Pavel Tsutsouline has done some amazing shit. Once I saw his one-arm one-leg pushup, I had to add it to my repertoire. Easier said than done. Well I’m getting closer with a one-finger assist!!
double clap pushups
Just got back last week from a long trip to the west coast, san francisco, berkeley, sierra mountains, reno nevada, and of course black rock city. Never a dull moment…
Anyway, after a long hiatus, here’s a quick double clap pushup video. 10 reps. If you’re having trouble with this trick, seperate your legs more. If you’re in a complete straddle position, for instance, most people can do a double clap pushup, because you have more time in the air. Try it and see!
ab wheel demo
The ab wheel is a great addition to anyone’s training toolbox. Good for beginners, good for experts. Can do amazing things for your abdominal muscles…
circles on the mushroom
A lot of people see the mushroom sitting in my living room and ask me, what the hell is that thing? Heh, finally you can see a demo.
For the gymnasts out there, this is basic stuff. In fact the mushroom is like training wheels for the pommel horse, and other strength gymnastics training. For me, it took a few years just to get this down. Now I’m starting work on the flair… eventually!!
one-arm balance
If you’re looking to do more balancing exercises, this one works the deltoids, abs, and hip-flexors a lot.
circular hand walk
Walking on your hands involves a lot of deltoid strength, but surprisingly it also requires quite a bit of abdominal strength as well. Add a touch of hip-flexors, and you have the makings of a tough exercise that works the whole body. In our video we do the skill in a circular movement, to add intensity.
planche freeze – 5 seconds
I’ve been working on the arm-bar and planche exercises for a long time. I talk about them on this blog quite a bit. My strength at the planche has been slowly improving, so I’m confident enough with it now to post a video. Basically I go into an elbow planche, and then slide forward and off the elbows, holding fulling extended with straight legs for about five seconds.
Freestanding Handstand Pushups
Well, this video looked a lot better before youtube got ahold of it! Moral of the story, always use normal portrait view of your camera, don’t try to do tall sideways shots. Anyway, I do six here. They’re not the cleanest, but getting there.
reps versus power
There are a lot of milestones that I’m shooting for. One in particular is the one-arm pullup. This is not where one arm pulls on the wrist while the other arm pulls up. This is a real one-arm-only pullup where the other arm is not contributing at all. I ran into a rock climbing friend of mine who said that only 1 in 100,000 people can do this feat. I figure that makes it a good goal to strive for!
When you’re doing strength training, you want to be able to do comparisons so you can measure your improvement, and also see how far you have still to go. One great way to do this is by comparing reps to maximum total strength or power. Here’s the breakdown:
# of reps % 1 rep max
1 100
2 95
3 93
4 90
5 87
6 85
7 83
8 80
9 77
10 75
11 70
12 67
15 65
Ok, now how do we put this to work on the one-arm pullup? Here’s what I did.
Throw a rope over the bar and attach weight to it. The non-working arm pulls on the rope, and the other arm pulls on the bar. Keep adding more weight, until you can do your one-arm pullup. I weigh 150 pounds, and can do the pullup with 10 pounds attached to the rope, so my 1 rep max for one arm is 140 pounds. For working this skill, let’s put 15 pounds on the rope. Calculating that out, you’ll find that 135 pounds is 90% of 150 pounds. Looking up in our table above that means that with the 15 pound weight, I want to be able to do FOUR REPS.
This type of comparison of reps to total power can be used all the time in your strength training. If you know the total 1 rep max that is your goal, you can design reps at smaller weights to get there over time.
This technique provides you with another tool to apply during your training, allowing you to breakdown your goal into manageable and measurable steps.
elbow step-up handstand pushups
I never really tried these until a couple of weeks ago. I ran into a video on YouTube, and started working this against the wall.In yoga there’s something called a forearm stand, which is like a handstand where the entire arm from elbow to hand is used as your base. I’ve seen breakers jump up to handstand from this, but they usually do some sort of abdominal kick to get there. I worked it for a few weeks, and get a set of ten (five each arm) on video:
When you get bored of that video, take a look at this guy doing those without the wall!!