Bodyweight routine

[blackplatano]

My gym just closed down and i will be forced to do bodyweigth excercises exclusively. I read some post about these excercises on the forum, and now i am interested.

What are some good routines for muscle growth?

I am not playing any sports so my motivation is cosmetic.

THANKS

 

[familyman]

Master 4 simple exercises and you'll be good.
1. One arm pull up.
2. Muscle up (pullup straight to a dip, you probably need rings)
3. Full range handstand pushup
4. Pistol (one legged free standing squat)
Should provide enough muscle to satisfy anyone's vanity.

 

[Saucemaster]

Originally Posted by familyman

1. One arm pull up.

Do you mean pushup? Otherwise you seem to be lacking a major chest exercise.

 

[familyman]

Originally Posted by Saucemaster

Do you mean pushup? Otherwise you seem to be lacking a major chest exercise.

Nope. If you can do all these things I don't think you need a major chest exercise. Go work some one arm pullups (or try some negatives like weak little me) and some handstand pushups and tell me that you don't work your chest. It's not like a dedicated chest exercise but doing all these things you build great shoulders and back and core muscles and work your chest at the same time. Your chest might not be as big as someone who benches all the time but you'd more than make up for it with a very balanced upper body. This is just my opinion so feel free to disagree and/or ignore me.

 

[mizanation]

familyman, i would highly recommend at least one form of pushup exercise.

if you have to go with one bodyweight exercise exclusively, i would suggest the burpee.

do 20, rest 30 seconds, do 19, rest 30 seconds, etc...

it's a combination of squat and pushup, probably the best all-around exercise you can do.

 

[familyman]

Ok, add burpees if you want some good cardio and all that, but there's no such thing as a heavy muscle building pushup exercise. Ok, some of the gymnastics stuff is but that's a bit far from what we're discussing. Scrawny ol' me can knock out 20 pushups while having a conversation with someone. You just don't have enough body weight to make them a very effective muscle builder. The dip portion of the muscle up, the handstand pushup and the one arm pullups all use the chest and do as much if not more to build muscle there than knocking out pushups until you vomit.
Burpees rock. Pushups are great. But I don't think you NEED either of them. Right now I'm trying to learn how to press up into a handstand and I really think pushups are a waste of time as far as working my chest goes. Agian, this is just me and my thinking, I'm just fine with anyone ignoring my suggestions. I'm far from being a ripped body builder type dude. I just like to challenge my body and teach it new things. Lifting is the most fun for me when it's actually fun for me.

 

[GQgeek]

You could always do push-ups with a 40L backpack full of books

 

[familyman]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

You could always do push-ups with a 40L backpack full of books

Well that wouldn't be a bodyweight exercise now would it.
I do pushups with my kids on my back when we're playing though and that's sort of the same thing. Of course it's usually only one pushup on my way to being a bear and chasing them. Low reps, max screaming and running.

 

[mizanation]

i'm a firm believer in pushups--though i do them for sports performance reasons, not for cosmetics. maybe you could get by with only dips. matter of fact, i had a boxing coach who had his boxers do only pullups and dips--he thought they were more effective exercises than pushups--so you're not the only one who thinks that way.

or, if you do hindu-pushups, they are like half dip, half pushup, so you get the best of both worlds.

you can definitely build mass with bodyweight exercises, not a huge amount, but it's possible. herschel walker would do hundreds and hundreds of bodyweight exercises everyday--he had an incredible phsyique.

the great gama had huge pecs--the result of hundreds of hindu-pushups everyday. he also wrestled all-day.

kimura, japan's greatest judo player, had an incredible upper body. he did 300-500 judo pushups everyday (kinda like hindu-pushups). he also did judo 13 hours a day.

i know someone who does over 1000 pushups in a day, 3 times a week. and they have plenty of mass.

so, it's possible, but you have to do 1000s. get's kinda boring without making it into a game.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by familyman

Nope. If you can do all these things I don't think you need a major chest exercise. Go work some one arm pullups (or try some negatives like weak little me) and some handstand pushups and tell me that you don't work your chest. It's not like a dedicated chest exercise but doing all these things you build great shoulders and back and core muscles and work your chest at the same time. Your chest might not be as big as someone who benches all the time but you'd more than make up for it with a very balanced upper body. This is just my opinion so feel free to disagree and/or ignore me.

I read the opposite (not saying that what you're saying isn't true). The way I heard (read) was that if you do Hindu p-ups it actually will increase the lats and one will be able to do more pull ups. It's all good...

The minimum that I do is:

Hindu push ups
Hindu squats
back bridge
laying flat sit ups

handstand pushups are killer also

Now if I could just be consistent.

 

[Saucemaster]

One-arm pushups with your feet elevated can provide a decent amount of resistance, and you can always do them plyometrically if you really want to kick the crap out of your pecs. I'm not sure you can do one-arm explosive pushups without injury, though. At any rate, adding plyometric pushups or one-arm pushups to familyman's routine can't really hurt. Just put them at the end, after the dips and handstand pushups have already hit your chest a bit.

 

[GQgeek]

I'm curious, how many people can actually do one-arm pull-ups starting from full extension without using momentum or cheating by using their other arm? I used to be capable of them when i was in top climbing form, but i was one of two people I knew that could do them. The other guy was from 400km away and we only used to meet-up in competitions (ironically we had the same very rare name). Pro climbers can usually do them but really it's a pretty rare feat imo. Attempting them is certainly a good way to injure yourself unless you're already quite well developed.

 

[sonteq]

I use to do hindu pushups and squats but I've stopped doing them now in favour of burpees and tabata thrusters because they seem to be a better work out for me. I'm guessing a lot of people are doing the Matt Furey workout

 

[mizanation]

i like burpees too.

the matt furey workout really is just an old-school catch wrestling/indian pehlwani workout. matt furey just put his name on it and marketed it.

btw, the name he used, "hindu squats" and "hindu pushups" are not the best term, i think... many of the great wrestlers who used them (including the greatest, the great gama) were actually muslim. though these exercises have roots in old hindu prayer exercises...

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by mizanation

i like burpees too.

the matt furey workout really is just an old-school catch wrestling/indian pehlwani workout. matt furey just put his name on it and marketed it.

btw, the name he used, "hindu squats" and "hindu pushups" are not the best term, i think... many of the great wrestlers who used them (including the greatest, the great gama) were actually muslim. though these exercises have roots in old hindu prayer exercises...

I thought they were just yoga excercises (maybe that's what you mean by "old hindu prayer excercises"?). I recognized most of what he does from yoga. It's just taken out of the context of the asanas. He does credit a famous old wrestler with showing him this stuff but I can't remember his name. Maybe who you are talking about?