Athlete In The City » Extreme

one-arm one-leg pushups

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:00:50 +0000

The first time I saw pavel the ketel bell russian dude perform these one-arm one-leg pushups I was very impressed. It’s taken a while but I’ve managed to get them.

The progression? Start with one arm pushups on incline, as high as you need to do them right. Over many months reduce the incline. When you can do about 15 on a flat surface, you’re probably ready to try the one-arm one-leg version. Without the second leg to stabilize, your body compensates with core strength and stabilizer muscles (intercostals etc).

elbow step-up pushups

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:00:02 +0000

I got the idea for these pushups from various places, but the extreme version from a recently posted video of 18 extreme exercises. You’ll get more from the video than my explaining them, but they work the triceps a lot, also the deltoids, abdominal, and stabilizer muscles. Very good alternative to the standard simpler pushups that most people do.

eighteen extreme exercises

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:52 +0000

Just found this video on youtube and was pretty impressed. Although I’ve never had much luck with the human flag, I don’t work on it much either. The straddle planche pushups though, I work at everyday. Closer but still not there. All the others I’ve got pretty well. So I guess I’m getting somewhere!

standing ab wheel rollout
back lever
hannibal pullups
korean dips
one-arm one-leg pushups
leg lifts
straddle planche pushups
L-sit walk
human flag
superman pushup
dragon flag
side-to-sides
handstand pushup to nose
elbow step pushups – together
muscle-up with false grip
stall bar hold
deep handstand pushups
bicycle pullups

working out with Hannibal!

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:00:57 +0000

This guy Hannibal is a powerhouse. Unbelievable. He does a lever on a fire hydrant, then flips up to a planche and does a few planche pushups. Amazing. In one shot it looks like he’s doing a maltese. Damn!

new handstand pushups – on medicine ball

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:00:57 +0000

A new twist on handstand pushups. If handstand pushups get too easy, try deep press hanstand pushups (on parallettes) where your chest comes down to hand level. If those get to easy, destabilize one or both of your hands with a medicine ball. And a caveat aka warning, please don’t try this if you struggle with basic handstand pushups. You’ll fall splat on your face!!

Jack Lalanne – Fully Extended One-Arm Pushup

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:00:58 +0000

This video is pretty awesome. Jack Lalanne is an old school strong man and fitness enthusiast. He makes all these hard-core training exercises look easy. A great role model, even with the funny commentary!

more planche training ideas

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:00:32 +0000

I found this video on another youtube like site. This guy has a lot of exercises for training the planche. One particular one I’ve been working on is the handstand pushups, where each hand is supported by and destabilized by an exercise ball!!

Acrobatic 3-The Planche – Awesome video clips here

Planche Fly on Blocks – fully extended

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:00:02 +0000

Refer to the previous week’s video on what I call the planche fly. This week I do the same but on blocks, so balance is more crucial, and you’ll find you can probably do fewer of these than those planche flys.

One Arm Pullups with Theraband

admin — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:00:12 +0000

To train for the one-arm pullup you want to over many months of training, reduce the weight on the assisting arm, and increase the weight on the primary arm. Here’s one way to do that. Use a theraband on the secondary arm.

planche pushups – feet against the wall

admin — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:00:05 +0000

Still working on planche pushups steadily. Here are some average-ish planche pushups, feet against the wall…

elbow step-up handstand pushups

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:00:35 +0000

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!!

21 Day Challenge

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:00:21 +0000

Previously I posted about the 21 pushup challenge.

I’m currently extending that to twenty-one days, but with a twist. I’ve drawn a table with four columns and ten rows. The rows list these different types of pushups (and one with pullups):

handstand pushups
wide pullups
hop switch pushups
fully extended pushups
peck flys
ball planche pushups
crow R to crow L
deep pushups
planche pushups
one-arm pushups

Each of those rows and columns represents one 21 pushup challenge. That’s right, sets of one, then two, then three, then four, then five… then twenty then twenty one. Once you reach the top, go back down twenty one, twenty … two, one, DONE!

Each set represents 460 pushups of various types. So if you give yourself one day of rest in twenty one days, you’ll do two 21 pushup challenges per day. For a total of 920 pushups per day.

Hey, look at it this way, Bruce Lee used to do 1000 pushups a day to warmup, sets of 100!

I plan to post some quick vids of the different types of pushups, so stay tuned.

Leonidas and the Planche Pushup

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:00:19 +0000

I thought I’d made some progress in training until someone forwarded me this guy Coach Geoff’s Blog. This guy is seriously into training. Take a look at his Leonidas workout. Not bad, not bad at all. Of course I got to work on it right away. Most of the stuff I’m pretty solid on. My burpees are strong, but with a back tuck I’d only try in the gym with padding, I guess I could probably manage three. And then there’s the infamous holy grail, the planche pushup.

Well I have been training them on parallette’s. I uploaded a vid for those interested in a ball planche pushup. These are tough by themselves. I’m up to a max of about 15 in a row. Tough indeed!

Ok, I’m pretty happy with my progress on those. Anyway, after watching Coach Geoff, and various youtube vids of these guys doing planche pushups I noticed they rock into them a bit. So I gave that a try. I managed to do some weak ones, but these definitely tire you out a lot! So some new progress I think.

Give me a few weeks and I should have a good 5 rep set. Cross your fingers!!

Anatomy of a True Planche

admin — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:00:14 +0000

If it wasn’t already clear, the Planche is sort of the holy grail of bodyweight training skills. It’s extremely difficult to achieve, on par with an iron cross. There are lots of conditioning and strength building exercises one can do of course, but mainly it just takes time!

I am making some good progress. This pic below shows rock solid straight arms, with knees just behind my elbows. Once I can hold this position for 60 seconds, I’ll be ready to extend one leg out further, or try a more opened position. This position pictured is called a ball planche:

If you’re working this skill I recommend you get a set of parallettes. Here’s a good article on various skills to work on with parallettes.

Dragon Door also has a very good article on planche progressions which I recommend.

Planche Pushup Progression

admin — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:00:29 +0000

I’ve been working on the planche, a difficult gymnastics trick considered to be one of the most challenging to achieve. Dragon Door has a very excellent article on conditioning for the planche pushup called Building an Olympic Bodythrough Bodyweight Conditioning by Christopher Sommer.

My progression has me starting to do the “advanced tuck planche” for about 15 seconds, while I can do a more basic ball planche for 60 seconds. I *do* work the planche pushups with my feet on the floor, but it is dramatically harder to lift your feet off the floor because in order to get that leverage your hands really have to be down at or below your hips. That makes the strength involved by your anterior (front) deltoid, and pectoral muscles, as well as some triceps strength to be on the extreme end.

Here’s a great YouTube video of a guy doing a few planche pushups properly.

If anyone has access to resources explaining how to calculate the strength of gymnastics and other bodyweight conditioning exercises, when changing the angle or leverage, I would be very interested in this. Please contact me!