deal with some hard hits and heavy stress. To be able to deal with those hard hits and heavy stress, your joints have to be strong, hardened, and healthy.

   Weak joints will give way under you, they'll creak, and cause serious damage to your body.

Joints are different than muscles. You break your muscles down to make them harder and stronger. You exercise to keep your joints stronger and harder, but once they start losing cartilage which is like an incredibly hard and complex plastic that lubricates itself, that's the last you see of it.

   So how do you keep your joints in proper working order? You don't let them get weak. Weightlifting, calisthenics, and any other kind of exercise will do a lot of good for you joints.

   Remember, proper dieting as well is good for your joints. You just can't load up on stake and potatoes constantly, supplementing with other foods and making them part of your regular diet will give certain oils and vitamins that are required for strong joints.

   Exercise should never be painful, avoid it by keeping healthy joints.

Back Workout (From the top down)

Back workouts consist of contracting your back muscles, obviously.

There are a lot of ways to get a big back. Luckily, when you lift weights, you don't have to workout your biceps so much if you have a good back workout. It's just a good shoulder and chest workout.

   Things like barbell rows of course, dumbbell rows, barbell shrugs, and dumbbell shrugs are good for your back. Always give the lat pull down machine a try or two as well. Weights are always good, so don't forget those. And religiously rep hard and heavy on those blessed dead lifts.

   Now for the consideration of body weight exercises for the back. What do you do for lower back exercises as far as body weight goes, and you don't have a roman chair? We'll talk about that.

   Pull ups of course are good for a back exercise, have your friend hold onto you at the same time, do lever pull ups, there's so much. So what levels do we work with? Easy. Intermediate. Advanced. And Very Advanced.

   Why capitalize it? Because it's important.

   Some tips on avoiding blisters for beginners, either wear gloves, or man up. Rubbing sand on your hands if you don't have chalk does help with the grip.

   

Easy: 

1. 5 Sets of 3 Pull Ups. Remember to keep a good grip.

2. 5 Sets of 5 Body Weight Rows, find some kind of bar that's a little less than four feet off the ground. Keep  your feet in contact with the ground.

3. As many pull ups as you can do at one time.

Intermediate:

1. 5 Sets of 5 Pull Ups.

2. 3 Sets of 10 Body Weight Rows.

3. Tucked Front lever. (not very hard)

4. 4 Sets of 4 Lat Pull Ups.

5. As many Pull Ups in a row as possible.

Advanced:

1. 3 Sets of 8-10 Pull Ups.

2. 3 Sets of 15 Body Weight Rows.

3. 4 Sets of 5 Tucked Front Lever Pull Ups.

4. Front Lever.

5. 5 Sets of 5 Lat Pull Ups.

6. 5 Sets of 5 Muscle Ups.

7. As many Pull Ups in a row as possible.

Very Advanced:

1. 4 Sets of 20 Pull Ups.

2. 2 Sets of 5 Front Lever Pull Ups.

3. 2 Set of 25 Body Weight Rows.

4. 4 Sets of 8-10 Muscle Ups.

5. Front Levers, lots and lots.

6. 4 Sets of 10 Lat Pull Ups.

7. 2 Sets of 5 One Arm Pull Ups.

8. As many Pull Ups in a row as possible.

This should probably give you a pretty decently sized back, and targets just about everything in the upper back.

   You can separately do you lower back exercises. If you have something heavy that sits on legs by chance, say a heavy couch, large armoire, or just a really big friend, stick the backs of your feet under something sturdy, and you can bend at a perfect forty five degree angle at your knees, and bend over repetitively.

   Also, super mans, dead bugs, whatever you want to call them, where you lay down on the floor and lift your feet and hands, you can do those, hold them, do them in reps, have people push on your feet and hands. Whatever floats your boat. Enjoy your workout.

Energy At Your Disposal

There's talk about, quote, "Oh! How I need caffeine!" I find this topic humorous because humans are naturally meant to not need caffeine. Your energy should come from a good diet and exercise.

There's something exercise does to your body that gives you more energy. What it does is makes your body used to motion and exertion that's far harder than what you're doing as you go about your daily affairs. When you do things that are very hard for your body, the easy things, like sitting in an office chair, are incredibly easy for you.

   I know what you're saying, office chairs are tiring! That's true, but since I've actually never sat in one for more than two and a half hours concerning monetary purposes, so I wouldn't know.

   Energy opens up your world of opportunity, the more you have the more you can do and the longer you can do as well as be able to concentrate and focus as best you can. Through the proper clean and healthy life style, you can obtain the proper energy required for building your body to the point of having the physic and mind you so desire to acquire.

Strength and Flexibility Combined

So do you ever wonder about being strong and flexible at the same time? Well I can offer tips, not from a professional perspective, but things that will help a lot.

So in actuality, you can lift weights, do four hundred pound dead lifts, three plate bench presses, and heavy squats, but still be able to touch your toes, do the side splits, stick your feet behind your head, and do an air chair.

   It's very simple, you just have to incorporate a stretching program into your workout program. Make sure you do it warm, remember not to bounce in stretches, and you can always do moves that require flexibility, and strength at the same time. Those moves are a great workout for us all because they work the muscles out while putting them to their max potential. So it's in reality, a double benefit.

   Now things like middle splits for guys who do incredibly heavy dead lifts and squats will be a serious challenge because of how tight your hamstrings become from those movements. So they'll either be extremely challenging, or impossible. But with hard work, you can make just about anything possible.

Exercise No. 27 Rolling Planche Push Ups

This is an exercise few know about, takes substantial strength, but not as much as say real planche push ups do. A good preparation exercise for planche push ups though, and very helpful.

So I'm going to say it, you're not going to be able to do these on the parallel bars. It simply doesn't work that way because the ground is required. So the rolling planche push up, is like a stationary worm. So if you know how to do the worm and push yourself off the ground somewhat, you can do this.

   The prerequisites are important because this is an advanced intermediate exercise. If you have no upper body strength to spare, go back and learn to do about forty or so push ups in a row and then you can learn these.

   So you want to start out like you're doing a beached seal stretch. Lean backwards while you lie stomach first on the floor. Now comes the hard part. Roll forward, and as you roll forward use the momentum from rolling onto your hands to push you up. 

   When you're at your highest and are about to come down, bend at your hips like you're doing an L sit/pike. Don't do this too fast or you'll end up stubbing your toes on the floor unless you're wearing shoes. And keep in mind, if you have jeans or a belt on, the button or the buckle will make these a whole lot harder for you unless you pull your pants up to your mid section.

   Now you're back to your feet, leave your legs limp but don't let your knees bend much when your back onto your stomach and then your hands. You generally shouldn't bend at your knees too much though. Just repeat the entire process and there you go, rolling planche push ups.

Non Damaging Workouts

So if your going to workout nice and hard, and make yourself incredibly sore, don't damage your body. There's recovery time, and then there's healing time. To avoid healing time and stick to recover time, you have to work out high circuit, but not overly aggressive.

You work up to your limits, and pass them barely. Each time you will progress, progression is a slow but steady process, something that takes weeks to get places, months to start seeing what you want, and years to be where you want.

   Your energy output should not be what you're comfortable with. For those of you who are starting out, exercise will not be comfortable at first. But you shouldn't work until it hurts. You need to be comfortable with the pain you have from working out. For instance, leg day.

   Let's give an example of leg day. Leg day hurts, always. But! That's why it's good! When you do leg day, you have to work until you can't squat dead lift and lunge any more. Do something very high circuit, and then do a warm down with something lighter, something easier, and keep going until you feel good with where you're at and you're not in pain, during, your workout.

   If you're in pain during your workout, you're not doing things right, at all. Straining, holding your breath, popping blood vessels, and making yourself sick with the amount of weight and repetitions, you have to be careful, but with the right amount of intensity to the level you're not comfortable, but not in pain with, will take you where you want to be.

Flexibility Progression

It's to be said that when you start out not so flexible, it's hard to become flexible. Well, it depends on how you work on becoming flexible. Starting out cold, and stretching until your warm enough to stretch just doesn't cut it because over time you'll get tired of having to wait so long to get all warm and then you'll have other things to do because it's taking too much time and work on your behalf. So I'll offer some tips on becoming flexible.

Whenever you say flexibility to somebody, they usually think along the lines of splits, you know, leg flexibility, which a lot of people lack. But having flexibility in just the legs is kind of stupid when you can be flexible and many other places if you think about. Right?

   So why not work on becoming flexible in other places? Why not do something that a lot of people don't think to do?

   Now like I said, you've got to be warm before stretching. Get some good lower body cardio in before stretching your legs. In honest opinion, I find the legs to be the hardest part of the body to stretch because it's more painful training for splits than it is for say air chairs or flag freezes.

   When stretching your upper body, it's a little different, going for a run or something won't do because that's your lower body and lower core that you're stretching. Warm up everywhere, yes, good idea, but generally speaking, if you're getting into shoulder flexibility for hollow backs, flag freezes, or airchairs, and general flexibility, give your upper body a bit of a work out. Enough to make it warm, not to exhaust it since you'll probably be using your remaining strength in only a matter of minutes.

   My favorite exercise to warm up with is push ups. Before a shoulder stretching routine, I'll crank out a few push ups for some additional light warming up, and then a few handstand and planche push ups for the heavy warm up.

   But it all depends on your style of warming up, find which exercise works best for you, get the blood flowing in your muscles, and then do advised stretches for whatever feat of strength or flexibility your trying to accomplish.