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.

Hand Balancing Tips

Some things are just hard to do unless you have a gift for them. So to get good, you work at them and take tips from as many people as you can talk to that know how to do it. So I'll give you some good tips of my own that helped me out.

Lets work from the ground up.

  Your forearms. Your ability to grip the ground must be substantial. Both sides of your forearms need to be equally strong according to their proportions to balance out the resistance required.

   Your Triceps. Without the power of your triceps, your elbow/elbows would simply buckle and you'd fall over. So make sure to practice and make yourself better with a series of tricep strengthening exercises. I do not advise that you go for weight training with your triceps for hand balancing, for strength and size, you do weight training, but with hand balancing, you can body weight muscle isolation while you work out other muscles. Everything is meant to be worked out in groups.

   Your shoulders. Your deltoids are incredibly important. Your shoulders are the other part of your arms that decide how long you stand. So work those out, by standing on your hands.

   Your core. So in hand balancing, say you're standing on one hand, there are two parts that hold you up and steady. Half of it is your arm, and half of it is your core. Believe it or not, your arm may be the thing holding you up and off the ground, but your core is just as important. Without a strong core, you'd be all floppy and fall over. So, do core strengthening exercises, those are important, and do stupid things when you practice hand balancing, not things that'll get you hurt, but try out new things and those will make you stronger and you'll be able to hold those older positions better than you last were as you progress into the newer ones.

   Another thing I learned when getting into hand balancing is that you need to thrust your chest out, and arch your lower back as much as you can. Naturally your body will hold at an angle when standing on one hand because when standing up with something above your head, your back muscles are required to engage, but when you're standing on one hand, it's different because your upside down and you're balancing something much larger than plates of metal put on the ends of a metal dowel.

   It's also good to have considerable leg flexibility unless you're incredibly strong and can just hold yourself up without a problem. You should be able to attempt the splits and at least be able to have no more than five inches between the ground and your groin. So you may have to stretch before you get into hand balance practice.

   I'll say that your entire body is like a giant box of pineapples as far as weight dispersion goes. But luckily we've been designed to balance that awkward weight different muscles put just in the right place at the right time made to work on cue with the proper amounts of energy being produced.

   Following these tips will you help with getting things like one handed handstands with a foot tucked in, lotus one handed handstands, flag freezes, hanging air babies, and if you're a nutter, one handed planches. Which I'm actually working on, so just for you to get a little inspiration going here for your one handed hand balancing, go on ahead, try to learn it before I put up a post.

Exercise No. 26 Pull up bar pull over

An exercise that targets lats and pectorals at once... well I have it for you.

Simple enough, you hold  onto the pull up bar and keep your arms straight to some degree, it's okay if you have a little elbow bend. This is all about pulling up without bending your elbows.

   Don't pull, but push down. As you come out, it should feel like you're doing a front lever, but your feet need to be pointing down. Just push enough to go up, and keep the tension as you go down.

   This is also a good prerequisite to have down prior to muscle ups so you can get yourself up for the maneuver to pull yourself above the bar. Work on it with bent elbows, and so forth. Good luck.

-The Fitness Cookie 

Start Now or Start Never

Here's a good question that's asked a lot, when should I start working? Yes, I've discussed this topic a time or two before. But, it's good to touch up on at least one or two more times. So when should you start?

Do you need to start? Do you already work out? Then you don't have to worry about starting a workout unless you're starting a new work out for different results and gains. But that's something else to talk about.

   Now this goes for people who just do one kind of workout, like running, or cycling. What you're doing right there is good enough to keep alive for a long time, so you don't really have to worry about starting up a new workout unless you just want to look better.

   So, start your workout, start it now. Do something new, and become stronger in different ways.

Disclaimer Post

My disclaimer post.

This blog is a general fitness blog where I talk about anything concerning fitness and health. Certain movements in this blog that are taught are very challenging, and dangerous if the participant is not ready for such a movement, or doesn't know how to do it properly, or has physical limitations of any sort.
   I am not a certified fitness coach, all advice is only told to the best of my abilities and knowledge.

   Therefore, I take no responsibility for any possibly sustained injuries, I disclaim ownership and give all credit to any images that may be subject copyright, and any links to videos that are not made by me.
   Enjoy your workouts.

   

The Fitness Cookie.

Chest Workout (From the top down)

So, the chest, something a lot of people are concerned about because you can see them in the mirror, and they look pretty good when they're sculpted with the proper work outs. Let us begin?

You can either go for simply looking good, which is the concern mainly of women. So you must incorporate a pectoral workout into your program, and you will be happy and good to go with what you have. Now, if you are male, your concern is to build muscle and become incredibly strong, well, incorporate a high intensity workout, something with a lot of weight, a lot of body shock, something that you know will make you sore. 

   The exercises that will cause pectoral shock if you will in body weight exercises are things like super man push ups, triple clap push ups, planche push ups, lots of tuck planche push ups, and various other things that involve pectoral contraction for the motion to be completed. Who knows, maybe you have your own weird exercise that works out your chest.

   Here are my workouts, varying from, easy, intermediate, advanced, and very advanced.

Easy: 1. 20 Push ups.

         2. 5 Clap push ups.

         3. 10 push ups.

         4. 15 Incline push ups.

Intermediate: 1. 50 Push ups.

                    2. 10 Clap push ups.

                    3. 30 Incline push ups.

                    4. 25 Push ups.

                    5. 10 Push ups with hands as close to hips as possible.

                    6. 10 Diamond push ups.

Advanced: 1. 100 Push ups.

                 2. 25 Clap push ups.

                 3. 15 Chest tap push ups.

                 4. 5 Back clap push ups.

                 5. Planche practice.

                 6. 10 Tuck planche push ups.

                 7. 10 Clap behind back push ups.

                 8. 10 One arm push ups on each side.

                 9. 30 Diamond push ups.

              

Very Advanced: 1. 150 Push ups.

                          2. 40 Clap push ups.

                          3. 25 Chest tap push ups.

                          4. 5-10 Triple clap push ups.

                          5. 20 Planche push ups.

                          6. 20 One arm push ups on each side.

                          7. 50 Diamond push ups.

                          8. 50 Tuck planche push ups.

Now feel free to incorporate weight lifting into this, that helps with general body weight strength and core stability. Weight training is good in general, so keep that in mind. Enjoy your workout.

Bicep Workout (From the top down)

So your biceps, located in the front part of your arm that guys usually brag to their friends about every time you do a series of curls with 20 pound dumbbells. These muscles can become considerably large with a series of calisthenic exercises and weight exercises.

Now I'm not saying you have to look like that guy, if you do, good for you. But the idea is to gain strength, and get some toning done in the process. You don't have to work so hard to where you're borderline popping veins and crap as well as being sore all of the time.

   To make your biceps stronger, it's not that hard, just a simple workout, usual circuit of working out, and proper rest since you're going to be working all of your other muscles out.

   Weight training makes your biceps become larger, by far more than you can fathom by just doing pull ups and levers. It's considerably simple, you just have to do a high circuit, high intensity, high resistance, high weight, program if you want your biceps to swell.

   So I have the four usual levels concerning intensity levels and so forth. The first two are good for people just looking to get in shape, and the last two are hard, and very hard.

Easy: 1. 2 Sets of 3 pull ups

         2. Do 1 pull up, stop when all of the way up, and hold for 5 seconds 3 times.

Intermediate: 1. 3 Sets of 5 pull ups.

                    2. 2 sets of 2 L sit pull ups.

Advanced: 1. 4 Sets of 10 pull ups.

                 2. 3 Sets of 5 L sit pull ups.

                 3. 5 Muscle ups.

                 4. 5 Archer pull ups on each side.

                 5. 2 Front levers each for 2 Seconds.

                 6. Try a back lever, doesn't really matter if you can get it yet or not.

Very Advanced: 1. 4 Sets of 20 pull ups

                          2. 3 Sets of 10 L sit pull ups.

                          3. 5 Sets of 5 muscle ups.

                          4. 3 One arm pull ups on each side.

                          5. Hold 6 front levers for 5 seconds each.

                          6. Hold 5 Back levers for 5 seconds each.

                          7. Hold pull up position for 10 seconds on one arm on each arm.

Now like I said, feel free to get involved in weights, workout your muscles with free weights as well to work your muscles out. Get a feel for things, and progress in both ways. 

Hollow Back Tips

I thought I'd give a little advice for the few of us who actually do these so that you can know how to do these a little better by holding them longer and extending both legs.

You have the beginner hollow back, where you tuck one leg in, and both knees are bent and your legs pretty much hang and you're suspending yourself by strength and resistance of your arms holding you up at the shoulders.
   Your shoulders not being able to bend back and around is the cause of being able to do a hollow back in most cases. But to progress, all around strength is the most required of being able to do a good form hollow back.
   Your shoulders and triceps are where your balance begins. If you can do a handstand, your triceps are generally strong enough, but your shoulders have to be incredibly powerful. Like I said, it helps a lot if you can do handstand push ups, and a hollow back handstand. Not the kind you see in the picture, but like a regular handstand, just with your back arched and you leaning backwards. It's important you be able to lean backwards on your hands, not forward to where your wrists are coming to a sharper and sharper angle, but to the point of where the angle in them is easing up and they're straightening out more than when you're in a regular handstand.
   Now being able to lean backwards with both legs out, so much as being able to do it without much of knee bend, your mid and lower back have to be incredibly strong. You can perfect this with head hollows easily, but in the real hollow back, your strength and energy are going into your shoulders, triceps, upper back, lower back, mid back, abdominals, and everything else much more since you don't have your neck which is very stable to support you in this.
   The only thing I can really say to get a stronger back for this, is that you just need to practice. Do neck bridges, those help, and a good stretch and exercise is to do bridges, but push back onto your hands as far as possible to where you have less weight put onto your feet. Lean as far as possible without falling backwards, get to your maximum point, and hold it as long as you can. Push yourself further each day and your back will become stronger and stronger.
   Also, another way to get into these and practice them is to go into an inverted hollow back, and then just ease your legs out. It's hard to hold it, but you will be in the position and a place that you can hold it.
   And remember, to get good at something, you have to practice all of the time. Set up a program for practicing and keep trying until you get it.
   Good luck.

Form Perfection

The most common mistake in exercising is lack of form. It's also a cause of injury, imbalances, and loss of gains. So to avoid those issues, we must come to the conclusion of perfection in exercise form.

Plenty of exercises that are done wrong can result in pain, discomfort, and imbalances. For instance, if you tend to lean to one side while doing push ups, even by just a little, there are two things that can happen. First you will see imbalances, and then because of certain alignment muscles that are being engaged, your spinal column may end up being put out of line causing neck pain, and discomfort which will also lead to limited movement because it simply hurts to go the direction that you're out of alignment.

   Your form has a lot to say when it comes to impressiveness in showing your feats of strength and body movement. You could be the strongest guy in the group that has the most power, and be able to lift the most weight, but you could also have the worst form.

   Bad form in weight training also can lead to serious injury. Mainly because weightlifting is a sensitive topic due to the fact that if you do something wrong, you're going to hurt yourself. Weights are far more sensitive in terms of injury than in calisthenics because it's a weight that doesn't belong to you, your body is learning how to balance it in a different way, and if you mess up, well there goes six weeks of gains and delicious protein shakes.

   Either way, perfected form is a necessary part of exercise. The reason they call it good form is because it's the best movement for you, the most challenging, the most beneficial, and the safest.

   Now the next question is, is it dangerous to get into a good form? Because when you start out, your form is bad and you have to work on getting better at it, so that makes it dangerous right? Absolutely not.

   There are a few examples I'm going to share with you. Lets say you have bad form in weightlifting, you're really strong and can dead lift three hundred pounds, but your back bends and creaks like mad. You stop, that's damaging to the spinal column, so where do we go from a situation like this? You go to a lighter weight, you straighten your back, squat lower, and if needed, get a coach or somebody who works at the gym to help you out.

   Planches, another thing, is it dangerous to start out with bad form in those? No, not at all. Because it's bodyweight, and if you do a planche wrong, you might as well be doing a handstand. So to perfect your form, you watch yourself and observe, clean things up, start out from different positions to see which one you get your best form from and so forth.

   Form perfection only takes observance, a few steps back, clean up the old steps, make them look good, and work back up to where you were. Sure it'll be a little harder than you last recalled doing those exercises, but because you're paying attention and looking at the way things are done, and you notice you're actually looking better in your form, it will become less of an issue when you try to do it with good form, because you will be used to doing it with good form instead of bad form which will actually be harder.

The Best Thing For Us All

Here's something for you to think about. You don't have to choose just one thing to focus on, be it exercise, music, writing, art, or whatever it is you do. You can do as much as you want to do.

I've met people so involved in doing what they love that they have absolutely no time for the boring mundane things in life that most people consider living. Whereas these people that are doing what they love, are the ones that are actually living life.

   You could be a couch potato, or the guy or girl who's riding two hundred miles on their bike every Saturday, working as a music veterinarian during the week, feeding homeless children during your after hours, taking your family across the country in an RV during the summer time, skiing down mountain sides in the winter, and constantly unicycling with any possible chance that comes your way while you go down the book club three times a week.

   It's fun to do what you love, so who's going to stop you? You don't have to choose just one. Hobbies are different than relationships.
   Now you can either consider fitness a hobby, or something you force yourself to do because your doctor told you to if you want to live another ten years. It's all about whether or not you love to do what you do.
   To be a healthy person, mentally, and physically, you need to have at least one thing in your life that you love to do. When you do something you love, it allows you release of the negative energy inside of you.
   Negative energy can be dangerous in all cases, so to expel it we must do something we love, and something that is good for us. So I'm not talking let loose in the evenings, party and drink all night long, I'm saying find something that will make you happy, something that gives that ability to experience alone time and reflect on things and let the mind wander in it's natural ways.
   So think about it, go find something you love to do, it doesn't just have to be one thing either, get out of the house, move away from the office for a bit, whatever it takes, do something you love and you'll feel better.

Tricep workout (from the top down)

So to get a good tricep workout in, you have to know which exercises to do. Because most people don't really know what kind of tricep exercises there are to do with body weight, they tend to not do them very often. But I'll give some that will cause you to see gains in size and strength.

There are various things you can do to get good tricep gains, with body weight and weight plates. Again, I advise overhead presses and bench presses for this, no dumbbell kick backs because those are stupid, tricep extensions with heavy weight are good, and anything that is a form of a press is good for your triceps.

   Mainly go for the medium to high numbered sets for size gain and high number of sets low number of reps sets for strength gaining

   Now to continue with the bodyweight section of this. I have a few things. Tiger bend push ups, straight up tiger bend, any kind of push ups, planche push ups, handstand push ups, regular push ups, tap push ups, clapping push ups, and dips.

   Anything where your arms support your body weight will be of some benefit to your triceps. Specifically tiger bends on parallel bars, tiger bends on the ground, and dips will all workout your triceps.

   There's really no level to this unless you're talking tiger bends in handstands which you can eventually learn with time, practice, and gaining in strength.

   So I'll give you sets and numbers that you can start with and work your way up from. Levels of Easy, Intermediate, and Advanced, and Very Advanced.

   Now the tiger bend if you're wondering is much like a push up, but your arms go inwards and to your sides. Like you're doing a really crappy planche but with your feet on the ground.

Easy: 1. 3 Sets of 5 ground tiger bend push ups.

         2. 3 Sets of 10 tiger bend push ups on bar about mid to lower chest height, bench, chair or against the wall.

         3. 1 Set of as many dips as you can do.

Intermediate: 1. 5 Sets of 10 ground tiger bend push ups.

                     2. 5 Sets of 25 tiger bend push ups on wall or bar.

                     3. 2 Sets of 5 dips on parallel bars or straight bar.

                     4. 5 Handstand push ups against the wall.

                   

Advanced: 1. 4 Sets of 20 tiger bend push ups on ground.

                 2. 4 Sets of 30 tiger bend push ups on bar or wall.

                 3. 4 Sets of 8 dips.

                 4. 2 Sets of 10 Handstand push ups against wall.

Very Advanced: 1. 5 Sets of 25 tiger bends against wall or on bar.

                          2. 5 Sets of 12 to 15 dips.

                          3. 5 Sets of 25 tiger bend push ups on the ground.

                          4. 2 Sets of 10 Handstand push ups without the wall.

                          5. 5 Handstand tiger bends parallel bars or on the ground.

Shoulder Workout (From the top down)

I'm going to give you some excellent shoulder exercises here, ones that will make your shoulders get a strength that just lifting weights and doing push ups can't give you. Shall we begin? I'll talk about the exercises and give a routine to work with.

Now as we all know, to get strong, or big shoulders from body weight, you must do a high circuit program. This isn't so much as a body weight program to get your shoulders like Arnold's or Ronnie's, but to get them nice and strong and to have a control in your shoulders that most people don't have.

   To get big shoulders from body weight, yes, lots of handstand push ups, planche push ups, tuck planche push ups, handstands, planches, flag freezes, all of that stuff. I'll talk about how each exercise targets the muscular structure of your shoulders.

   So as we all know, any kind o shoulder exercise works out the triceps and pectoralis minor or pectoralis major. But certain exercises are about seventy five percent shoulder. Handstand push ups for example require mostly if not all shoulder.

   If you want big shoulders, and don't have the choice of using a weight set, you always have body weight to your advantage, and as much of it as you want. Now I'm not saying get fat and then start working out, that would be ridiculous for obvious reasons.

   So you can try a lot of crazy things, and these crazy things will make you a beast! Now shoulder size depends on your genetics. We're simply going for strength here because with strength comes size obviously. To make your shoulders strong, you work slowly into things, but you do things that involve intense movement and shock that will make them stronger.

   So I'll give you four shoulder workouts based on difficulty. Easy, intermediate, advanced, and very advanced.

Easy: 5 sets of 5 pike push ups. 

         5 sets of 5 push ups.

         Tuck planche practice.

Intermediate: 3 sets of 20 pike push ups.

                    Hold handstand against the wall for 15 seconds.

                    Eat pie.

                    3 sets of 10 tuck planche push ups.

                    Handstand practice.

Advanced: 3 sets of 20 pike push ups.

                 1 minute of handstands.

                 10 Handstand push ups against the wall.

                 5 Handstand push ups.

                 5 sets of 10 tuck planche push ups.

                 1 handed handstands against wall. 20 seconds on each arm.

Very Advanced: 25 Handstand push ups.

                          30 Tuck planche push ups

                          5 Planche push ups.

                          2 Minutes of handstands

                          15 seconds of planches.

                          30 Handstand push ups against the wall.

Now these help build up the entire shoulder system. The reason why I put handstand push ups against the wall, is because the help build up your rear deltoids because even with handstand push ups, your chest will be the one side of you pointing to ground mostly, and there will generally be more front deltoid in that exercise.

   Enjoy, once you move past the levels of these exercises, you can start working to your abilities and seeing where your limits are and how to become stronger in the movements you find yourself struggling with.

   Also, overhead presses, bench presses, all of that are good for gains in shoulder size. Dumbbell presses and barbell presses together offer for excellent gains. To get somewhere, you have to work hard, that's how you get strong, with a lot of weight, a lot of shock, and a lot of work.

Fully Body Control

So the adventure into fitness is an adventure in muscle and mind control. To be in control of yourself, stay away from the toxins life has to offer, and to take in the goods life has to offer that will make you stronger and happier.

Now I'm not just talking about staying away from tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. There's a little more to full control. Full power over your body doesn't mean you're dependent on getting your morning time caffeine rush so you can have, "energy". Heck, I'll say it now, if you have to drink coffee to wake up in the morning, you're a downright wimp. Same goes for those with a sugar issue, "Oh, I couldn't say no! Those twenty six Oreo's I had for dinner was the only good tasting thing I had to eat!" Crap!!! I don't want to hear it!

   Same goes for alcohol, "I got drunk because my friends were doing it too!" Pier pressure, yeah, I'll talk about that too. I'll cover everything that's wrong with society. The issues that follow the young and the issues that follow the old, and if not avoided, will follow you into a dark alleyway to maul you, and ninety nine percent of the time, it'll succeed in beating the crap out of you.

   Now the thing about the toxins of life, most of them aren't illegal, and a lot can't be arrested for their seducing ways that entice you to give that burning hay stick a try. Okay, really, other than a bunch of friends who look cool, why would you want to try something that would destroy your body? Ease the pain? Make things better for you?

   Every single time, something harmful that somebody gets into to ease pain because of it's numbing affect that feels like a healing effect will cause worse damage.

   Say if someone has sever depression because of a chemical imbalance, their life isn't doing so good, they're having suicidal thoughts, and they have no where to go for what they can see ahead of them. Nothing but a dark path they've lost their selves down.

   But something different happens, they see some people at the park on the pull up bars doing muscle ups and levers, they're on the ground hopping on their hands and doing flips, they seem to be different than most of the people in the park, they're happier, they're stronger, they seem to be doing something they love that takes their minds away from similar issues that they've learned to deal with.

   This person wants to be just like those people, they know hard work is what it takes, but they want to be happy, they want something that heals the pain instead of numbing it. So what is it that will take it away? Something beneficial, something new, something they love to do.

   I'm not talking just about exercise as far as finding something that you all love to do. Find something that will motivate you to keep moving. Something that motivates you will give you a place that you have control. The things that motivate us are the things that we have control of because it's something we can work to customize to our desires.

   The idea to have control over your muscles will give you mental strength. To have physical strength mental strength is required. Usually, a fitness expert is pretty hard headed, and that's because they're good with their body, and they've made their minds up on how they're going to live their lives.

   You should already have done that by now. Decide what kind of person you'll be, we all go through a phase in puberty where we discover who the person that we're going to be really is. Each of us individually change over the years, but with us we keep our morals. Some of us change those, and can either regret it or be more than glad to have done so.

   From a religious perspective, God wants us to be happy. To be happy does not mean to be a party animal every single night and sleep during the day. What it means to be happy, is to be happy with the person we are, and to be happy with the decisions we've made and make.

   If you're going to want to discover just what you find joy in and how to become happy because you know that what you're doing is the right thing, you need to study yourself, think about it, decide who you are and who you're going be. The decision is to be made early in our lives, but I've seen that decision made later on in life plenty of times.

   It doesn't come easy, you have to work to be happy, it's actually more work to be unhappy than it is to be happy. Controlling your impulses is a strength that comes easily, and is something you can very easily bear. In fact, self control will help hold you up.

   Lack of control, is much more work. It's a routine, it's a cycle, a habit, something that rotates itself up until the moment of you going over the edge.

   An addiction makes you rely on something. Without control, it's substance and material things that cause us to fall as creatures of habit. Loss of control brings us down, it takes control of us, weighs us down, makes us weaker, and we start to lose control of our decisions that we make in the future.

   Control brings a power that we could never have without it. To have full body control, we must have both physical and mental strength on our side. With both you will be a powerful person. The decision to be what you want to be is all up to you.

Destruct to Construct

Think of your body as if it were a pile of bricks without mortar. But there's a giant tub of it and you have to make that pile of bricks stronger and immovable by taking them all apart, and putting the mortar onto the bricks layer by layer. It's a timely procedure, and you must take the bricks apart to bring them back together and make them stronger.

Your body is just the same way. For instance, for a stronger hold in the more important places of the brick, you're required to use more mortar, your lower body for instance, you need more weight or more numbers in reps to make it proportionate to your upper body.

   Breaking down your muscles shouldn't be brought to the point of pain when exercising. It shouldn't hurt when you exercise. If it hurts afterwards, such as being sore from a nice and heavy leg day, that's fine. But destruction shouldn't mean literal destruction. The reason I say destruct to construct, it that muscular tissue will break down when your exercise, and rebuilds itself stronger than it last was. But taking this in a literal sense is a dangerous procedure. Now, I don't have anything against cross fit because I don't do it, but that is a perfect example of the wrong destruction for construction.

   Break it down to build it up. It sounds almost like a dance phrase, it's a reality in exercise. To make a stronger structure, you have to take apart the old structure to bring up a new and more powerful structure.

   

Explosive Power

The level and way you expel your power in a movement is done in one of two ways. Either explosively, or over time. Explosive power is important to have if you're a fan of extreme calisthenics, and doing things like double flips and high jumps. All in all though, it's good for your body to have that kind of power in reserves.

In advanced calisthenics, ongoing explosive power is a big factor. In general calisthenics to just be in shape, you'll use it once in a while but not all too often.

   Now if you're looking to get all swolled from body weight, explosive power will be your best friend. That and one armed front levers.

   Repetitive motion of explosive power is how you do such things as break down your calves to make them sore and build stronger ones. Because your calves are usually a harder muscle to break down, things like explosive workouts are good to work on those. For instance, if I do about thirty front flips over the course of an hour in one of my tricking/idiocy sessions, my calves will be nice and sore the next day.

   Now be careful with explosiveness, you can get hurt if you use it wrong. The idea of explosive workouts is to work in your boundaries, but to cause your body to get used to unusual amounts of shock. Unusual and boundaries are two different things in exercise.

  Boundaries are something to stay within, something to test, but something to be careful of as well. Pushing the limits to an unusual weight or movement is what unusual usually is. Get my vibes?

   Working to bring up your explosive power is done by practicing it itself, not just doing exercises to bring it up. Now don't get me wrong, those exercises to bring it up are very important and beneficial. In fact, I don't where I would be if it weren't for pistol squats and multiple plate dead lifts.

   Explosive power all over is just like balance all over. The more the better.

Surface Balance

To have control of your balance on any surface is an acquired but worthy skill.

To have good balance, you must have a good muscular structure. Not the kind you are born with, but the kind you earn with hard work.
   Now I'm going to talk about surface balance. The kind of balance where you are stable on any possible surface. It's easy to see people do fun things and be able to balance in certain areas without any problem. But why not be one of those people? Even if you are eighty five!
   To have joints that will hold you up, you need muscles that will hold you up. You're muscles have a thing called memory inside of them, memory is the ability to know just how to move and contract to perform a proper exhibit of strength or balance.
   Now don't think I'm just talking about standing on your hands. Sure that's a fantastic way to figure out your balance, but being able to balance on your feet as well as you possibly can, is something you really ought to consider.
   Exercises like pistol squats, squats, jumping squats, high jumps, calf raises, single leg calf raises, jumping jacks, and all that fancy stuff gives you strong muscles. And if you can generally do something like twenty five pistol squats on one leg no problem, you'll probably be able to walk over a bunch of uneven rocks and move through a mud pit no problem.
   Now to talk about all around. I think that humans were designed to be able to balance on more than just their feet. There's a reason we can actually stand on our hands. Look at monkeys, can they stand on their hands? I think not, because they do not have the muscular structuring proper enough for such movement! Humans? Well you see, we're intelligent, we have minds that we make things happen with, such as standing up on our hands, as well as doing flips off one leg and spinning through the air like a drill bit.
   You must have a strong body to teach it balance on all surfaces, move from one to another and slowly but surely, it becomes incredibly strong and immovable.

The Planche Challenge

For those of us who are crazy, and have hydraulic shoulders, this will test your planche abilities. Shall we start?

Please make sure you're strong enough to perform certain movements as of they may be dangerous and harmful to those who are not yet ready for such feats of strength.

1. Perform straddle planche for 15 seconds.

2. Perform fingertip straddle planche for 10 seconds.

3. Perform 5 planche push ups in a row.

4. Pick body up from ground in planche position and hold for 5 seconds.

5. Perform full planche for 5 seconds.

6. Perform 5 planche push ups in a row.

Do you hurt now? Probably. Have fun trying to do this. It takes a while to get there.

Exercise No. 25 Elbow Lever

This is super easy if you understand your balance and if you have the turtle freeze down. The elbow lever is a turtle with both elbows in your stomach. You very well know how to do that by now I'm sure, so I'll give some tips on how to do it on a bar with both hands and one hand. I would offer a bar planche tutorial, but I'm not there yet, so just wait.

Elbow levers are also good for the forearms if done on bars because of the gripping strength you'll put into it keeping yourself upright.

   Now don't get cocky, I said these are easy, but that doesn't mean you'll get it on the first round if you're trying it on a bar. In fact, that's what I'm here for, to get you looking like that guy right there, and myself.

   So to begin, you should be able to do a turtle. Learn that first if you haven't, it's in a previous post, give it a look.

   So now we're taking it to your bar workout. Let's get started. Your hands need to face backwards, grip the bar, and when you start out, get into dip position but with your hands close together. Lean forward onto your elbows, your legs will probably be hanging at first, but it's going to an uncomfortable position for the first few tries until you get it.

   Once you get comfortable in the elbow lever with your legs hanging down, make yourself uncomfortable by bringing them up. Your triceps will probably have some say in this as well as your shoulders, but that's more of the balance, not so much strength.

   The only real strength used in this as stated is the forearms. Lean forward, not to the point of falling over, but to the point of when you feel your body start to be straight. Because when learning this on the ground, most people lean forward and their legs go up, but because you're on the bar, you're legs will be facing downwards. It's basic back strength and memory, but build it up to the point of being able to hold your body erect.

   When you get tired of the regular elbow lever, you can get into the one armed elbow lever. Now you should learn the one handed turtle freeze. Stick your elbow further inwards into your stomach, and go through the same steps I took you through, just on one arm.

Power Output

Your power output depends on a lot of things when you are exercising. When performing a movement that's hard, but doesn't last long, you're power output will usually be different compared to something such as running or cycling for a long distance.

Now, when you have a crowd or a group of people cheering you on, you usually end up being able to conserve energy as you use large amounts of it at the same time, and sometimes, it's just not a good day to do what you're doing.

   Careful what you do when your adrenaline is flowing, sometimes you can really mess yourself up. Injury can happen, muscles can get torn, know what you're doing before you're going to do it. Be sure it's something that you've built yourself up to instead of doing it as something you want to do because you want to be able to say that you're stronger or you're showing off to a bunch of people.

   Individually, we have a certain amount of power output that meets up to our physical standard. That power output can be built up and made stronger as we work to become stronger. It will become larger mentally because you will have more motivation and more idea of what you can do. When you know your strength, your power output will be of knowledge as well.

Fitness With The Outdoors

The outdoors are a big factor in fitness for myself and a deal of other people I share fitness thoughts with. Aside from the weight room, it's good to go outside and do something physically involving.

Just sitting inside all day long can warp your perspective on life. We humans were meant to be outside during the day time, that's the reason we were created as diurnal beings. We are meant to go outside in the daylight, and feel the sun on our faces.

   We spend time in the gym, we get strong, we look good, but we don't spend enough time outside! We need something, something from the sun, that something makes us even stronger.

   There's a number of good things that the sun gives us. For one, a lot of people talk about vitamin D. Vitamin D is beneficial in a number of ways, such as cell communication, absorbing calcium and phosphorus in our bones. And, gives a little color to your skin.

   The sun also gives us energy, the warmth of it provides better circulation because it obviously warms our blood. We are warm blooded, mammals in general are warm blooded, but, provided assistance by the sun aids in better circulation because it warms our warm blood even more. More questions about this? Read up on it at http://www.who.int/uv/faq/uvhealtfac/en/index1.html

  If you're in a place where it tends to rain every now and then, and you don't deal with smog, it's good to get outside, and taste the fresh air! If you go outside to run, ride your bike, play sports, play with your friends at the park, just hang out, have picnics, something outside, anywhere from three times a week to more, you're doing good. It really does help.

   So run, play sports, ride your bike, do pull ups at the park, go rowing, something! Your time in the parking lot from going to work to the gym is not enough! Spend time outside, it will make you feel good!